Before we go any further, I’d like to thank all of you who’ve been reading Mind The Moss since its earliest weeks and haven’t jumped ship. When a newsletter bills itself as a rundown of “unusual hikes” I’d imagine that at least a handful of us assume that we’re talking about a mountain path with some odd-looking granite formations, or a waterfall named after a Steely Dan song. But we’ve visited some genuinely bizarre hiking venues together, including a former garbage dump where the trail signs are riddled with BB holes, a series of cascades that are partially overlaid by a fitness center, and golf courses where hikers can more easily trespass in the off-season. You’ve ridden with me when this newsletter has gone deep into the weeds of places that we don’t usually think about as hiking venues, and I thank all of you for staying.
Having said that, we are now going to talk about the art of shopping mall hiking.
I know what you’re thinking, and I agree. Stepping into a mall is the polar opposite of losing yourself amid natural vegetation and letting your mind un-spool on a great hike outdoors: especially during the winter holidays. From one layer of space, you hear the screeching of some kid whose parents wouldn’t buy them the new 4,000-piece Lego castle with a working portcullis and a medieval toilet. From behind you, yet another cover of “Jingle Bells” blares from speakers, prompting your face to involuntarily contort into a Nick Nolte grimace. Then there’s the scale of the place. You don’t just pop into a mall. You trek across the waxed floors, under those fluorescent lights, ascending escalators and bypassing fountains to reach Hollister or Panda Express.
As it turns out, some Americans have taken the inherent journey of visiting a shopping mall and transformed it into an unlikely form of physical recreation. In 2015, Georgia Perry wrote a story about this emerging trend: “Mall Walkers: The Suburban Exercisers Keeping America Wholesome.” What Perry uncovered surprised me, but it probably shouldn’t have. In car-oriented suburbs across America—often a horrid and dangerous place to walk—people have been visiting malls to go for a stroll. Usually they’ll arrive early, when the stores have partially opened and the crowds are modest. They’ll set off on a prefixed or improvised route through the mall’s levels, mostly uninterested in consumerism beyond refueling with a Cinnabon at the food court. At Minnesota’s gargantuan Mall of America, the walker are so prolific that they’ve been nicknamed the “Mall Stars” and earned special discounts from some of the onsite retailers. The sport of mall walking is particularly useful in regions where brutal winter weather can make it unpleasant and unsafe to go for a stroll outdoors during the coldest months.
Given how many of us are going to find ourselves in a shopping mall over the next few weeks, I knew I had to give mall walking a try. But I decided to add a rustic twist. Rather than staying indoors, I would also walk the exterior of a mall. And to really make it feel like a hike, I would dress for an expedition and bring a hefty backpack.
When selecting a mall for a hike, you’ll want to consider its square footage. The upper hundred thousands and higher will give you plenty of epoxy flooring to spend an hour or two sauntering around. If the mall is known for having dazzling flourishes such as imported trees, stone masonry, or bargain basement mascots like Marvin the Mango or Stubby Squirrel, even better. For my voyage, I chose Rhode Island’s Warwick Mall, just a few fathoms south of Providence. At 1,000,000 square feet in size, boasting more than 80 stores and restaurants, this place would offer me plenty to work with.
I entered the mall—like one often does—through the Macy’s. The first 5 minutes of my hike were spent trying to locate the interior doorway to the rest of the shopping center. Colorful signs on posts announcing that a new Toys R’ Us had just opened on Level 2 got me striding in the proper direction. Before long, I was standing in one of several corridors of material temptation. Twinkly wreaths hung from the ceiling. Thoughtfully placed benches were garnished with fat leafy plants, which may or may not have been made of plastic. I should also add that unlike hardcore Mall Stars, I did not arrive as the doors opened. I started my mall hike at peak shopping hours on a Sunday. Oops.
After consulting one of those freestanding mall directories—in the same way that you would check a kiosk at a backcountry trailhead—I made my plan. I would complete a full circuit of the mall’s ground level before heading outside and casing the exterior of the place. With my backpack chest straps clipped together, I set off, dodging families with strollers and already starting to sweat under the insulated weight of my parka. I studied those innocuous plants that appeared throughout the mall, trying to snap a detailed photo of their broad leaves without freaking out any patrons sitting nearby.
