Opinion: Keep Your Unsolicited Adventure Advice to Yourself

Jennifer Malloy

August 24, 2024

The other day I had the pleasure of stopping a man in his tracks. Literally.

No, it wasn’t that he found my sweaty, disheveled hiking state attractive; it was because he saw my two-year-old son snoozing sleepily on my back while I toiled up the trail.

“You’re going all the way up there?” He asked incredulously, pointing in the direction of Little Lougheed’s summit. “With him?”

To you, reader, this may seem like an innocuous statement, but it was this somewhat insignificant interaction—not the 30-degree temperatures that day—that had my blood boiling like the ramen I make for breakfast when backpacking.

It was the abrupt way he came to a halt, the tone of his voice and the judgmental look in his eye that irked me so. It was the fact that he felt the need to point to the summit, as if I couldn’t possibly know where it was or understand what it takes to get there. It was the brazen and underlying assumption that my son and I had no right to take up space here.

I’ve been on this trail before (in the same way that I’ve told a similar tired tale from other outdoor adventures many a time), but even if I hadn’t, I trust my skill and judgement when it comes to keeping both of us safe. Unfortunately, as an avid solo hiker, these comments occur on the trail both with and without my son.

I’ve had men mansplain mountain safety to me on the summits of scrambles that I’ve tackled alone. It doesn’t matter that I have the proper gear, a high level of fitness and an InReach (not to mention years of experience navigating this sort of terrain); the advice always arrives unsolicited.

I’ve been informed about my location—as if I had somehow found myself on-route up Mount Baldy instead of the kitchen—more times than I can count. I’ve had the complexity of terrain explained to me unprompted. I’ve had men bemoan my supposed safety when hiking with my son every time we’ve frog- hopped each other on the trail.

“Oh good, you made it. I was so worried,” they croon as I attempt to tamp down my frustration, rising steeply like the summit I’m ascending.

Well intentioned? Perhaps. Infuriating? Absolutely.

And while there may be grounds to make a comment if you feel that someone is being legitimately unsafe (throwing rocks over the edge of a cliff or not wearing a helmet in a chossy gully comes to mind here), you better make sure that the advice has legs to stand on first.

Using my rage to fuel my own (exceptionally safe) legs, I continued to huff and puff up the trail of Little Lougheed—with my now awake son—when I passed another solo female hiker on her way back down.

“Way to go mama!” She called to me.

With my anger deflating, having blown off some steam on the punishing incline, I thanked her and told her about my earlier encounter. She rolled her eyes in solidarity and proceeded to tell me about all the times men choose to make unwanted comments about her safety when she hikes solo.

Commiserating aside, and the fact that this is not uncommon for women on the trail, it did lead me to contemplate why this occurs.

Is it a projection of their fear and lack of skill? Is it something that stokes their ego? Or, perhaps, did they grow up with women who were considered “safe,” who never pushed their limits in the outdoors; therefore, they simply cannot understand why any woman would choose to do so?

Is it that men don’t simply see women as belonging in these places? Or that their engaging in outdoor recreation is a privilege that they’ve now been granted and should therefore be grateful for?

It recalls a time when I was out scrambling with my sister-in-law, who has two children, and we were engaged in conversation by a man on the summit of the peak we were enjoying a well-deserved break on. Upon finding out that she had a son and daughter, he commented on how lucky she was that she had a husband at home who would take care of the kids.

Lucky? Seriously? To have someone at home who is essentially engaging in the bare minimum of what it means to be a parent? I doubt a man has ever had that said to them while recreating in these spaces, which just serves to make women feel even more unwelcome in the outdoors. 

And the comments don’t stop when it comes to what women wear. When Alisha McDarris chooses to hike in barefoot shoes, or minimalist shoes, she’s subjected to comments like “this is who needs to be air-lifted when they hurt themselves in the wilderness,” and “you can’t fix stupid and inexperienced.”

“Generally, I get a lot of cautionary comments from men and more ‘I’m impressed’ comments from women,” she muses. This reflection comes after spending time together in the backcountry of David Thompson where I personally noted her skill and agility in the mountains, regardless of the shoes she chooses to wear.

And before you come at me with #notallmen, please understand that this is my real, lived experience and the real, lived experience of many women. And there’s enough men that engage in this behaviour that I want to take your (occasionally) well-meaning sentiment and throw it off the side of the trail (but also #leavenotrace).

And these tedious tales don’t just apply to women and mothers. Ageism, racism, sizeism—the list goes on and on when it comes to unsolicited comments or advice that is made on the trail.

A man in his senior years recently recounted to me a time when he had paused on the trail to Kinney Lake in Mount Robson Provincial Park and was fiddling with his backpack, as it was slightly off balance on the back of his mountain bike. A young couple came barreling up to him with deep concern etched into their features. “Are you okay?” They queried. “Do you need help?”

As he was clearly not in any sort of distress or need of help, he put it down to the fact that they saw an old man on the trail and made an ageist assumption that he was, in fact, not okay (which is, simply put, not okay). If he had been writhing in pain on the side of the trail, trapped under his mountain bike, yes, help him! Otherwise, in the words of Bob Newhart, stop it!

A podcast by Terradrift recently addressed the issue of size inclusivity in the outdoors for plus-sized people and the stereotypes that they can face on trail: the idea that they are lazy, they don’t know how to exercise and they cannot tackle challenging objectives.  

Megan Banker, who features on the podcast and is an advocate for plus-size adventurers, says that these insinuations persist despite the experience and skill she has in the outdoors.

“I’ve been doing this for seven years, and I still get people that are surprised when they see me on a mountaintop or on a rock climb. People assume things about you based on what your body looks like,” she says. “The biggest misconception is that we can’t do these things, that we don’t belong in these spaces.”

The fact is that the outdoors are for everyone, and it’s unfortunate that in this day and age people still feel excluded, unwelcome and unsafe when camping, hiking or climbing. And while I’m not naïve enough to rant that if everyone just stayed in their lane when it comes to outdoor recreation that it would fix every problem, it would go a long way to addressing at least part of these issues.

Recently, on a solo hike up Cascade in Banff National Park, I had a male hiker ask to accompany me on the trail as he was feeling uneasy about bears and the fact that it was berry season.

Oh yes, the scenario of man vs. bear playing out in real life. However, as someone who always thought they would choose the bear (as most women would), I found myself, somewhat trepidatiously, agreeing to the company. 

While we were tackling the 1,600 metres of elevation gain up the side of the mountain, I asked him what he thought about women hiking alone or hiking with their children.

“I can’t see any reason why I would feel the need to make a comment about a woman’s safety or ability,” he told me. “The only way I would ever offer advice is if she asked for it.”

And just as I inflated with this somewhat reassuring comment, he then popped my feminist balloon by stating that in the case of man versus bear, it’s not like women have to worry about meeting a man like that out on trails.

That’s when I left him in my (solo female hiker’s) dust.

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