Footpath Hegemony
16th May 2014
Footpath Hegemony
I rarely plan my walk. I jump in the car and decide where to go whilst driving. I let my mood and the weather conditions direct me. The final choice may change many times on the journey, depending on traffic, changing conditions, or as my mood alters. Added to this chaotic and random approach, I rarely use footpaths and defined ways. My direction is dictated by what ever grabs my interest.
It's not that I am irresponsible, I never (ok not often) take risks, but I am keen to find new ways over and around the landscape. I am not keen to follow (or be followed) by a line of people, all heading in a predictable way, along over used and overly defined routes. These 'regular' paths are like railway lines, so predictable, offering the same views so offering a repeated intellectual perspective and experientially confined.
I use the word 'confined' deliberately as the maps and guide books lead us by the nose. It's not their intention, but they have become the dominant noise. The received wisdom. The hegemony of where to go and we do not question.
Too often, for too many years I climbed the Langdale Pikes from the Stickle Barn, via Stickle Tarn. This is a dramatic and beautiful way up, but it offers only one dimension of what is a complex and diverse environment. There are more ways up these mountains and not only that, there are more ways and more things to see that are not shown in guidebooks or maps.
By heading 'off route' I have found new paths, like a route that I can only assume climbers use to approach Gimmer Crag. This is painfully steep path, but it leads you to breathtaking, cathedral like- rocky architecture. I have traversed the main ridge of the Langdales staying just North and below the main path. Here I found complex sheep trails that avoid wet boggy areas, come across all sorts of mosses and lichen and had the whole area to myself.
If we stick to the path, especially the main routes, these 'things' are never discovered and we only understand a thin, narrow perspective of our surroundings. We are in danger of developing a myopic understanding of environment, where only the immediate, direct, tangible experience is perceived. There is no broader perspective gained, or a sense of greater sense of 'place'.
The Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh, wrote that it took a whole life time to know just one field. His argument points out how little we get to know somewhere (or someone) without spending our whole lives investigating and experiencing that place. I have come to understand that just following the same paths means we never get to know that 'field', beyond it's gate. Our understanding of 'place' becomes no more than that which is offered by others. It is not our own developed understanding, rather it is prescribed and therefore only a temporal and disconnected experience. We are seeing the world through others eyes and not our own, so removing us from the experience.
Break free of the hegemony........ it time to get off the path!
I rarely plan my walk. I jump in the car and decide where to go whilst driving. I let my mood and the weather conditions direct me. The final choice may change many times on the journey, depending on traffic, changing conditions, or as my mood alters. Added to this chaotic and random approach, I rarely use footpaths and defined ways. My direction is dictated by what ever grabs my interest.
It's not that I am irresponsible, I never (ok not often) take risks, but I am keen to find new ways over and around the landscape. I am not keen to follow (or be followed) by a line of people, all heading in a predictable way, along over used and overly defined routes. These 'regular' paths are like railway lines, so predictable, offering the same views so offering a repeated intellectual perspective and experientially confined.
I use the word 'confined' deliberately as the maps and guide books lead us by the nose. It's not their intention, but they have become the dominant noise. The received wisdom. The hegemony of where to go and we do not question.
Too often, for too many years I climbed the Langdale Pikes from the Stickle Barn, via Stickle Tarn. This is a dramatic and beautiful way up, but it offers only one dimension of what is a complex and diverse environment. There are more ways up these mountains and not only that, there are more ways and more things to see that are not shown in guidebooks or maps.
By heading 'off route' I have found new paths, like a route that I can only assume climbers use to approach Gimmer Crag. This is painfully steep path, but it leads you to breathtaking, cathedral like- rocky architecture. I have traversed the main ridge of the Langdales staying just North and below the main path. Here I found complex sheep trails that avoid wet boggy areas, come across all sorts of mosses and lichen and had the whole area to myself.
If we stick to the path, especially the main routes, these 'things' are never discovered and we only understand a thin, narrow perspective of our surroundings. We are in danger of developing a myopic understanding of environment, where only the immediate, direct, tangible experience is perceived. There is no broader perspective gained, or a sense of greater sense of 'place'.
The Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh, wrote that it took a whole life time to know just one field. His argument points out how little we get to know somewhere (or someone) without spending our whole lives investigating and experiencing that place. I have come to understand that just following the same paths means we never get to know that 'field', beyond it's gate. Our understanding of 'place' becomes no more than that which is offered by others. It is not our own developed understanding, rather it is prescribed and therefore only a temporal and disconnected experience. We are seeing the world through others eyes and not our own, so removing us from the experience.
Break free of the hegemony........ it time to get off the path!