By Kevin Gorman
Executive Director, Friends of the Columbia Gorge

In 2015, REI decided to zig when American retailers zagged. The huge recreation equipment retailer closed all of its stores on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year and encouraged its employees to spend time with their families and get outdoors. REI passed the same message on to its customers, and when the sun set on Black Friday, 1.4 million people chose to opt outside rather than hit the malls.

REI wants year two of #OptOutside to be even bigger and we should all applaud that. As a society, we have allowed consumerism to engulf our world, and I say this as a recovering advertising copywriter. The concepts of necessity and luxury goods have blurred, shopping is a form of recreation and we’ve even allowed our identities to morph from citizens to consumers. The outcome of these trends hits us where it hurts: our waistlines, our blood pressure, our healthcare costs. So of course getting outside is a great idea for us, our kids and our grandkids. We need nature, but we need nature for more than the simple self-gratification that consumerism brings.

I believe the greatest gift nature provides to us, if we are open to it, is humility and gratitude. Humility and gratitude is in short supply in society today and unfortunately I see less and less of it out on the trails. While REI chose Black Friday for their counter-consumerism event, they also chose the day after Thanksgiving, a holiday singularly created around the concept of gratitude. So let’s follow up Thanksgiving Day with a Thanks-hiking Day.

As you #OptOutside on a Gorge trail, quietly thank the recreation planners (yes, government bureaucrats!) who not only chose this meandering path to improve your experience, but also to save the little critter you just unknowingly walked by. Thank the volunteers who worry about that exact section of trail you are walking because when the winds blow hard, they will be out inspecting the trail the next day for downed trees and planning the next work party to remove the trees.

Thank the nearby landowner who walks the trail each morning by herself, well before the crowds arrive, with a garbage bag to remove litter from the previous day. All of these people exist because I have met them and thanked them. I read an article quoting our founder Nancy Russell where she said that before she got involved in land preservation, she assumed it was “beneficent fairies” that made these lands and trails available to all. She quickly learned it was average people with an above average capacity to make a difference.

My final thought on #OptOutside is this. Last year, I participated in #OptOutside while visiting relatives near Seattle. Black Friday was an unseasonably warm and sunny day and with my brother-in-law, I set out for Rattlesnake Ridge. It felt as if the masses from that morning’s Seattle Thanksgiving Day parade were with us walking the trail to the vista at the top. I heard a few mentions of REI and #OptOutside from fellow hikers, so the marketing must have worked. However, sitting at the top of Rattlesnake Ridge with 200 other people seeking a spiritual nature connection, I wondered to myself, would I feel more connected to nature in the L.L. Bean outlet store just down the road?

Places like Angels Rest and Eagle Creek carry the same allure as Rattlesnake Ridge. Easy accessibility, good workout, great scenery at the top. I strongly encourage you to #Opt Outside this year, but look beyond the familiar, the obvious, and venture to Gorge trails you don’t ordinarily consider. Friends’ website offers over 100 hikes to peruse with photos, maps and descriptions. However, nearly 50% of the reader views occur on only ten of the trails. Not coincidentally, these are the same handful of trails that can be overcrowded and overused.

Love the Gorge this Thanksgiving weekend, but with the kind of love a parent has for a child. Despite all that Mother Nature throws at it, the Columbia Gorge is a fragile place that needs our care, attention and gratitude. We owe it that for all it gives to us.