**Outdoor Recreation Activities**:
– Backpacking, canoeing, canyoning, caving, climbing, hiking, hill walking, hunting, kayaking, rafting.
– Mountain biking: All mountain, downhill, trials, dirt jumping, trail riding, cross country.
– Canyoning: Climbing, descending, jumping, trekking through canyons.
– Physical activity for recreation, learning new skills, testing endurance.
– Outdoor physical activities can be done individually or communally.
**Skills and Techniques in Outdoor Recreation**:
– Mountain biking requires balance, core strength, endurance, bike handling skills.
– Canyoning involves rope work, down-climbing, technical jumps.
– Advanced mountain biking includes technical descents like down hilling and free riding.
– Canyoning combines caving and climbing techniques.
– Navigational and wilderness skills are essential for canyoning.
**Education and Training in Outdoor Recreation**:
– University outdoor recreation programs gaining popularity.
– Outdoor activities used for education and team building.
– Some universities offer degrees in adventure recreation.
– UK House of Commons Education and Skills Committee supports outdoor education.
– Development of soft and social skills through outdoor education.
**Outdoor Enthusiasts and Locations**:
– Terms like outdoorsman, sportsman, woodsman, bushman for outdoor enthusiasts.
– Famous outdoor enthusiasts include Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Bear Grylls.
– State parks, national parks, rural Scotland, designated areas in England and Wales are popular.
– Sparsely populated areas with mountains, lakes, rivers attract outdoor enthusiasts.
– Outdoor recreation in scenic locations with diverse landscapes.
**Outdoor Recreation and Cuisine**:
– Culinary techniques like dutch ovens, grilling popular with outdoor enthusiasts.
– Cooking over open fires, fish fries, granola, trail mix common.
– Enjoying food cooked outdoors integral to outdoor recreation.
– Mountain biking and horse riding in some areas.
– Foods like trail mix (GORP) and fish fries preferred by outdoor enthusiasts.
Outdoor recreation or outdoor activity refers to recreation done outside, most commonly in natural settings. The activities that encompass outdoor recreation vary depending on the physical environment they are being carried out in. These activities can include fishing, hunting, backpacking, walking and horseback riding — and can be completed individually or collectively. Outdoor recreation is a broad concept that encompasses a varying range of activities and landscapes.
Outdoor recreation is typically pursued for purposes of physical exercise, general wellbeing, and spiritual renewal. While a wide variety of outdoor recreational activities can be classified as sports, they do not all demand that a participant be an athlete. Rather, it is the collectivist idea that is at the fore in outdoor recreation, as outdoor recreation does not necessarily encompass the same degree of competitiveness or rivalry that is embodied in sporting matches or championships. Competition generally is less stressed than in organized individual or team sports. When the activity involves exceptional excitement, physical challenge, or risk, it is sometimes referred to as "adventure recreation" or "adventure training", rather than an extreme sport.
Other traditional examples of outdoor recreational activities include hiking, camping, mountaineering, cycling, dog walking, canoeing, caving, kayaking, rafting, rock climbing, running, sailing, skiing, sky diving and surfing. As new pursuits, often hybrids of prior ones, emerge, they gain their own identities, such as coasteering, canyoning, fastpacking, and plogging.
In many cities, recreational areas for various outdoor activities are created for the population. These include natural parks, parks, playgrounds, sports facilities but also areas with free sea access such as the beach area of Venice Beach in California, the Promenade des Anglais in Nice or the waterfront of Barcola in Trieste.