The Guardian
America’s hiking culture is built on ego
By Story and photographs by Joe Whittle

From peak-bagging to thru-hiking, Americans have turned traversing land into personal milestones. This wilderness ranger and Indigenous writer has witnessed it firsthand Këmituxwe Éhènta Wehikiyànkw You are walking in our old homeland After spending 12 years backpacking some of America’s wildest trails as a wilderness ranger for the US Forest Service – and then losing that job to politics – last spring I set out for the Appalachian Trail (AT), the longest hiking-only footpath in the world. C...