2014 read #8: Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail by Suzanne Roberts.

Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail by Suzanne Roberts
265 pages
Published 2012
Read from January 23 to January 25
Rating: ★★★ out of 5

Brief mention of eating disorders and sexual assault, themes addressed at length in the book.

The back cover copy of Almost Somewhere ends with the stinger, "...not just the whimsical coming-of-age story of a young woman ill-prepared for a month in the mountains but also the reflection of a distinctly feminine view of nature." Even though I crave more hiking narratives and had thought I'd depleted my library's stock of them, I almost put the book back right there.

I don't like the word feminine. I don't like the word masculine. They imply intrinsic, incontrovertible gender values or "truths" that I don't have time for. If people want to be feminine or masculine (according to whatever cultural norms they attach to those terms), that's their own business. I'm all about people being whatever gender, mix of genders, or lack of genders they wish to be. Unlike everyone else on the internet these days, I don't like the proliferation of labels that sprouted up with third-wave feminism, possibly because my privilege as a heterosexual, cis-sexual male makes me undervalue the importance of labels and identity; whether it's a privileged mindset or not, I like the label "person" or "people," or if necessary "cultural norms of femininity" or "cultural norms of masculinity." (I do, apparently, value the proliferation of exact, pedantic terminology that sprouted with postmodern scholarship.) Labeling whatever distinct view of nature Roberts transmits as "feminine" promises an awkward fit with my reading sensibilities.

There are, obviously, many things women (primarily) must be concerned with in the wilderness. Rape culture and its nasty surface scum of predatory males can slosh up everywhere. Body image and its pathological outcomes -- anorexia, bulimia -- doesn't get left behind at the trailhead. There are more hygiene products to pack in and pack out. Social expectations and judgments against "girls" in the woods are entrenched and shitty, though possibly a little less obnoxious now than when Roberts hiked in 1993. And there are obvious ways the "classic" wilderness ethic, as promulgated and shared by men such as Muir and Abbey, is exclusionary, masculist in its very inception. I understand the need for female narratives and perspectives in what, originally, was pretty much a boys' club.

Beyond the social and physical realities of "femininity" in western society, however, I do not see how Roberts' view of nature is distinct or feminine. She cites her inability to "leave" her body to experience the divine transfiguration of Muir in the Sierra. Well, neither have I -- Muir was a holy prophet, his writings an inspiration rather than an instruction manual, transmitting an ideology rather than a reality. She dwells on the unromantic stuff, knee pain and digging catholes and bumming food and Advil off other hikers when they ran out -- but the reality is, hiking is unromantic. In the moment, it is all knee pain and poor planning and struggle. It's only afterwards, on the drive home perhaps, or on lazy days when basecamping, that this sport feels closer to the radiance of Muir.

Roberts not-so-subtly projects an image of the "man" in the woods -- a risk-taking braggart, a posturing ape, oblivious to things like thunderstorms above treeline. With the exception of some friendly, vivacious German hikers they meet on their last night (and there always have to be friendly, vivacious Germans in our American trail narratives), all men in Roberts' world are solitude-seeking, peak-conquering, phallocentric macho dickheads. After having a panic attack on a log bridge and needing to be helped off by her friend, Roberts offers a sweeping statement: "Certainly, no man would have allowed his friend to rescue him off that log, yet I wasn't a man, and trying to act like one wasn't going to get me anywhere." Certainly, she says, condemning all men everywhere to Tim the Tool-Man Taylor stupidity. Her big conclusion -- that the distinctly feminine view of nature incorporates community and "the journey" rather than the destination -- is both cliche and exclusionary for no discernible purpose. As a man, I can safely say I would ask my friends for help, with a quickness. I have turned around short of my "destination," and still enjoyed myself. And I can also say that my favorite moments on hikes involve tip-toeing through fern glades, the book-smell of damp beech leaves, watching bees fondle flowers, all this journey stuff Roberts' yoga instructor told her was "feminine." Trying to force a gender identity on the universal experiences of hiking seems, well, regressive.

I wish this reductive "Men Are from Mountain Summits, Women Are from Lovely Little Forested Lakes" crap weren't so pervasive in Roberts' writing, because otherwise I quite enjoyed Almost Somewhere. Describing a much shorter trip than Cheryl Strayed or David Brill, Roberts has the luxury of presenting a daily diary of experiences and impressions, detailing flowers and climbs and views, something this poor, snowbound East Coaster very much appreciated.

(Edit: Rereading this in 2023, I would first like to acknowledge that, yes, hello, I am and have always been genderfluid and nonbinary even when I didn't have the words for it, and also that I wrote a lot of unnecessary words up there that can be summed up as "I don't like gender-essentialist feminism and, in fact, don't think it's especially feminist at all.")