MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.
Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
As they made their way up Angel’s Landing, MJ’s partner started walking faster than her. “I could tell it was getting on his nerves that I was slow,” she said. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, just go ahead of me.’” He did without hesitation.
When she caught up at the top of the mountain, they took a picture together. Then her partner hiked down the mountain with a woman he had met on the way up, leaving MJ to finish by herself. They broke up shortly after that trip. (MJ asked to be referred to by her initials for the sake of speaking openly about a past relationship.)
Last month, MJ opened TikTok and heard the phrase “alpine divorce”, a label she now attaches to her experience in Zion.
MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive…[MJ] could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
This is like saying you agreed to go dutch on a date, and then feeling that something was “off” because you couldn’t shake the feeling he was intending to split the bill.
No shit?
Some people, not anyways men, have been taught, rather mercilessly, that they have to be self sufficient. These people get aggravated, even angry when someone else fails to live up to the standard that they (unfairly) were forced to. There can be an instinctive feeling that it is somehow an injustice to them.
That doesn’t excuse abandoning someone in the wilderness. Often these people struggle to learn to be a kind helper.
Also, none of this is meant to excuse the behavior. It is possible to understand “why” without condoning it. When confronting this it is important to be firm that it is unacceptable, as well as understanding that it may be a struggle to relearn.
Co-opting alpine divorce, which regularly involves a murder attempt, feels weird? Just call it the sierra split.
I do wonder how much of this is a cheapening of the weekend getaway, where you’d go to a B&B upstate, find out your potential partner snores, drinks to much, is rude to service workers, or views a toothbrush as optional. You’d sigh and split. It’s just a bad weekend.
But with this, camping and hiking is a complication. You’re drinking warm filtered water from a Nalgene, eating granola because someone forgot to bring a lighter. Also, it’s raining and all your socks are wet. Did you bring anything to wash dishes? Ah, there are no dishes. You smell like smoke and are covered in sand.
Granted, you can do camping/hiking well, but I’d bet some of these cases are from people doing it poorly, trying to save a buck by avoiding more expensive weekend getaways.
but I’d bet
So no proof then. Guesses don’t count.
Balanced take. This kind of thing is very veryserious. But also a dilution of the term Alpine Divorce, which people have died from.
“We need to talk” has now been replaced by “We need to go for a hike.”
I imagine a good way to make your significant other sweat in that region is to leave your hiking boots by the door.
I would never leave my girlfriend stranded on a hike. I need her for if there is a bear.
See, when my wife starts to walk too slow I usually just grumble a bunch, then take everything she had with her, grab her hand, then tow her along.
That way she gets some help going faster, I know when I’m going too fast and can slow down, so when we finally get to the mountain top it’s easier to throw her off instead of having to chase her while she runs away screaming for help…
Why not just slow down and match her pace?
Why not just speed up and match my pace? /s
But really though I have a fast pace, my normal walking speed is like 3+ mph, I do slow down. But even slowing down I walk a bit faster than her.
Because speeding up is a lot more difficult than slowing down. You’re coming across as kind of a jerk to your wife!
Personally I feel it is a pretty jerk move to expect me to make all the changes necessary to sync up. I slow down a bit, she can speed up a bit. That way we match
Articles like this are 99% trash
So are some comments.
So two or three “credible” stories over a century qualify for this headline? Seems a bit inflated.
I mean… it’s not a nice thing to do to someone but… eh…
This sounds like what they called the starlight tours out in Saskatchewan.
deep racism where many people were outright murdered.
This shit going on with women is not seen as serious overall by society. It’s so very fucked up in two different fronts
Maybe “MJ” herself is a shitty person, and roped some equally shitty dude into a shitty time and he decided on the way up “fuck this lady” on a probably very easy day hike and ditched her.
DUDE! I hike. If you leave together, you FUCKING come back together. YOU want to break up, put on your big boy panties on do it AFTER everyone is home safe.
Also there is no such thing as “an easy day hike.” Anything can go wrong in the wilderness and lackadaisical thinking is what gets people killed.
There are plenty of safe and easy trails out there. Again. My point is if the dude found another floozy at the top of a mountain and went off with her 1) it was probably a very active trail and 2) both people were probably able to hike it solo and also kinda shitty.
I don’t care if they were the worst people on earth walking the easier hiking path on the nicest day of the year. None of that matters! They left on a hike TOGETHER, and needed to return TOGETHER.
Full stop.
Anyone who can’t follow that one simple rule has no business out on the trails.
Maybe she was shitty, but we know he was. You never abandon your hiking partner under any circumstances.
Reminds me of people going out and drinking and abandoning their friend who then gets SA. It is import to go out with good people not superficial cunts.
If you don’t like them then don’t hike with them again. It is that simple unless you are a sociopath.
The fact that he was reported to “hike down with some other woman.” And that she was able to complete the hike herself tells me it was a very easy trail and heavily populated. Just a dumb story of two assholes one of which decided to make her shitty date into an avenue of internet content for the hopeful attempt at gaining some influence. The dude was probably just annoyed and childishly trying to cause an issue with her and was like “I’m gonna walk the half mile down the 0 grade dirt path to the car with Stacy, babe.”
You don’t abandon someone period unless you are a sociopath. I get that you would abandon someone and let them die, get raped, assaulted, etc.
