Get On Outside!

Pierre Bourdages has appeared in a previous column of mine. He is a ski instructor at Deer Valley Resort. Pierre is also an inspirational speaker. I would call him a motivational speaker, but he is adamant that he does not motivate. His presentations are all about attitude. ‘What does any of this have to do with the outdoors?’ you are quietly asking in your mind. ‘I’m getting there; hold on,’ I reply even quieter in my mind.
During part of Pierre’s speech he addresses the change in trends regarding the playing environment of young people today. He says, “Back in my day, if I was a real pest, my mother used to say, ‘Pierre, if you don’t stop right now, you will not go out and play with your friends!’ but I would say, ‘No, no, no, mother. I want to go out and play with my friends.’ Nowadays, I say to my son, ‘If you don’t stop right now, you will go outside!’ and he says, ‘No, no, no, father. I don’t want to go outside!’” I’m sure a few of my readers can relate to this phenomenon of children staying indoors to play with their friends.
I grew up in a neighborhood near Salt Lake City where we played night games every night during the summer. Kick-the-Can, Commandos, and Hide-and-Seek never seemed to get old. Now kids play soccer, basketball, and football from the comfort of their couch…on a video game console. I learned how to play basketball the old-fashioned way: I waited to be picked last, other people bounced the ball around and never passed it to me, and the only time I touched the ball was when it bounced off the back board and hit me in the face.
I’m getting closer and closer to the great outdoors with every paragraph, I promise. In this one I’m going to jump right in. What ever happened to camping on the hard ground and enjoying dinner made over a campfire? Sure, people still do it, but many campers roll up in a big ol’ trailer with their unnatural yellow and white trailer lights casting weird, pale glows over the shrubs and pine trees of the forest. I have a hard time replacing my campfire with unnatural light. Number one, you can’t tell a good ghost story over a bright white light. Number two, you can’t cook a marshmallow over fluorescent bulbs. They get a little warm, but they don’t do much.
With technology today, it is easy to forget about the wonder and charm of nature. I would like to challenge everyone within reading distance to plan more outdoors activities this year. 2010: The Year of the Outdoors. That’s what they’ll call it in history books; I can see it now. But seriously, leave your Gameboys and laptops and fancy iPhones at home and go enjoy the beauty of a serene mountain lake, or listen to the complex sounds of wildlife. I cannot wait until the mountains are green with new vegetation and the trails are just begging to be hiked. There is so much to see and so much to explore, and I’ve only got two eyes and two feet.
We live in a time when most of the land on earth has been explored and catalogued in atlases and maps. That doesn’t mean that we, as individuals, cannot explore and rediscover the splendor of Mother Nature. Once again, I challenge you with the task of discovering and rediscovering amazing landscapes, sunsets and peculiarities that are unique to the Utah outdoors. Learn about the plants and animals. You could learn about them on the Internet, but it’s not as fun and the Internet won’t allow you to experience poison ivy for yourself. There are certain things that technology just can’t improve on, and I hope you know what those certain things are. If you don’t, I’ll see you on a mountainside or on a hiking trail. Just make sure you hide the iPhone before I see it, though.