Shared Green

The other day I had reason to drive into Winchester, VA from my home in Sterling. I took Route 7 all the way. Climbing some of the hills heading west in my little four cylinder Kia Spectra sent the engine groaning and if I knew that I would be exaggerating I'd swear that a cyclist on one of the multi-thousand dollar carbon fiber jobs past me before I reached the crest. But I exaggerate -- I was passed by a lot of cars and beat up trucks.

But when I reached the top of every single one of those hills and could see the mountains in the distance, tree covered with low hanging clouds nearly touching their tops, I didn't care, and couldn't care that it was a struggle to get there. The view was great, and I had the opportunity to appreciate it.

I was on my way to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. The Food Bank distributes food in Loudoun, Fairfax and other counties. It even has a distribution center in Ashburn, VA. I guess the folks at the Blue Ridge didn't see the article a few weeks ago that said that Loudoun County was the richest county in the U.S. Numero Uno and top of the heap, according to no better measure of wealth than Forbes magazine.

There's a lot of green in Loudoun -- man made and natural.

And there's a lot of need, too. According to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, in 2009 more than 145,000 different people were served by the food bank. The Winchester section that includes Loudoun serced more than 25,000 people. Looks like an average income of $110,000 per household isn't shared by everyone.

Sharing. It's one of those lessons we learn in kindergarten. If we don't share, sooner or later teachers call our parents and eventually we have no friends. Most of us learn that lesson pretty quickly. It's one reason that the Food Bank exists. While it receives some money from the state and taps into federal programs, the bulk of what it provides to the tens of thousands of people it helps is because people share.

I've been thinking about sharing a lot lately when I think of the outdoors. And while I know I'm being a curmudgeon or worse, I've had the feeling lately that the outdoor enthusiasts just don't want to share too much with the rest of us.

For example, I picked up a copy of Blue Ridge Outdoors, a free magazine that is available at Eastern Mountain Sports, REI and even Sports Authority. One of the articles, "Mapping the Secrets" talks about places hikers have found and whether or not those hikers should reveal the whereabouts of their new found treasures.

Come again? Keep a place secret; you mean, not share? That's like keeping the ball that bounces highest to yourself and 'thump-rolling' the flat, dead one to your buddy who sleeps on the kindergarten mat next to you.

The same sentiment sort of appears in the May issue of Outside. Anyone who knows me well also knows that I think Outside is great. I've been reading it since Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Forget The New Yorker and Harpers, the best writing in English is inside the covers of Outside.

But lately as I've been drawn to the outdoors more by Outside's articles, I've noticed a "clique" kind of atmosphere. Forget that I could count the number of African-American faces on two hands with fingers to spare (I'm talking years of issues, not just a single copy), I mean to say that its writers, letter writers/readers seem to want to extol the virtues of the outdoors, but don't want too many other people around. Just those already in the club.

The May issue's feature State Secrets (there's that non-sharing word again) advises readers how to get off the beaten path, avoid the crowds, while still enjoying jaw-dropping views and crazy, near death-defying adventures. Granted, getting away from it all is one of the joys of hiking. I tell my friends that being outside, hearing no sound but the breeze, birds and beat of my heart after a steep climb is where I feel God closest to me. But everyone should have the chance to experience that feeling or something close to it.

Routes to new places should be revealed and those of us who appreciate the outdoors should invite as many people to share these things with us as possible. It's what we learned how to do in kindergarten a long time ago.