I like nature best when I’m neither naked nor afraid
(Originally published July 2014)
For the past couple of months I’ve been walking our new dog on the Trail Around Middlebury or, as I like to call it, “The Trail That Runs Practically Past My House But Which, until This Spring, I Had Only Been on Once in the Eight Years since We’ve Lived Here.”
I started out taking him on 15–20 minute little outings now and then, but I’ve enjoyed the woods so much that the hikes are now running 30–45 minutes each morning, sometimes with another go in the afternoon. I can’t get enough of the smells and sounds and scenery in the woods and the feeling of meditative calm that comes over me as I meander along the TAM or its circuitous side trails.
I’ve been putting so many miles on the trails I actually had to buy myself a pair of hiking shoes. I thought this made me officially outdoorsy, but then I caught a few episodes of Naked and Afraid, and I realized “outdoorsy” is a relative term.
“There is no prize for winning, other than not dying, which the ones who make it through all three weeks seem pretty pumped about.”
Naked and Afraid is an actual reality TV show. Maybe you avoid reality shows because you don’t want your brain to liquefy and run out your ears. But maybe you’ve seen this show and found it compelling, not because of its inherent intellectual value but because, as is the case with most reality TV, you simply can’t look away.
I’m in that category.
The premise is pretty straightforward: Two strangers, one male and one female, choose to get dropped into a remote rain forest and strip nude (with the naughty bits blurred out), and must survive with nothing but one tool of their choice each for the next 21 days. There is no prize for winning, other than not dying, which the ones who make it through all three weeks seem pretty pumped about. But many of the participants have to go home early because of fever, diarrhea, ticks, snake bites, dehydration, hypothermia, infected wounds, etc.
Sounds like a great time, doesn’t it?
If the nudity is meant to make the show more titillating, it doesn’t. I saw one episode where the naked guy stood on a hill a few feet above the camera, legs braced wide as he vigorously hacked at a vine with his machete. Never have I been so grateful for pixellation.
Unlike other reality shows, this one doesn’t seem to include that much manufactured drama. There doesn’t need to be. A pair of strangers have to live in a hot, wet, and bug-infested jungle for three weeks with no provided shelter or food, and not so much as a pair of Fruit-of-the-Looms between their nether regions and the very lively jungle floor. How much more dramatic can it get?
In one episode, I watched two people jumping up and down—or as close to that as they could manage what with the starvation-induced weakness and all —because after 13 days of subsisting on nothing but the flying bugs they had inadvertently swallowed, they managed to find a snail to share for dinner.
I couldn’t help comparing myself to these nut jobs—I mean “intrepid survivalists”—and accepting that, by their standards, I’m really not outdoorsy after all. To wit:
1. I would not spend the night outside on the Trail Around Middlebury, much less out in the jungle where wild boars and fire ants roam free. Forget “naked and afraid.” I wouldn’t do it fully clothed and 200 yards from home, unless a pop-up camper was involved.
2. One of the participants said she was excited to get into a situation where death was a real possibility because she wanted to find out what it would feel like to survive. While I appreciate her enthusiasm, I far prefer my outdoor adventures to range from “lovely” at best to “a bit muggy” at worst. “Potentially fatal” isn’t on my list.
3. At no time on any of my hikes have I ever curled up in the fetal position and cried about my doubts that I would ever make it back to civilization. (Well, maybe once, but it turned out I was only 30 feet from a main road.)
While I’ve been darned proud of myself for my dedication to hitting the trail every day this summer, Naked and Afraid has shown me that what I’m doing isn’t a real challenge. My daily hikes don’t test my physical or mental limits or make me face the possibility of immediate mortality.
It may not be very outdoorsy to say so, but that’s exactly what makes them so enjoyable.
