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Notes -
"If you judge safety to be the paramount consideration in life you should never, under any circumstances, go on long hikes alone. Don’t take short hikes alone, either – or, for that matter, go anywhere alone. And avoid at all costs such foolhardy activities as driving, falling in love, or inhaling air that is almost certainly riddled with deadly germs. Wear wool next to the skin. Insure every good and chattel you possess against every conceivable contingency the future might bring, even if the premiums half-cripple the present. Never cross an intersection against a red light, even when you can see all roads are clear for miles. And never, of course, explore the guts of an idea that seems as if it might threaten one of your more cherished beliefs. In your wisdom you will probably live to be a ripe old age. But you may discover, just before you die, that you have been dead for a long, long time."
(Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker)
Isn't hiking/trekking supposed to be a communal/social activity?
Not by me, my personal acquaintances (not that any of them are exclusively soloists, but all of them go alone from time to time--if nothing else, it's tough to match schedules with your buddies as an adult), the other respondent in this subthread, or Colin Fletcher, whom a reasonable man might consider an authority in these matters.
More importantly, who cares? It's your time, your money, public land (or private land where you have permission to pass, or private land and you're being sneaky enough that you have a reasonable expectation of not getting turned around, etc.). As long as you're not bothering anyone else or tearing the place up, do whatever the hell you want. No International Federation of Outdoor Recreation is going to helicopter in and write you a ticket for failure to comply with the true spirit of hiking as determined in the twelve-point statement of the Lausanne Conference of 1889.
Thinking about it some more, it makes a lot of sense that a guy who's scared to go into the woods alone (or pretending to be, for the lulz) would ask this. Another commenter seems to imply that you're American but this attitude sounds very European or possibly Australian to me. (Aside: no, I don't know why a vocal subpopulation of Australians on the Internet are like this, you'd think a frontier nation settled by convicts would have a stronger instinct to live freely, but there it is.). It's not for me to tell you how to live, but I hope I've made the point that there are other ways.
My point is this: isn't hiking normally considered as a social/bonding activity by its enthusiasts, or at least the majority of them? I'm looking at this in the context of social conventions, not legality. The issue isn't how hiking is to be regulated. I know a bunch of people who have hiking as their hobby, and almost everytime they go in groups. When I first heard about this whole social media brouhaha, this was my first thought: why is a - presumably young and single - woman going hiking alone in the first place? Especially in a forest inhabited by wild bears? Isn't it women who do not like solo activities as much as men?
I've gone solo hiking in brown bear country and have come across solo women doing the same thing. They were motivated by a sense of adventure and wanting to see beautiful parts of nature and were willing to travel very far to do it. That being said, when these women came across me, a lone solo guy in his 30s, they were quite willing to join with me and hike out together.
That's good to hear.
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Botond mentioned in the thread about the Korean gender war that he is not American.
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It depends on the individual. For me, going on long solo walks in nature is my favorite way of de-stressing and having introspective time. Hiking with others doesn't lower my stress and doesn't give me the unbroken mental space for self-reflection.
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