A Guide in the Candy Land of Nature

Reflections on a morning with Nina, one of the small eco-entrepreneurs who is pointing the way to a better future.

Photo by Shakti Rajpurohit on Unsplash

Which future will you choose: the screen-first one that our culture is pushing us towards, or one rooted in a connection to the actual world we live in?

The cultural currents are flowing towards a pixelated future where we’ll no longer need to think for ourselves—the AI will do the thinking for us. Beyond using the collective intelligence of humanity to write B- marketing copy and take away many of the knowledge tasks that keep us employed, the AI systems will flood the zone with drivel that compels us to swipe, like, engage, and feed the algo. It’s a trip to nowhere.

But there is another path we can take away, one that turns away from screens and into the world. The leaders of this movement are found almost everywhere, but they are hard to find online because they aren’t growth hacking or scaling; they’re hacking trails and scaling mountains, living in and connecting others to the physical world. They are eco-entrepreneurs, and I believe that they are showing us what the good jobs of the future will look like.

Today I’d like to tell you about one of these people. Her name is Nina, and I recently met her on my trip to learn about the restoration of the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula.

Her story begins on a cross-country road trip during a different era–back in the summer of 2016, when Obama was President, the arc of the moral universe was bending towards justice (or so we thought), and the America of today seemed inconceivable. She was traveling west with the gear she thought she needed to adventure in the woods; all she needed was someone to teach her how to adventure in the woods.

After stopping at the Olympic National Park gift shop, a John Muir book caught her eye and she began to read. A guy around her age just so happened to be reading the same book. She chalked it up to coincidence, though, having once been a guy in my early 20s, I know a passive-yet-obvious way to will yourself into a conversation with a pretty girl when I hear about one. (Poor game respects poor game)

His name was Forest, and his approach worked. They struck up a conversation. Like Nina, Forest was out west on a road trip. Like Nina, Forest was into nature. But unlike Nina, he was an experienced backpacker, having just completed the Appalachian Trail. Nina had found herself a guide. Off they went into the backcountry of the Olympic National Park.

They spent a few days together on the High Divide trail, which cuts through meadows speckled with wildflowers and past cirques (glacier-carved valleys) and tarns (lakes). Around every bend there’s a breathtaking view of the Olympic Mountains, a set of peaks so pointy that they look like a kindergartener drew them.

It was one of those magical trips where everything went wrong and yet worked out just right. They didn’t bring enough food and powered through way too many miles each day. Her boots weren’t great and her sleeping bag sucked; a yoga mat provided insufficient insulation as she shivered through the cold alpine nights in her hammock. They lacked permits but were only admonished by an understanding ranger. It was perfectly imperfect, with that hint of serendipity and unpredictable joy that can only be created through shared physical experiences.

That trip was a launching point for Nina; afterwards, she spent as much time as possible in the woods, eventually deciding to challenge herself on a four-day, three-night solo trip to Mount St. Helens.

She expected to find other people at the campsites like you do on the High Divide, but the campsites were empty. She had no one to turn to if something went wrong, no one to confer with if the stove didn’t work, no one to help out if a bear wandered by. Her only human contact was with a sprinkling trail runners. And yet she thrived.

As she hiked, she marveled at the changing landscape. When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, many thought that it would become a deadzone. But they were wrong. Life never left: gophers, deer mice, spiders, and ground-dwelling insects survived in the blast zone despite being covered by meters of debris, as did the underground buds and roots of many plants.

Nina saw this and more as she went through diverse landscapes, ranging from large lava boulder fields to babbling brooks and gullies, forests that were sprouting from the blast zone, and old growth areas that had been spared from the volcano and the lumberman’s axe. It felt like she was traveling through a candy land board, wondering what would come next.

Candy land. A game of wonder and curiosity for toddlers. Nina’s right; a candy land is how we’re wired to see nature–an amazing place that inspires awe, with new treasures and gumdrops and surprises around every corner.

She emerged from that first solo trip into the woods a changed person. “Where the forest and being there alone had scared and intimidated me before that first trip, after it I felt secure and supported in the woods–the forest became almost parent-like.”

I asked if that feeling of empowerment translated to other facets of her life and she replied that it made her more self-confident, less anxious, and more able to confront challenges, including founding Magic Forest Tours, an ecotourism business on the Olympic Peninsula .

Magic Forest Tours leads day hikes and overnight backpacking trips for beginners in the Olympic National Park. I love that she decided to focus on introducing novice backpackers to the woods. She knows from her first-hand experience with Forest just how life changing those experiences can be, and she’s committed to paying it forward.

She understands how a night in the woods can reorient tech workers from Seattle and other folks who’ve never spent time in nature. Sitting around the fire at night, staring at the stars, and listening to the nocturnal animals claim the soundscape is a tonic for these troubled times.

Magic Forest Tours is a little company, but it’s important. Nina and other ecotourism entrepreneurs are pointing the way to a better future. They give me hope that we’re already building a better future, one experience in the woods at a time.

So next time you’re in the market for an experience or a trip, look for an ecotourism company. The candy land of nature will always outshine candy crush–even the VR, AI-enabled, scalable version some growth-hacking tech bro is pitching VCs on right now.