Where The Wilderness Lies
My Critical Reflection On What It Means to Explore
Lucas Godard (he/him) ‘27
Before I give my perspective on wilderness, it is important to bring to light that the word “wilderness” has been, and still is, used in many horrible ways. In brief, the protection of wilderness was used as a justification to violently remove indigenous peoples from their lands to “protect and preserve” the home they’ve been caring for from human touch. It has been used to protect animals, like the bison, not because they are worthy for their intrinsic value, but because white, elitist men decimated the population and then wanted to be able to hunt them for trophies and stop the indigenous people from hunting them for food, clothing, shelter, or any other reason. To my slightly younger self’s horror, my idols partook in this view. Wild was used as an indicator of beauty for nature, but when it came to indigenous people, it was equated to “savage” and “primitive.” The grand aspect of mountains, canyons, and valleys and the idea of conquering, both the places and the people, led to only those areas getting recognized as beautiful and worth protecting, leaving behind swamps (in which there are less than 6 of 63 National Parks, the grandest of all titles) and plains (with zero parks) to be commodified and destroyed.
Yellowstone National Park, WY
Land of the Newe Sogobia (Eastern Shoshone), Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Apsáalooke (Crow), Tséstho’e (Cheyenne) peoples.
What I wouldn’t do to have a sore back from sleeping (if nodding off in between wind gusts that flap the tent counts as sleeping) on uneven ground, bruised and tight hips and hamstrings, and the freezing, ever constant, wind blowing in my face.
I’ve never felt happier and more at peace than in the wilderness for my four day, five night FOOT trip. The niiciibiicei'i (Never Summer Wilderness) took my breath away in every sense. As we descended past the sign that confirmed we were leaving the wilderness and entering Rocky Mountain National Park, I found myself wondering where the line between the wilderness and “just nature” was.
Who was even allowed to call themselves wilderness explorers?
Never Summer Wilderness, CO
Land of the Tséstho’e (Cheyenne), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, hinono’eino’ biito’owu’ (Arapaho), and Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute) peoples.
I thought I fit the bill. I am an Eagle Scout after all. Wilderness explorer is basically my middle name, but am I only an explorer as of being blessed by the solitude and sanctuary of the Never Summer? Historically, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lewis and Clark seem like great models. I look up to them and I always have, especially in Scouts, so we’ll roll with them. And since their legacies are present today, but they are not…
Who are modern-day explorers? Is it the mountaineers who dominate topography and elevation? Or canyoneers who combine techniques from many outdoor hobbies to explore all that the canyon has to offer? Maybe it’s through hikers who dedicate months of time and energy in the name of completion? What about the weekend warriors who hike a few miles around the closest state park on the maintained trail or those who drive to a city park to have a picnic? I’ve explored, but how much of what I explored was truly wilderness?
Honestly, growing up and starting at CC, I felt like a faker. I didn’t live up to the values my idols held (which is a good thing I know now), nor did I fit their picture. A lean, half-white-half-Mexican, low-income student was not the wilderness explorer identity they wanted. I started to feel like I tainted the wilderness wherever I stepped. While I have traveled the frontier of the west like Lewis and Clark, I spent a lot of time in my (begrudgingly) city home of Reno and the beautiful Tahoe area around it too. The identity of my home is largely like that of the Springs, poorly dressed (whatever that means) outdoorsy people everywhere you go.
“A lean, half-white-half-Mexican, low-income student was not the wilderness explorer identity they wanted. I started to feel like I tainted the wilderness wherever I stepped.”
I claim to be granola. I wear minimalist sandals and trail runners, I own a Nalgene, my sunglasses are scratched beyond belief, and my car has bumper stickers about exploring and my region’s local nonprofit “Keep Tahoe Blue” proudly displayed in the middle. I care deeply about exploring and preserving the wilderness by hiking, trail running, camping, and, now, backpacking, but was I ever really exploring? My idols scoff at me.
