The noontime cathedral bells have just finished chiming and I am currently situated at the Café Elephant in Leibnitz, Austria. Sipping regional steiermärkische red wine and enjoying a slice of perfectly crafted Apfelküchen while I write this.

I woke up this magical sunday morning with insatiable desire for an introvert solo-adventure. I packed a lunch, filled my backpack with assigned essays for my Metaethics class, checked the timetables and bought a €3,30 round trip train ticket to the wine-country nestled town of Leibnitz, Austria.

Yesterday, I hiked Bärenschützklamm with 8 of my international buddies. It was an oasis of well-established trails and well-built wooden platforms dancing up the face of the stone mountain, allotting for a pristine relationship with the spurting waterfalls. I adore the way the Austrians hike. They choose rugged landscapes and skirt away from any notion of taming the land, instead fixating on preservation and admiration for the miracle of mountains. Most notable when it comes to Austrian hiking are the little cozy mountain huts nestled beside the trail every 45 minutes or so, typically featuring a very tall, very blond Austrian mountain man offering schnapps to hikers.

After we reached our summit and began our descent we came across a meadow. There was a very old, very abandoned wooden barn with moss cradling its walls and the smell of old books wafting through its structure. Around this wooden barn could one find the remains of an old stone well, a firmly built hunting platform, a plethora of crab apple trees and an acre or so of soft mossy meadow.

Feeling quite inspired, my buddy Katie and I started almost literally frolicking through this aforedescribed meadow. We scampered up the hunting platform, stroked the sap leaking from the hundred plus year old pines, pivoted over fallen stones from the looming mountain face. We ran down insane declines, unable to control the giggles from going at such an uncontrollably fast pace with no sort of actual control.

That being the ultimate example, the entire day was spent with the 8 of us playing in the woods. We explored caves and waterfalls and spotted Austrian mountain animals. We met locals and mountain men and toasted to life. We found climbing spots and jumping spots and running spots. We finished our day as the rain began to drizzle in the chilly Bärenschützklamm dusk by hunkering down in this warm pub with soup and wine and tea whilst we waited for our train back to Graz.

There is something innocent and pure about nature. Even though I know a trail has been tread upon by many a voyageur, hiking nevertheless feels so intimate to me. So personal. As if the surrounding woods and nature are communicating with only me for a period of time. I feel that the trail has never existed in the condition that it presently exists now and I am the only one to experience it in its current state.

There is something raw about playing in the woods. Maybe it’s letting go of certain man-made illusions. Maturity…growing up…these things are social constructs designed to input us into a society of producers and consumers. But what if we could just be contributors? What if we could allow our “immaturity” to swell untethered to societal constraints? The child that we all once were didn’t evolve into the adult we are now. The adult in us grew on top of our child, growing from memories and experiences and failures. But at the root of each of us there still remains the child.

What if “meeting your needs” went further than just feeding yourself, clothing yourself and giving yourself shelter? What if you could trace it all the way back down to meeting the need of play?

Adapt. Mature. Accept responsibility. But never truly grow up.