Perhaps I don’t know where to look, but I am struggling to find any contemporary writing from the outdoors that would stir me, produce some sort of a meaningful emotional reaction in me. What I come across these days are gear reviews, more great reviews, some route descriptions, and accounts of pseudo-heroic deeds (that is, the artificial challenges we create for ourselves to break out of the day-today boredom and greyness). There is, of course, a place for all of this in sensible doses, but, on the basic level, heading outdoors has not really been about that for me.

As I have touched on elsewhere, I was lucky as being out in nature was part of our family life, my gran in particular shaping my relationship with nature from an early age. Then at school age much of my time outdoor was spent with friends from what back then was called ’77. PS’ in Brno, which after ’89 became (again) part of Czech Scouts; these were the happiest times of my childhood, we had loads of fun, and ‘adventure’, it taught me self reliance but the underlying focus was always on understanding the natural environment and being in harmony with it.

And that’s what being outdoors has remained for me since: it’s about seeing nature at work, learning to understand its intricate fabric and my place in it, and learning to act accordingly. And this is what I am sorely missing contemporary outdoor writing: personal (for it always is personal, cannot be otherwise) exploration of one’s place in the web of life.

PS: I have stumbled on some pictures from my teenage years the other day out there on the web; this from our month long summer camps in: