00:00Hiking in the wilderness, just you communing with nature, getting away from the crowds,
00:08discovering something about yourself and the way we all relate to Mother Earth.
00:12I love that. I love the solitude. But what I really love is hiking with crowds.
00:19Crowded hikes can be truly wonderful. The absolute highlight of 2025 for me was the eight hours I
00:25spent hiking the Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand, the greatest day hike in the world.
00:30Were there crowds? Hell yes. I went midweek off season and even then the trail was filled with
00:36hundreds of other hikers, including a boisterous group of school kids. The crossing is one of the
00:40most popular hikes on the planet. That is something that makes many outdoors types shudder. Who wants
00:47to go on a 13 mile hike where you're constantly close to other walkers? Well, me for starters and
00:54nearly all the other people on the trail with me. We're not snobs like the driver of the shuttle
01:00bus that took me to the trailhead. He compared the crossing to Queen Street, Auckland's main shopping
01:05street. But people like shopping too. My bus driver was a local, of course. Happy tourists often mean
01:13unhappy locals who don't much care for them. But the point is those tourists are happy. About 50 miles
01:20north of Times Square, you'll find Breakneck Ridge, a super steep climb, easy to get to by train from
01:26Grand Central. When it reopens next year, it will see more than 200,000 visitors a year. And nearly
01:32all of those people will be very happy to be there. There's almost no evidence that greater numbers
01:38result in a measurably worse day out for hikers. And this hike, Breakneck Ridge, has become one of New
01:43York's shared experiences. I will admit there does come a point at which hiking trails just have too
01:50many people on them. Angels Landing in Zion National Park is narrow and vertiginous and outer shape
01:56tourists regularly stop to catch their breath or take photographs. And as a result, it's almost
02:01impossible for hikers to walk at their natural pace. But most hikes, including Tongariro and Breakneck,
02:07aren't like that. Sierra Club snobs will probably never believe it, but a lot of people are drawn to
02:14hikes not in spite of their popularity, but because of it. Tongariro has toilets. I do get the value of
02:22being alone in nature, but it can also be invigorating to enjoy something more communal and spectacular.
02:28And as someone who has now done the Tongariro Crossing, I want as many other people to enjoy it as
02:34possible. Artificially limiting numbers would just be artificially limiting joy. See you there.
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