Days on end spent unwashed, living off a carb-laden diet of dehydrated meals – there’s nothing glamorous about long-distance hiking, but it does wonders for your body image, argues hiker Anna Richards.
There’s a delicious irony in feeling your best when looking your worst. In my case, that tends to happen after thru-hiking (long-distance trail walking). Sometimes I’ll go for a couple of days, sometimes a couple of weeks.
When I emerge from the wild, I look like a cavewoman: bruised, hairy, grubby and with blistered feet that look like a half-popped roll of bubble wrap. I’m not likely to win any beauty contests. So, why do I feel so damn great about myself?
Walking is the oldest form of exercise there is. Originally, multi-day hikes arose from necessity with humans migrating to find food and water or to escape climatic shifts. Then came religious pilgrimages, which have become the most popular thru-hikes in the world. Every year, millions of Kanwariyas (Hindu devotees) walk across northern India to collect holy water from the Ganges.
In 2019, 2.5 million Muslim pilgrims tackled the Hajj to Mecca route, a trail of five or six days thought to be the largest human gathering on earth. In the same year, some 350,000 pilgrims and hikers embarked on the Camino de Santiago, a network of trails across France, Spain and Portugal that finish at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.
People have been pilgriming since the dawn of time; thru-hiking as a sport, however, is more recent. The first marked rambling trail was created by French soldier Claude-François Denecourt in Fontainebleau in 1832. The 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine in the US – the longest hiking-only trail in the world – was completed in 1937.
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So, if it’s not for religious enlightenment or born of desperate need, why do people like me schlep for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles? Although thru-hiking is extremely physical and many hikers find that they finish a trail in dramatically better shape than when they embarked, thru-hiking is about much more than just fitness.
Trekkers use their quads, calves, hamstrings, glutes, hip muscles and even abs, so there’s no doubt that it’s a full-body workout. When I’m scrambling or trekking with poles, I’m engaging my biceps and triceps too. You end up burning through more energy than most athletes do while running marathons.
That’s countered, however, by a pretty poor diet. Pit-stops for supplies are often limited and fresh food weighs more than dry carbohydrates and dehydrated meals. This means that when I return from a trek, although I’ve spent the past few weeks in a calorie deficit (it’s impossible to replace all the lost energy), I’m often bloated. Water retention at home would make me self-conscious and I’d try to hide my stomach under loose clothes, but on a hike, I couldn’t care less. There are no mirrors and few people with whom to compare myself.
It’s not merely as simple as the lack of comparison, though. Counselling psychologist Dr Joanna Silver believes that the way we view our body changes during these kinds of epic feats.
“When hiking, one stops thinking about the body as an aesthetic object and views it as a functional object instead,” Dr Silver tells Stylist. “The focus is on what the body can do as opposed to what it looks like. This leads to people appreciating their bodies and feeling proud and respectful of them.”
There’s no one body type that’s perfectly adapted to thru-hiking. Ballet dancers are typically very slim; wrestlers are generally stocky. Swimmers have broad shoulders; high-jumpers have long legs. Hikers, however, come in all shapes and sizes, and the physicality is only half the battle.
When I hike, my mind is getting a workout, too. From route planning to rough terrain and unexpected weather conditions, you can be physically extremely fit but have poor navigational skills, for example, or little resilience to adverse weather.
Wild’s author on body positivity and toxic beauty standards
In 2012, Cheryl Strayed wrote Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail. Two years later, it was adapted into a multi-million grossing movie starring Reese Witherspoon. Divorced, motherless and dabbling in hard drugs, Strayed embarked on the 1,100-mile-trail in 1995 as a voyage of self-discovery with no previous thru-hiking experience.
Between 2010 and 2012, Strayed wrote an advice column anonymously for The Rumpus, before publishing Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice On Love And Life From Dear Sugar. One of her advice columns reads: “Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, sometimes you’re a little bit fat, but who gives a shit?”
The question of body image was close to Strayed’s heart. After publishing Wild, she was invited for an interview and photoshoot with Vogue and was appalled when Vogue photoshopped her size 16 frame beyond recognition. This was not the body positivity she’d experienced when thru-hiking.
The book and film show the good, the bad, and the ugly of life on the trail. Loose toenails, dehydration, sores from her backpack chafing, hunger, blisters, and ultimately, immense self-discovery. Her body was capable of carrying her through harsh landscapes for over 1,000 miles, but Vogue still felt it necessary to change it to fit their aesthetic.
When I finish a hike, my legs are pockmarked. I regard the scars as badges of honour from my battles with the wilderness and I feel appreciation for every inch of my 5’2” body that can climb up mountains made for giants. For a brief spell, I love my body, the way it looks, the way it moves – and most of all – what it can achieve.
Inevitably, bombarded with flawless magazine models and polished social media feeds, it’s not long before my positive-body image begins to crumble. I start to envy lean, long-limbed friends again; I wish that I had visible abs and cheekbones. As a 21st century woman, I’m the rule rather than the exception. But for a brief time, on and after the trail, I learn, as did Strayed, the art of not giving a shit.
For more walking inspiration, check out the Strong Women Training Club.
Images: author’s own
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