Spruce Mountain, Vermont
This is another naked hike by Jim Bornholdt, whom we have seen before. A few years ago, after a cancer diagnosis, Jim decided to embrace the idea of naked hiking, which he had done a few times before. For him, shedding his clothes was symbolic of shedding fears and negative baggage. He calls it "forest bathing", and he relishes the freedom of going into and out of the sunshine and feeling the forest energy across his skin.
He lives in Connecticut, but he found that public nudity is legal in Vermont (as long as you don't engage in "lewd and lascivious conduct"), and Vermont has many wonderful hiking trails, so he began hiking the Vermont trails naked and publishing photos of his hikes on his blog called Baring It All in the Woods.
The first part of the trail was easy, a dirt path through the woods.
The trail leads to this pond. Normally, hikers that Jim meets on the trail have no problem with his nudity, but this time, he met a woman coming the other way who ranted and cursed at him. Then he met another man with a small child. The man said he had no problem with the nudity, but he didn't like the child seeing it. Jim thought this was strange. Why give the child the impression that nudity is bad, if the father was OK with it?
After the pond, the trail got rocky and started climbing uphill.
Finally Jim reached the summit.
At the summit is a fire tower that Jim did not climb because he was worn out from hiking up the mountain. We also see another hiker and his dog. Apparently they were friendly to Jim.
And then Jim hiked back down to the parking lot for the trail. Apart from the one abusive woman, it was a nice hike.
1 comment:
Both the woman and the father (though he wasn't abusive) should've been asked what was so offensive about the body that was "made in His image"?
I find that to be the best defense to those who are offended by nudity.
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