Halfway through the circuit, I felt a mild shock of sctiatica in my right buttock: a sign that I had been neglecting to stretch my chronically tight hamstrings for the last few days. I took a seat on an artificial rock near Santa’s Village and straightened my leg, only to see something even more alluring just a few yards ahead: massage chairs! These things had always struck me as superfluous to a mall experience when I was only at the mall to buy stuff. But now, midway through a mall hike, I was ready for a mechanical rubdown. So I squeezed into one of the chairs, fed a crumpled dollar bill into the slot, and closed my eyes as the chair came alive and kneaded my tissues.
I resumed my mall hike with a newfound sense of elasticity, poking into a toy store to scope out the latest offerings from Lego (I was particularly taken with the 569-piece Downtown Noodle Shop set) before pushing onward and closing the loop back at the Macy’s entrance. Now it was time for Part 2: the mall exterior. I exited through a set of automated doors and walked past a surprisingly nice row of birch trees with yellowy leaves, bracing for the December wind as I approached the Spartacus-size parking lot. For the next half hour, I dutifully stalked the perimeter of the mall, encountering sliding doors, loading docks, and fragrant dumpsters. But the great surprise of my mall hike revealed itself steps away from the ass-end of a Buffalo Wild Wings. Through a row of trees, a vast blue waterway rippled through this hellscape of development. I was staring at the Pawtuxet River, which flows south and empties into Narragansett Bay.
In a moment like this, you have two choices. You can scream at the sky and lament how a natural waterway has been choked by highways and malls. Or you can blow a kiss to the running water and walk away with a sense of gratitude for its resiliency. I chose the latter, having sincerely committed to appreciating the environments of the Warwick Mall. And as I closed the exterior loop, I knew it was time for the third and final stage of my hike—visiting the food court. I had put in the steps and now it was time to take advantage of edible “trailside” amenities that you can only find at a mall.
While the food court was hardly lacking in crispy, gooey possibilities, I was crushed to find that Dippin’ Dots—the reward I had been craving—were nowhere to be found. I toyed with ponying up for an Auntie Annie’s pretzel but in the end, I joined the queue for a Honeydew Donuts and asked for the most sprinkly pastry I could buy. But this turned out to be a good choice. Because less than 3 yards from the joint were a pair of topiary creatures—horses, I think—who appeared to be the guardians of the food court. If this had been a backcountry hike, I would have been fiercely protecting my donut, mindful of the birds and chipmunks. But here, I offered my donut as a tribute.
About 10 seconds after I snapped the photo above, I felt the sudden, physical urge to evacuate from the Warwick Mall and flee to a place with real trees and grass. A mall hike is an exercise in creativity, absurdity, and desperation. It’s what you do when you need to go for a walk and the sidewalks are glazed in ice. You get into your car or you climb aboard the nearest mall-bound bus, and you stroll through a climate-controlled space, tricking your brain into thinking you’re going for a hike. And inevitably, there’s a point where the reality sets in, the illusion collapses, and you have to get the fuck out.
But as I pivoted for the exit, I spotted a sign by the food court that warmed my heart.
Here it was—a clear affirmation that people had been reclaiming the Warwick Mall for something other than enriching corporations and acquiring more stuff that will likely end up in landfills. The Mall Stars had already been here, long before my first mall hike. perhaps some of them were sauntering among the crowds that day. If nothing else, the rise of mall walking in the modern age is a testament to the human need for mobility and our indomitable way of coming up with new ideas for where walking can happen. As I fled across the vast parking lot, passing the Pawtuxet River once again, I couldn’t help but hear the notes of James Horner’s score for Legends of the Falls, that gorgeously horny melodrama set in the Montana wilderness during the early 1900s, in which three brothers find themselves falling for Julia Ormond. Wherever we end up, we somehow manage to bring our desires with us. And the malls are no exception.
This past week, I joined Darryl C. Murphy, host of WBUR’s The Common podcast, to talk about some banger winter hikes you can take in Greater Boston. And the best part? Nearly all of them are accessible via the MBTA! You can listen to our chat here.
Continuing the previously-explored subject of movies that have a wonderful sense of atmosphere—movies that really take you places, just like a hike does—I have to put in a good word for Luca Guadagnino’s Bones And All, a cannibal love story with Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet. If “cannibal love story” stopped you dead in your tracks, then skip it. But if not, then I encourage you to check it out with an open mind and an empty stomach. It spirited me away into its unique, vividly realized world.