Recent years have seen a surge of interest in high altitude mountain biking and also increasing numbers of hikers in mountains. Often bikers and hikers are seen as two opposing groups - unable to share the same trails. But are they really so different?
Adventure sports include mountain biking (in mountains), mountaineering and rock climbing and these are associated with thrill seeking and risk taking. Mountain hiking is not usually considered an 'adventure sport' although it can be very risk taking. This categorization, justified or not, further heightens the perception that hikers and bikers are different types of people with contrasting motivations in mountains.
Now research is showing that high-risk sport can serve many other personal goals beyond thrill seeking. For example Castanier et al. found that 'escape self-awareness' was a key motivation in their study of high-risk sportsmen. Escape self-awareness means, as the term suggests, turning your thinking away from yourself by engaging in high-risk activities that absorb all concentration. The thrill of speed is not a necessary component of adventure sports. Mountain climbing is usually of longer duration than mountain biking and requires long-term planning and organization. Woodman et al., in 2010, found this activity to reward participants with feelings of achievement and satisfaction through prolonged engagement against the natural elements and the self, in terms of overcoming personal weaknesses.
An interesting study in 2012 by Kerr and Mackenzie in Psychology of Sport and Exercise, used a complex psychological analytical structure called 'reversal theory' to examine the multifaceted motivations of high-risk sports people. The study presents many findings but one aspect is that as sports people become older and more accomplished they give more importance to the natural surroundings and loose interest in risk. One participant in the study became a teacher of the adventure sport he excelled in:
"My approach to the sport is so different now, because really it doesn't have to do much with the adrenaline stuff."
Likewise the mountain climber in this study explains:
"When you are an amateur climber, a lot of the pressure you put on yourself.... accomplishing a climb like [my first multi-pitch climb]... it is self-ego... It's self-gratification... I certainly don't go climbing for those reasons anymore. I still do hard climbs, but they come from an inner drive because I just haven't accomplished all the climbs that I have wanted to do in my life." (Kerr, Mackenzie 2012:654)
Now the complexity of adventure sport motivation is better recognized, how different is it from mountain hikers? Recently I heard the famous alpine hiker Enrico Camanni speaking about his new book Vertical Voyage and his lifetime hiking in the Alps. He described the well-known progression from the Fascist era when mountain hiking was an act of man demonstrating his supremacy over nature, to today when most hikers come to the mountains to be at one with nature, in peace. He spoke about the importance of entering the silence and the emptiness of mountains as a way of becoming more aware of oneself -- rather than escape self-awareness.
Mountains he said are like people; from a distance they look similar but as you spend years getting to know a mountain each one is utterly unique. Despite his famous ascents he says his most important moments were never at the summit. He described how some hikers are moving away from summit obsession by seeing the whole of the mountain as a valid experience. However, he commented many hikers today say: "I did" a mountain. As in: "I did Mont Blanc this summer" or "I've done Mount Logan". To him this belies a type of ridiculous self-focus which one looses with years of experience in mountains. Mountains don't exist because we like to climb them.
In the Dolomite area of the Alps the trails hikers and bikers share are wide enough to avoid problems, and there after, at a higher altitude when the trails become small tracks the hikers and bikers divide, each going their own way on trails designated for their separate use.
While there are differences in the psychology of each group, these differences are more pronounced during the early phase of involvement in the sport. It appears that with time and age, as people develop their capacity in mountains they begin to be less focused on risk, or conquering the summit. Then one and the same trail can be good for all.
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