It happens often enough that it now has its very own nickname on social media: "Alpine divorce." At the Guardian, Alaina Demopoulos explains that women are using the term to describe a specific kind of breakup moment: going on a hike or outdoor adventure with a man, only to be literally left behind. The stories range from emotionally bruising—like MJ, whose partner sped ahead on Zion's famed Angel's Landing and then descended with another woman—to deadly, as in an Austrian case where a man was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter after abandoning his girlfriend on a peak.
"It's such a common thing," Julie Ellison, an outdoor photographer who was the first female editor-in-chief of Climbing magazine, tells Demopoulos. "There's that male ego element to it that's not necessarily evil or ill-intentioned, but it usually has a negative effect on the partner who's being left behind." In online forums such as TikTok, women recount a variety of experiences, including when a man gets frustrated with their slower pace or storms off in a huff after an argument. However, it plays out, the situation leaves the woman with an unexpected, and often unwanted, solo hike.
Demopoulos traces how outdoor culture's macho ideals, gendered expectations about competence, and simple bad manners can blend into something therapists call abusive when it leaves someone unsafe and dependent on strangers. Read the full story, in which Demopoulos also recounts how some of these women have gone on to reclaim hiking on their own terms.
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