Did my regional parks where there was little more than a trail through the dusty, sagebrush-filled desert that I’ve spent countless hours running on count as wilderness? How about the crowded California beaches I tiptoed around searching for crabs and anemones? Do the waterfalls of Oregon that are just a few minutes off the road with paved trails make sense as wilderness? If my noisy, inner-city parks where a little slice of nature that I studied doesn’t count, what does?
Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, CA
Land of the Me-Wuk (Southern Sierra Miwok), Nüümü (Northern Paiute), and Miwok peoples.
Generally, outdoorsy people view the wilderness not as untouched by people (like the dictionary states), but as far from cities and minimally altered by people. The Sierra Nevadas boast the likes of Ahwahnee (Yosemite National Park) and Wawona (Sequoia National Park), which are clearly wilderness, right? John Muir basically made them parks after all. Despite having roads and buildings in the parks, the towering mountains, the grand wildlife and trees, the deep, glacier carved valleys, all screams wilderness and an escape from the city’s hustle and bustle. There’s no doubt this is wilderness. Wilderness is anything that is grand, expansive, far from the plague of cities, and aesthetically pleasing, according to my white, male heroes. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings,” Muir tells us as we sit in our cities. Clearly, my wilderness encounters have been much fewer than I originally thought and my wilderness explorer identity seems to be fading. My apologies to those I look up to, I’ll be better.
“Clearly, my wilderness encounters have been much fewer than I originally thought and my wilderness explorer identity seems to be fading. My apologies to those I look up to, I’ll be better.”
What hurt most about that moment of doubt was that I had connections to these places beyond their looks and ability to “make a man out of me.” I've made so many memories with my friends and family, and I learned a lot about myself in these spaces, even if they weren’t daunting expeditions. I always thought the vast expanses of my desert home and the grand (albeit commercialized) Lake Tahoe with its rocky beaches and domed mountains were wilderness because of those connections.
When I first came to CC, I found myself getting defensive when the typical response to my home was “Oh, so is there anything there besides the desert?” First of all, the desert is just as beautiful and worthy of being wilderness as anything else. The plants and animals that call my state and its deserts home may not be the most obviously beautiful at first glance, but they are incredibly well-adapted and very cool looking.
Great Basin National Park, NV
Land of the Timpanogos and Goshute peoples.
The bristlecone pine, the oldest trees in the world, lay claim to Great Basin National Park (Nevada’s second National Park) in the East and have been around 100x longer than us. Roadrunners sprint (faster than almost all of us) around Southern Nevada and American badgers crawl around Northern Nevada eating snakes and lizards without fear of them. Desert tortoises crawl around eating the low-lying cactuses that store water inside of them, allowing them, and other animals, to survive the arid climate. The desert is just as, if not more, wild than the 300+ mountain ranges with alpine forests that lie in Nevada.
The granite of the Sierras lie 30 minutes west of me with the aforementioned Lake Tahoe, the deepest alpine lake in America and some of the clearest water in the world, sitting right in the middle. The Duka Doya (Ruby Mountains) of Eastern Nevada are a lush green and home to the grand elk of beautiful Lamoille Canyon. The Schell Creek Range just off the Utah-Nevada border is home to Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park. The floodplains and wetlands that dot the basins and mountain ranges are home to sandpipers, avocets, pelicans, and other waterfowl. So yes, Nevada is more than just desert, but it should be equally loved and deemed as wilderness.
I even had a recent validation on an Outdoor Ed trip to Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness in New Mexico. Here, the signs of life are few and far between and the vast expanse of the sun-bleached desert engulfs me, but it is declared a wilderness, so take that: Desert is wilderness!
As defensive as I get about my home, I find myself making similarly dismissive comments to my friends from the plains or the marsh regions of the U.S. I thought about why I didn’t deem these places worthy. My idols thought they were appalling, so I guess I did too. I’ve been to grasslands and wetlands in the Central Valley of California and marshes and beaches of the Pacific Northwest, but they weren’t wilderness. Even the lush deciduous forests didn’t have the same allure to me as the towering pines, full of jays, woodpeckers, and squirrels. I’ve connected with these environments, and even though they’ve brought me immense joy there was no call of “the wild.” They simply couldn’t be wilderness, but why?