Choose your friends/partners very carefully.
We are just built differently I guess.
Oh no! If you leave a woman behind in any location she gets raped and murdered immediately!
I’m not saying abandon someone on a fucking backpacking trip in the deep country; just saying this story reeks of a rich old-millennial/young-Gen X content creator causing a noise to make some content for their socials and not a genuine “trend” of men abandoning women on fucking glaciers.
I don’t leave anyone behind.
You are full of shit.
Naw, I have gone out and made sure people get back safely more times than you can imagine. We are just different.
Maybe because it is outside when someone is being insufferable you can just walk away.
They’re just making a mountain out of a molehill.
Nothing is behind it. It’s another dramatized thing that people are using for social media clout to score points, and people lap it up. This is manufactured rage bait.
We are also only getting one side of the story. I know for a fact a few of my breakups where the other party completely warped the story to make me into a villain. I had one incident where I was teaching my gf to snowboard and she broke her wrist on the bunny slope, a super common injury. I spent all day with her in the hospital etc. We broke up 6 months later and started telling people I had shoved her to the ground and broke her wrist on purpose because I was jealous of her success as a pianist or something and was trying to sabotage her life . It was insane and her story got worse as time went on post-breakup.
90% of these are probably just unhappy people on a bad day who are re-writing the story into some elaborate narrative of evil and abuse because they know it will do well on social media. And a lot of tiktok/social media people are very unhappy people. And unhappy people do a lot of lying and exaggerating for attention.
Well, no. Your post is ragebait. What’s behind it is the same thing it always was. It’s just, ya know, a trend of men not respecting their partners. It’s not new. It’s not dramatized. It’s just that typically men do not put in the same level of thought, care, and compassion for their partners as women typically do.
These stories are pretty standard abuse, honestly. I’ve heard similar types of things about shitty partners abandoning someone at amusement parks, concerts, and other venues because they got pushed into something and then didn’t “fulfill their end of the bargain” or keep up to the level that the first person wanted. Yeah, it is usually men that do this, but it’s not exclusively men. Just, ya know, most of the time.
Like, I don’t really understand how your bad breakup experience covers for this. You are downplaying the event without knowing both sides as well. Why is it okay to do that, but it isn’t okay for some to potentially dramatize it? You’re not even involved, so I think it’s worse to do this weird defending, because it sorta feels like you might be misogynist. Like, them’s the vibes.
I don’t know why you think it’s 90% of people making this up, but, uh, okay, buddy. There’s definitely no potential abusive behaviors here that a partner should look out for, it’s just 90% chance it was a bad day or a liar or something, and not shitty or abusive partners.
sadly he’s been upvoted many times.
One of the main drivers behind this story (i should say, i think one of the main drivers) is the more recent one where a man abandoned his girlfriend in the austrian alps at night and left her for dead, and it turned out he’d (allegedly) performed that same stunt before with a different ex girlfriend (who survived).
I’m sure your personal situation might be “he said she said,” but some of these people are comparably wild
People do stupid shit all the time. I live near the White Mountains where there are multiple fatalities a year now due to idiots going climbing unprepared, many of whom claim to be experienced.
It’s one thing for people to die hiking due to negligence or stupidity, it’s another to claim ‘SHOCKING NEW TREND: MEN ARE ABANDONING WOMEN ON HIKING CLIMBS TO DUMP THEM’
Do you have proof of any of that or is it simply your opinion?
i have as much proof as the woman in the article has about her story.
which is none at all. it’s all hearsay. social media is all hearsay. this article is about social media stories.
there is no burden of proof here. anymore than there was for dudes going on about spermjacking women 10 years ago. I remember that viral panic.
the pair were not exclusive
…
MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women
…isn’t that was “not exclusive” means?
You don’t expect your BF to hook up with someone new mid-mountain.
Actually it says he wasn’t exactly her boyfriend either
Ok so it’s ok to abandon your fuck buddy. TIL
Nobody but you said that that part is OK.
You’re in a thread wondering about thee thread’s confusing description of their relationship status, not about the “leaving her behind” part.
Nobody but you missed the sarcasm. Or the moral behind it.
I was talking about the hooking up mid mountain part, which is what your comment I replied to was primarily about. And the OPs too.
You can just admit you missed that part instead of getting defensive.
I missed nothing. That is not important to the story. When you go into the wilderness with someone, you have formed an inherent defense pact and have a duty of care to each other. Hooking up mid mountain and leaving the other person, regardless of their relationship, is immoral. If harm comes to them, then it was likely illegal.
Your comment wasn’t talking about the “abandoning mid mountain” part. It was talking about the relationship status part. That’s the part I corrected. We weren’t, in this comment chain, talking about the overall story - it was about your comment on their relationship. Stop trying to build a strawman.
Geez, Americans really can’t admit they made even a minor mistake.
Adding you to my block list. Keep your petulant pedantry to yourself.
yes, but people are emotional and they don’t abide by their own terms
every casual relationship i ever had was never actually casual. it was just full on monogamy with a ‘get out of jail if someone better comes along’ card built in.
Valid, but far from universal. Poly people do exist.
poly people have rules.
Every day I’m thankful that I’m not romantically interested in men.
same bro. same
Well, maybe you can be a lesbian one day if you try hard enough.
