by Graham Averill

You’ll never forget the first time you go nude in public. The freedom, the sense of release, the wind in your....Not that I know personally. That’s just what they tell me, the people who make a habit out of doffing their clothing in very strange places like volleyball courts and campgrounds. Oh sure, I’ve done my share of skinny dipping and I can vaguely remember streaking through the neighborhood once on a dare. When I was in college, I even enacted “Naked Cocktail Hour” with my girlfriend. But I’ve never just hung out naked, in public, with other people around. And I’ve certainly never had the urge to drop my skivvies while hiking through the woods or camping in the Smokies or kayaking down the French Broad or climbing inside the New River Gorge. Apparently, I’m missing out on the action. According to the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR), there are a growing number of people who enjoy adventure sports in the buff.

“A lot of our members are really outdoorsy,” says Steve Vickers with the AANR. “Fishing trips, whitewater rafting trips-you name it, some of these people will do it.”

Check out the AANR’s website and you’ll see a bunch of pictures of people hiking nude, snowshoeing nude, jumping off rocks nude. Follow a couple of links and you’ll read stories about people spending weeks in the backcountry backpacking sans clothing. I’ve always heard volleyball and badminton were popular activities on nudist resorts, but backpacking? skiing? rock climbing? kayaking? The last thing on my mind when I’m sending a route or navigating a class III is, “Man, I wish I wasn’t wearing underwear.”

“You can do just about anything nude,” says Danielle Saber, an active nudist who spends much of her free time backpacking and camping nude. “If you can do it with clothes on, you can do it naked. I know people who skydive nude and surf nude.”

Naked adventure sports may sound like an odd undertaking, but it’s only recently that society has added clothing to the sporting mix. Ancient Greek athletes usually did their competing in the buff. The first Olympics were actually clothes-free affairs. Surfing developed in Polynesia as a nude activity, and swimming was traditionally a nude undertaking until the quick drying swimsuit met the needs of our Puritan sense of shame.

Even in contemporary times you’ll find a plethora of examples of people blending nudity with really aggressive outdoor sports. The World Naked Bike Ride puts thousands of naked derrieres on uncomfortable bike seats in order to protest global warming and our obsession with cars. A group of San Franciscans known as the Painted Solstice Cyclists ride the Fremont Solstice Parade naked every year, forming a living, pedaling mural. Critical Tits is an annual naked bike ride through the desert during the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. And just about every 24 hour mountain bike race honors the tradition of the “naked lap,” which sends nude mountain bikers onto the course in the wee hours of the night. Crested Butte hosted naked skiing on the last day of ski season for 25 years. Last year, Rainer Schoenfelder, a member of Austria’s downhill ski team, lost a bet and had to ski his home mountain nude. Obertraun, Austria even has the world’s first (and probably only) naked cross-country ski route. And don’t forget the naked 5K, a tradition on college campuses and big cities alike all over the world.

“Adventure nudism” is so popular that it’s a growing segment of the tourism industry. Forget the stereotypical nudist cruise where everyone sits around a hot tub sipping umbrella drinks in the buff. Now, you can book a tour to an adventure hub like the Dominican Republic and enjoy everything from surfing to ropes courses au naturale.

In theory, naked adventure sports sounds like a compelling prospect. I like being naked and I like skiing, hiking, and biking. But there’s one thing I can’t get over: all your naughty bits are showing.

“It’s not for everyone, but it can change a person’s outlook,” Saber says. “It’s like skinny dipping. Once you go swimming without a suit, you don’t ever want to swim in a suit again.”

Not only can you practice all these adventurous pursuits naked, but you should participate in all these activities naked, according to Saber, who is among a growing sect of people who use nudism in their regular outdoor activities in order to enhance their connection with nature.

“Everything is stripped down to the essentials when you’re nude. You can’t load your pockets down with iPods and cell phones. You don’t have the barriers that clothing and the gadgets of society build, so the connection with nature is more intense,” Saber says. “It’s just you and the forest.”

One nudist explains it like this on a popular online forum: “Going barefoot or walking around nude are an expression of being in tune with nature and going back to your primeval roots…Being able to feel the earth beneath your feet and the wind around your nethers is something that really enforces a connection with the land that has almost been completely lost in this modern world.”

Some nudists even use Biblical verse to justify their alternative lifestyle. According to Genesis, Adam and Eve were naked and only covered up after sin was introduced to the picture. According to the Good Book, man was created in God’s image “naked and unashamed.”

If everyone from left-leaning San Francisco cyclists to conservative Southern Baptists can ditch their clothes and frolic in the woods, then why can’t I? What’s my hang up? If I'm being completely honest, it’s because I’m fundamentally immature. I know this because when I called the AANR headquarters in Florida, I automatically pictured the entire office building naked. Hanging out at the water cooler talking about “The Sopranos,” naked. Holding meetings in the conference room naked. Eating Pop-Tarts in the break room, naked.

Normally, I consider my fundamental immaturity as one of my strongest character traits, but in this case, it’s getting in the way of my “spiritual connection with nature.” If exposing myself to Mother Nature could enhance my understanding of Her, don’t I owe it to myself and the world as a whole to get naked and go surfing or rock climbing?

At least, that was the rationalization that led to the most embarrassing moment of my life to date. Let me paint a picture for you: It’s a chilly October night around midnight. A sizeable crowd of people are gathered along a grassy hill leading into a lake. Occasionally, an individual from that crowd steps forward and strips naked before riding a bike into the lake. It’s the annual gathering and initiation of NUMBA: the Nude Underwater Mountain Bike Association, a loose affiliation of people who have one thing in common: they all drank too much at the 24 Hours of Pisgah mountain bike race and were convinced to strip naked and ride a bike into a lake. Overall, that sounds like my kind of people. I like riding bikes and I like swimming, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to see what all these nudists were raving about. And if you joined NUMBA, you got a free t-shirt. So I was sold.

Before I get into the details, let me just say there was a heavy dew that night. The grass was unusually slick. I’m not making excuses, I’m just stating facts. Maybe the dew-slickened grass caused the bike to slide out from beneath me, maybe not. Either way, the bike slid, catapulting my naked body across the grass-face first, junk down, toward the lake. There I was, naked as the day I was born and sprawled out on the particularly dewy grass while a sizeable crowd, which had suddenly gone silent with pity, stared at my unfortunate condition.

What do you do when you’re riding a bike naked in front of a crowd of people and you fall off? You get back on the bike and pedal your bare ass into the lake. It was hardly the idyllic nudist experience you hear nudists rave about, but the important thing is that I confronted my immaturity and I got a t-shirt out of it. And while sliding “junk down” across a grassy hill may have been a rather literal interpretation of the nudist’s “connection with nature,” it is certainly something I will never forget. And during the brief period that I was actually pedaling the bike nude and everything was going as planned, I can honestly say that I caught a glimpse of the appeal of nude adventure-the freedom that nudists speak so highly of. But then again, if I had been wearing clothes, the grass burns wouldn’t have been quite as severe. •