Washington Trails
Association
Trails for everyone, forever
Washington Trails
AssociationTrails for everyone, forever
In a time of disconnection, national public lands connect us — back to ourselves, to our loved ones, to the natural world and to everyone with whom we share these places. By Linnea Johnson.
About 10 years ago, before I moved to Washington, my family and I took a road trip from our home in Ohio to the east coast. We toured the historic sights in Boston, saw whales breach off Cape Cod and breathed in the sea air in Portland, Maine. Yet all the while, for some intangible reason, I felt out-of-place. Perhaps it was the fast pace of the cities or the wealth along the cape — but regardless, I had a gut feeling that I didn’t belong.
But that changed when we crossed into Acadia National Park. Almost as soon as I saw the National Park Service logo, I took a deeper breath than I had all week. My shoulders dropped and my mind cleared. We had arrived on national public land, and I knew I belonged there.
Fast forward a few years, and I had moved across the country to Washington. Seattle was nearly three times larger than my hometown and 2,300 miles away from most of my family and friends. In those early years, I often felt lonely, overwhelmed or out-of-place. Again, national public lands were where I felt fully at home. When I visited Mount Rainier National Park, I felt like I belonged just as much as anyone. And when a new friend invited me on my first day hike in Washington, to Lake 22 in Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, I felt welcomed — not only by the new hiking buddies and by the folks who smiled at us on trail, but by the land itself.
Seven years later, I’ve found plenty more spaces of belonging in Washington — yet national forests, parks and wildlife refuges continue to be among the places where I feel most at home.
Looking out the window at Paradise on one of my first visits to Mount Rainier National Park in 2014. Especially when I was very new to Washington, I felt most at home on public lands.
What is it about these places that imparts such a powerful sense of belonging?
On the surface level, it’s because there’s comfort in familiarity. When I visit a National Parks Service site, I can count on being welcomed by a brown arrowhead symbol and ranger with a badge, green pants and a very cool hat. I know I’ll find comforts like seating and bathrooms as well as maps and exhibits to help me learn more about the place. The power of symbolism is strong in national forests, too. When I drive past a brown, Gumby head-shaped sign emblazoned in yellow cursive, I know I’ve crossed into Forest Service land, and feel both comfort in and reverence for this shared place. And while entry fees and passes are required to fund the upkeep of these lands, I know I won’t be met with hidden fees or charged for “upgrades” to hike certain trails or rest up in a historic lodge lobby.
But it’s more than familiarity — it’s that the very infrastructure of these public lands exists so that people of all abilities, ages and experience levels with the outdoors can experience them.
For example, my dad uses a wheelchair for any hike longer than the walk from the parking lot to the visitor center. But he’s been able to experience parks from the Everglades to the Hoh Rainforest because they not only offer wheelchair-friendly nature trails, but wheelchairs themselves. Dry Tortugas even had an all-terrain wheelchair that enabled him to experience the cobblestoned fort and sandy beaches. I was so relieved and grateful when a park volunteer offered him that wheelchair I was nearly moved to tears.
Linnea and her dad, Eric, explore the fort at Dry Tortugas National Park thanks to an all-terrain wheelchair provided by the park.
There’s also our shared investment in these places. While the nation is divided into 50 states, each with their own park systems and personalities, all U.S. taxpayers invest in national public lands. And I’m proud of the fact that, for over 100 years, this massive country of over 300 million has collectively invested in not only protecting irreplaceable ecosystems from development, but also maintaining spaces that are intended for everyone. National public lands are among the few remaining threads maintaining the fabric of this frayed country; according to a recent survey by the Trust for Public Land, they still have broad bipartisan support.
Never was the power of this shared investment clearer to me than when I worked as an environmental educator in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. After the sleepy-eyed fourth graders piled off the schoolbus, they participated in an opening ceremony and repeated after a park ranger, “I own the national parks!” Then, Oprah-style, they’d point to their classmates and proclaim, “You own the national parks! You own the national parks!” Many kids’ eyes lit up at the realization that this green, expansive place was theirs to explore and protect — and, in turn, that they belonged.
Marveling at pond wildlife with elementary students as an environmental educator at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in 2018. One of my favorite classes to teach was called "National Park Adventure," where we'd take an imaginary trip to national parks across the country so that the kids could get a sample of the incredible places public lands that were theirs to experience.
We have a lot of work to do before our national public lands are truly places of belonging for everyone. Public lands in the U.S. hold complex histories, in many cases including the displacement of Indigenous people and exclusion of people of color. The impacts continue to reverberate today; for example, according to Dr. Ian Munanura of Oregon State University, people of color comprise 39% of the U.S. population but only 5% of the population that recreates in public forests. All hikers have a responsibility to help make public lands places where everyone can experience belonging — by addressing bias and welcoming one another on trail and by advocating for the funding, staffing and support public lands need to invest in programs that make them more accessible and inclusive.
And it is so, so worth it. By offering a place of belonging, public lands play an absolutely critical role in our health. The U.S. is in the middle of what Stanford University professor Dr. Geoffrey Cohen calls a “crisis of belonging.” Disconnection is driving not only anxiety and depression, but also cardiovascular disease and early death. But, according to Dr. Jennifer Keluskar of Pennsylvania State University, numerous studies point to the power of nature to soothe loneliness by stimulating gratitude, mindfulness, resilience and connectedness.
For the vast majority of people, who do not have access to trails on private land, public lands and the trails that run through them are their portals to the natural world and its healing benefits. The powerful health benefits of time spent on public lands already aren’t equally accessible to everyone — but if they are privatized, that gap will worsen.
Linnea and friends Maya and Govind before a hike in Wenatchee National Forest in 2024.
We cannot take for granted the value of shared, natural places where we all belong. In a time of both individual and collective disconnection, national public lands connect us — back to ourselves, to our loved ones, to the natural world and to everyone with whom we share these places.
