Hiking

In the United States, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom, hiking means walking outdoors on a trail, or off trail, for recreational purposes. The word hiking is also often used in the UK, along with rambling, hillwalking, and fell walking. The term bushwalking is endemic to Australia, having been adopted by the Sydney Bush Walkers club in 1927.

About Hiking in brief

Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. In the United States, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom, hiking means walking outdoors on a trail, or off trail, for recreational purposes. The word hiking is also often used in the UK, along with rambling, hillwalking, and fell walking. The term bushwalking is endemic to Australia, having been adopted by the Sydney Bush Walkers club in 1927. In New Zealand a long,. vigorous walk or hike is called tramping. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Religious pilgrimages have existed much longer but they involve walking long distances for a spiritual purpose associated with specific religions. Petrarch is frequently mentioned as an early example of someone hiking. The idea of taking a walk in a countryside developed during the 18th century in Europe. In previous centuries, walking was associated with vagrancy and poverty and was also associated with long distance walks. The Swiss scientist and poet Albrecht von Haller’s poem Die Alpener von Hall is an important sign of an early appreciation of the landscape and nature associated with the Romantic movement. Hiking a long-distance trail from end-to-end is also referred to as trekking and as thru-hiking in some places. Trekking is the preferred word used to describe multi-day hiking in the mountainous regions of India, Pakistan, Nepal, North America, South America, Iran and the highlands of East Africa.

A day hike refers to a hike that can be completed in a single day. Some have suggested that Petrach’s climb of Mont Ventoux was fictional, and that he was not the first to climb a mountain for pleasure since antiquity. This implicit claim of Petrarch and Burckhardt was disproven by Lynn Thorndike in 1943, and there were ascents accomplished during the Middle Ages. However, in the closing years of his life, Archbishop Anno II climbed his beloved mountain, Mount Ventoux, on his way to the papal court in Avignon before the year 1334,  and there are numerous references to Petrarch as an \”alpinist\”, although Mont Ventouis is not a hard climb, and is not usually considered part of the Alps. Petrarch’s implication he was the first to climb mountains for pleasure has been often repeated since. In extreme cases of bushwhacking, where the vegetation is so dense that human passage is impeded, a machete is used to clear a pathway. In Australia, bushwalking refers to both on and off-trail hiking. Common terms for hiking used by New Zealanders are tramping, walking or bushwalking. Hiking is also used, as well as rambling, while walking in mountainous areas is called hillwalking. In Northern England, Including the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, fellwalking describes hill or mountain walks, as fell is the common word for both features there.

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