A Solo Hiker’s Guide to Adventure in Suburbia

As a woman who hikes alone, I have a theory about creepy people in the woods. If I’m hiking on a trail where I can expect to see people every few minutes, that’s mugging density. Someone might take my wallet or my gorp, but overall, I’ll be OK. If I can expect to see people once or twice an hour, that’s murder density—it’s the worst option. And if I’m in serious wilderness, completely alone, that’s bestie density. I see someone else, and we’re like, Hey, another human! Then we’re instant besties, at least for the few minutes until we part ways and never see each other again.

Normally, I spend my time in bestie-density nature. I don’t expect to see people at all, so when I do, it’s a pleasant surprise. But lately I’ve been living in the Chicago suburbs due to family illness, and the density is making me lose my mind. I’m not used to being around people everywhere, all the time. I asked a (lovely, suburban) friend how far I’d have to walk before I could pee behind a bush without getting arrested—not that that’s a particular goal of mine, but it’s indicative, you know? He said worriedly, “I don’t think it’s ever legal to pee outside.” Which just goes to show the kind of crowd I’m hanging out with.

Not to mention that family illness comes with the kind of stress that makes me want to walk straight into the woods and stay all day (or longer). Which I can normally do from my front door in the Northwoods, but I haven’t been back in six months.

So I decided to make the best of the situation, and I gave myself a mission: walk straight out of the front door of the suburban house where I’m living and keep walking all day, until I found adventure or felt better—whichever came first.

9 A.M.

The morning started warm, breezy. I passed a goose on the sidewalk, looking for food in a crack, and I thought, man, we’re both lost. Which is how I’ve been feeling whenever I see wild animals lately, and as a sentiment, sure, it’s self-satisfyingly melodramatic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

The roads were quiet: a few bikers mostly, and I followed them past a storage facility and a kidney care center toward a river I’d seen on a map. I like following rivers in the woods; maybe I’d like it here, too.

It turns out there was a bike path along the river, and a couple preteen boys fishing, which pleased me (kids outside!), plus an older guy with a fanny pack who caught—while I watched—a 13 inch carp. The best fishing around here, he told me, was anywhere the landowners might call the cops on you—particularly golf courses. “You can eat one golf course fish every few months before you start to glow in the dark,” he advised.

11 A.M.

A few miles up-river, there must have been a foot race, because suddenly the path was covered in chalk-scrawled encouragements. YOU GYATT THIS! The sidewalk told me. I’M PROUD OF YOU! You know what? I thought. I’m proud of me, too. This sidewalk wasn’t all wrong. It was getting hot out, so I swung through a gas station for an icee, which I drank in a park, then followed a footpath that opened onto a total idyll of bright and lazy river.

Just through the trees, cars zoomed by—but they had no idea about this perfect, hidden pool. If I jumped in the dirty river, would I glow in the dark, too? I slurped my icee and considered.

2:45 P.M.

I walked four more miles, passing through a charming downtown riverwalk that ended abruptly in an overgrown bush. A path extended past the end of the road, so I followed it, creeping through a chain link fence and some dense buckeye before finding a series of clearings behind apartments. At some point, pushing through neck-high grasses on a path that had dwindled to hopes and vibes, I realized two things simultaneously.

One: The grasses were full of stinging nettles, and my arms and legs were starting to hurt.

And two: The only way out, short of pushing back through the nettles, was by cutting through the yard of a house where I’d recently picked up a shelf from Facebook Marketplace, which belonged to a woman whose number was still in my phone. If you, an innocent suburbanite, found a self-proclaimed lost hiker in your backyard, would you feel better if you’d never seen them before, or if you’d met them exactly once, online, and given them your home address?

There was no way around it, I realized: at this particular place and time, the creepy person in the woods was me.

As I considered my options, something hissed right beside me, and I practically screamed. A goose ran at me—and stumbling back, I saw why. Here at the river’s edge, tangled in buckeye and nettles, she’d made a shady nest. Four goslings twisted their downy necks to stare at me hard. This goose wasn’t lost—not at all. She was right where her family needed her.

I backed away through the nettles, then retraced my steps to downtown. Across the river, kids were shouting and laughing, and as I wandered (creepily) out of the trees I saw they were at a pool, which looked damn good after a sticky, nettle-stung day in the heat.

I couldn’t disappear into the woods to cure my stress, but I could Uber home to get my swim suit, drive back, and enjoy a margarita after swimming a few laps. It wasn’t quite the same—but it wasn’t half bad, either.