It’s not unusual for social media influencers to go viral for promoting daredevil antics at high altitude – on any given day my feed is full of young twenty somethings who have just scaled Half Dome in Yosemite, or somehow completed the entire Triple Crown of Hiking during a year out from college. Speaking for myself, major hiking feats are so common these days that I’m honestly getting a bit numb to them. Which might explain why, earlier this spring, when two British TikTokers started extolling the benefits of what they call “soft hiking,” everybody sat up and took notice.
In a video posted in April 2023, the two women – Emily Thornton and Lucy Hird from Yorkshire – explain that soft hiking is “exactly what it says on the tin.” They describe a common scenario: going out in the hills with seasoned hikers only to feel they weren’t able to keep up. So instead of finding a new sport altogether, they decided to hike at a different pace – a slow one – where instead of pushing themselves to the limit or bagging peaks, they focus on what they call the “pure joy of spending time in nature and moving your body.” Instead of focusing on FKTs, they encourage taking breaks and taking in your surroundings, and they emphasize nourishing yourself properly to fuel your journey over cramming protein bars or running gels into your mouth so you don’t have to break stride.
