For the love of long walks| Impact of long-distance trail thru-hikes in the United States on environmental attitudes in relation to sustainability

• Main Author: Redpath, Amanda
• Language: EN
• Published: Prescott College 2016
• Subjects: Environmental education|Environmental studies
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10110431

<p> The act of thru-hiking a long-distance trail immerses hikers in the natural world for an extended time; as such, it represents a compelling system to study the relationships between a specific appreciative activity&mdash;thru-hiking&mdash;and environmental attitudes regarding sustainability. This thesis critically explored the primary research question: How do thru-hikes change or inspire environmental attitudes in thru-hikers on long-distance trails in the United States? I employed the revised NEP scale to survey 98 thru-hikers using snowball sampling and I interviewed a subset to gain more in-depth knowledge. In addition, I textually analyzed the blogs written by thru-hikers. Findings suggest that environmental attitudes of thru-hikers already leaned in an ecocentric direction before thru-hiking and after thru-hiking, their environmental attitudes became more so. Furthermore, this thesis finds that women had more ecocentric views than men before and after thru-hiking and that more ecocentric attitude change occurred for thru-hikers in their twenties than other age groups. Thru-hikers also chose to express their environmental views through conversations and their actions. And thus, thru-hikes on long-distance trails in the United States have the potential to strengthen and/or reinforce existing ecocentric attitudes in thru-hikers.</p>