Materializing tensions: How maps and trails mediate nature

Before visitors to national parks take their first steps of a hike, maps shape their perceptions of nature. Additionally, on the trail, the landscapes organize visitors' experiences by concealing and revealing the trail itself. Focusing on one Zion National Park hiking trail, Hidden Canyon, as a rhetorical artifact, I argue that maps and trails materialize tensions of access-preservation and safety-risk, functioning as mediators between recreators and nature. My analysis employs the concept of landscape to connect maps and trails with our understanding of nature, foregrounding the consequences of material rhetoric in environmental communication.