What was there to look out over? If I explored these places, what was there to stand atop and see all I have conquered?
Ah! I found the fatal flaw in my perception. Conquering is what I learned about from a young age. If you climbed the mountain, you conquered it and everything around it, but if exploring nature is to be a part of it, and I am part of nature.
How can I conquer what I am part of?
This is where many of us go wrong, including me and my pinnacles of wilderness explorers.
Cameron’s Cone Trail, Manitou Springs, CO
Land of the Tséstho’e (Cheyenne) and Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute) peoples.
Image from Mauricio Choussy ’27.
The past and current social connotations of wilderness just aren't sitting right with me, and my idols aren’t either. Why do those who explore the wilderness have to be rich, white men setting out to prove supremacy over everything and everyone? I certainly don’t explore to prove my supremacy over the land and people around me. I do it for the joy, no matter how big or small the park or adventure is. Maybe that little city park in a riparian zone of my river (or creek as everyone else would call it) that I connected with and viewed as “just nature,” really is wilderness.
While Lewis and Clark, Roosevelt, and Muir certainly were explorers, they weren’t the only ones and they definitely should not be the standard. Part of exploring is the growth, and I have grown out of my adoration of the pioneers and my own problematic views. With solemn acknowledgment and reflection on the horrors that have happened in the name of wilderness, conservation, and exploration, it’s about time I redefine what wilderness means to me and move forward to make the wilderness a better place for all.
Wilderness: An area where nature can be enjoyed, connected with, and learned from, regardless of proximity to cities, activity, and experience; not just mountains and canyons, but all nature.
The wilderness is whatever we choose to make it. With recognition of the past, I will explore in my own way to make my own meanings. I encourage you to make your own definition and test your limits of exploring the wilderness.
If that 14,000 foot mountain to the west of us seems a little much for you, that’s okay! Look to the vast expanse of wilderness to the east where the lessons are truly never ending. If traveling is hard, you’re just starting your wilderness journeys, or you prefer the city, Sondermann Park - within walking distance and available by bus - is a beautiful riparian wilderness waiting to seclude you from the hustle and bustle of the block and the city. If you enjoy nature and make an effort to be present in it, no matter the location, you’re a wilderness explorer along with the rest of us trail runners, Nordic skiers, and horseback riders. The second your energy becomes a part of the natural world around you, you are enjoying being part of the wilderness that many animals, plants, humans, and all life, have called home, sanctuary, and happiness
Look deeper than your assumptions about what a prairie, desert, or swamp is. Look deeper than who has historically been allowed to explore. Look deeper than where exploration typically happens. It is in looking deeper that I found, to my relief, I am not a faker and truly am granola in human form. I don’t need to be like the historically problematic adventurers. It’s time for me to be an agent of radical change in my - really our - new story of “The Great Outdoors.”
“Look deeper than your assumptions about what a prairie, desert, or swamp is. Look deeper than who has historically been allowed to explore.”
I will take that responsibility and have the only trace I leave be a positive mark on all places I explore and explorers I meet. All nature is worthy of protection and enjoyment for its inherent value, and all those who protect and enjoy are worthy of being wilderness explorers.
I am not an expert on these matters and am still learning about these atrocities and relationships between wilderness and many groups of people, but what I do know is largely from books. Here are some recommendations":
If you would like to learn more about wilderness and conservation history in America and across the world, I suggest reading Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijhuis.
If you would like to learn more about the uniqueness and beauty of some atypical animals (like the naked mole rat and bats), I suggest An Immense World by Ed Yong. Both of these books were influential in my reframing of what wilderness and beauty mean.
Wild Men: Ishi and Kroeber in the Wilderness of Modern America by Douglas Cazaux Sackman shows how the word “wild” was used to dehumanize and justify atrocities inflicted on the indigenous peoples as well as the harm of romanticizing the outdoors.
I would also suggest learning about who the land you live on and visit originally was home to and read stories written by the people that were forcefully removed from their land. We can’t change the past, but we can bring it to light and move forward in a conscious and meaningful way to ensure everyone feels welcomed and informed in whatever wilderness we explore.
