I was looking for studies to confirm that hiking is good for body and mind, and found an excellent article written by former LA Times Hiking Columnist and author John McKinney who has declared 2009 to be the Year of the Hiker: hiking reduces depression, LDL (bad) cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugars and increases glucose tolerance.

In 2004, Austrian researchers announced the results of an intriguing study demonstrating that different types of hiking have different influences on the fats and sugars in the blood. For the study, one group hiked up a ski resort mountain in the Alps and descended by cable car, while the other group rode the cable car up and hiked down. After two months of hiking, the groups switched hiking programs and repeated the experiment.

As expected, hiking uphill proved to be a great workout and provided measurable health benefits. Unexpectedly, researchers from the Vorarlberg Institute for Vascular Investigation and Treatment discovered that hiking downhill also has unique benefits.

Both uphill and downhill hiking reduced LDL (”bad”) cholesterol. Only hiking uphill reduced triglyceride levels. The study’s surprise finding was that hiking downhill was nearly twice as effective as uphill hiking at removing blood sugars and improving glucose tolerance. A second study of uphill/downhill hiking was conducted this summer, but results have yet to be announced.

A study commissioned by Mind, a leading British mental health charity, suggests hiking contributes to improved mental and emotional health. Focusing on people affected by depression, researchers from the University of Essex compared the benefits of hiking a trail through the woods and around a lake in a nature park to walking in an indoor shopping center. The researchers found that the hikers realized far greater benefits than the mall walkers.

In fact, they found that taking a hike in the countryside reduces depression, whereas walking in a shopping center increases depression. Results from the 2007 study showed that 71 percent reported decreased levels of depression after hiking, while 22 percent of the participants felt their depression increased after walking through an indoor shopping center. Ninety percent reported their self-esteem increased after the nature hike, while 44 percent reported decreased self-esteem after walking around the shopping center. Eighty-eight percent of people reported improved mood after hiking, while 44.5 percent reported feeling in a worse mood after the shopping-center walk.

Of course, many hikers knew about the revitalizing effects of spending a bit of time in the mountains, but now they have science to back them up. Ergo, let’s just agree then that hiking is the best exercise ever.

I was googling information about old documentaries, and found this amateur movie from European trip in 1930’s as a part of the collection at Prelinger Archives. “Bill and I”, two young Americans travel in Europe  probably in 1936. They leave New York in March and sail back home later  same year, the autumn time.  They go by boat and train, and they visit places in Lisboa, Gibraltar, Algerie, Palermo, Naples, Monaco, Geneva, Wengen, Lucerne, Cologne, Brussels, Vienna, Budapest, Salzburg, Munich and Berlin. Movie’s title is: “Vagabonds Abroad. A Pictorial narrative of European travels”.

watch movie here: European Trip Part I

watch movie here: European Trip Part II

.. tells many tales. I am looking forward to our first camp fire this year ’cause I am going to take a lot of pictures with timelapse function I discovered on my camera some weeks ago.

Talking about fire, I read yesterday that the US copyright on Before Adam written by Jack London has expired, and that the story is available on Project Gutenberg. Before Adam is a story about proto-human in the pleistocene age, and a kind of Jack London’s idea of primitive man. I haven’t read it yet, but I will as soon as I have had read Slavenka Drakulic’s book “Frida’s Bed“. You can find it here: Before Adam.

PS:If you have time after your dinner tonight, read this lovely short story written by Jack London too: “How to build a fire”.

Some weeks ago, Gorida saw an amazing documentary by German filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer about Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, “Tides and Waves”. Andy Goldsworthy is an extraordinarily innovative artist who employs a range of natural materials to create outdoor sculpture that works instinctively in nature. His range of scale is impressive, from grasses and leaves to ice spires. He collaborates with Nature while reorganizing it into forms we haven’t yet seen. His work draw us to examine those new lines and forms he is creating to discover the simple miracles of nature. Watching Andy create his works is cathartic and make you wanna go out in Nature and do something similar and ‘goldsworthy’:

PS: terrible video quality, so if you have a chance to rent/ buy this documentary, do it. you won’t regret.