Traveling in Place

A Day with the Loons

On the first truly free day of my summer – just this last Wednesday – I decided to go looking for loons in the Adirondacks. I’m happy to say my search was successful. I hiked around Black Pond near Paul Smith’s, and spent as much time crouched or sitting on the shore as walking. I believe I spotted six different loons. I tracked one of them for better than an hour, and was rewarded when he swam within 15 feet of the edge of the lake, practically posing for my camera.

The next day, I told a group of pastors that I had spent the previous day “with the loons,” and one of them quipped, “What – you went to Washington?” Another asked, “What do they do besides swim and fly?”

The Commoditization of Everything

From time to time, someone who knows how much I love the Adirondack Mountains will ask me if I’ve been hiking lately. The regrettable answer has been “no,” though I hope to return to the wilderness before the summer gets completely away.

One reason I haven’t been to the mountains as often is because it’s been hard to find the time. But there’s another reason as well. In the last few years, the number of people traveling there from all over the country has rocketed to a level that is causing unprecedented stress to the landscape, and I don’t want to be part of the problem. The Adirondacks, and particularly the High Peaks Region, have fallen victim to social media. As hikers instantly post to the Internet pictures of themselves on the various peaks, people who’ve never heard of the Adirondacks suddenly become interested in replicating the experience for themselves.

Trail workers are finding it impossible to keep up with the increased erosion caused by overuse. The fragile vegetation in the alpine region that has been painstakingly brought back to health is now threatened on a daily basis by the carelessness of people who know nothing of the trail etiquette that has been instilled in more experienced hikers. In addition, rescue workers are spending more time and risking greater danger extracting people who have fallen, lost their way, dressed inappropriately, or failed to bring enough food and water. The Adirondacks are being loved to death. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they are being overrun by people who don’t love them, but regard them as just another consumable product providing adventure and entertainment.

July 4 Blues

“I just don’t feel like singing patriotic songs,” a church member said to me a few days ago. She was one of several whom I have heard express, with some sadness, that they cannot get into the mood to celebrate Independence Day this year – not because they don’t love their country, but because they do.

July 4 used to be a national Sabbath – a day when everybody stopped working to pause, reflect on and celebrate the meaning of being a United States citizen. Sure, it’s been a time for picnics, backyard barbeques and fireworks, but always with the stars and stripes prominently featured in the decorations. Iconic images like the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and the heads of Washington and Lincoln would turn our attention away from our daily pre-occupations toward the larger vision of our founders.

The point I’m making is not that we used to be more civic-minded or better informed about our nation’s history – though both of those things are true. What I’m struck by is how July 4 used to be one of the few days when we were invited to turn our thoughts to matters of national import. It’s getting harder and harder to remember, but time was when one of the great blessings of being an American citizen was the freedom to go about the affairs of one’s life and trust that the business of the nation would be taken care of without our constant attention. We weren’t like other countries embroiled in civil strife, where despots and failed economies erased any distance between national and personal concern. Ours was a nation of blessed inertia. The delicate balance of checks and balances and various levels of government pretty much ensured that, even though elected leaders might be pursuing policies with which we disagreed, there were still basic parameters – or civic norms – within which the political pendulum was required to swing, and stable institutions that kept those parameters in place.