With the exception of a few Montana ranchers and West Texas old timers, cowboys are a thing of the past. The solitary figure drifting from town to town, riding the open range has come to be confined to big screens and book pages. But that free and boundless lifestyle hasn’t vanished completely. The migrating outdoor recreational enthusiast, a.k.a. a dirtbag, embraces that rambling lifestyle. There’s no clear-cut connotation for the term dirtbag. Some admire and celebrate the title while others use it grudgingly. Regardless of how the word is viewed, dirtbags encapsulate the cowboy spirit. They’ve just replaced the spurs with car keys.
When you think about cowboys (maybe the romanticized silver screen depiction) you think of a travel and adventure. Cowboys were true minimalists carrying their belongings, the necessities, on horseback with them everywhere they went. They rejected the idea of a homestead and thrived on experiences. Journeys to new locations and sleeping under the stars were their status quo.
Dirtbags are the closest thing we get to modern day cowboys. They’re not roping cattle, having pistol duels at high noon, or robbing trains, but they are taking up the reins and embracing cowboy ideology.
They travel with what they need: trad racks, mountain bikes, hiking boots, and fly rods, and they are living life through and for experiences. The comfort of a bed is outweighed by a thirst for adventure and a desire to see natural beauty. The idea of being a weekend warrior doesn’t fulfill their need to be on rock faces, in national parks, and sleeping under the stars.
By looking back at cowboys, we are removed from the reality of them. We view them through the scope of history books, movies, paintings, and songs. All that’s left is a larger than life representation of freedom and adventure. But during their time cowboys weren’t viewed in the way they are viewed today. They were societal outcasts living outside norms. Cowboys were viewed as wild, uncouth, outlaws who operated outside of conventional norms. That’s kind of how dirtbags are viewed today if you water it down a little bit.
Maybe a few decades from now dirtbags will grace the big screen and have stories written about their adventures. Maybe they will be romanticized in the same way that cowboys have been romanticized. It would be pretty great to see a storybook ending with a rugged, adventure-hungry dirtbag driving into the sunset.
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