Riverwalking – the act of hiking up a river or stream in the summertime – holds a special place in the rural ethos. It’s as much a part of summer as 4th of July fireworks, or August trips to the county fair. Beyond the obvious fact that there’s something cool and refreshing about wading in a creek on a summer day, young people are drawn to the pursuit because it’s cheap. All you need is a pair of shorts, a beat up pair of old sneakers, and a sense of adventure. (Incidentally, I have a theory that this is why you don’t see old sneakers hanging from power lines in rural areas like you do in suburbia – it’s not that we don’t have punk kids here, it’s just that good riverwalking shoes are too valuable a commodity to part with so easily.) As we age, we don’t riverwalk as much, but we savor each sojourn a little more.
Although many summertime pursuits involve rivers, there’s no leisure-time equivalent to riverwalking. Canoeing and kayaking, being vessel based, are as similar to riverwalking as driving is to hiking. You miss out on the visceral connection of sneaker to streambed, the eerie feeling of water molecules against your legs as they’re drawn (the water molecules are) towards the Atlantic.
Fishing probably comes closest to the mechanics of riverwalking, but the psychology is different. Fishermen walk in rivers but they do not “riverwalk.” They fish. Yes, part of the pleasure of angling revolves around the pleasures of wading in a stream, but since fishing is a sort of hunt, a fisherman is always alert. Their attention is focused on the river itself as they decode bends, pools, and riffles. Their time is spent deliberately and efficiently, eyes sharp, muscles poised to deliver a casting motion when summoned.
The riverwalker, on the other hand, is free to splash around and enjoy the whole picture. The charm is not in the pursuit of any quarry but rather in the journey itself, in simply following a cool slide of water towards its source. Sometimes stealth is employed, in the case of bird watching or sneaking up on a pool-bottom pod of suckers, but more often than not, the riverwalking simply churns along loudly, scattering trout that race along the river’s edge, annoying ducks and herons around every other turn.
Riverwalking has a choose your own adventure quality to it because the journey has no itinerary and no rules. It’s open to interpretation and subplot. Best of all, it never gets old. Whereas familiar hiking trails can become boring over time, a river is constantly changing. Add a beaver to the mix and a familiar shin-deep stretch of washboard can turn into a swimming hole pretty quickly. Log jams pop up here and there without warning.
Shaded sections of stream offer a sense of seclusion, as if the forest were a tiny Amazon leading into a great jungle wilderness. Such sections of stream have a somber, spiritual feel – a great counter to life’s more frantic terrestrial pace.
These blogs are the most fun when readers chime in, so I’d love to hear about your favorite nature-based, summertime, leisure activities.
Discussion *