The apologists here at Catholic Answers have gotten this question quite a bit over the years. When I first started answering it, I gave the standard answer that if someone truly is unable to get to a church for Mass on a Sunday or holy day of obligation, he has just reason to miss Mass. Then I started noticing the great frequency of the question and all its various forms: What if I’m camping? What if I’m on a cruise? What if I’m in an unfamiliar city? What if there are non-Catholics who I don’t want to inconvenience? What if I’m on a business trip? What if I’m in China, Turkey, or Greece? And so on, and so forth. After a while it occurred to me that either there are a great many otherwise responsible, capable adults who are inexplicably incapable of planning ahead, using a map, finding public transportation, stating their needs, etc., OR there are a lot of Catholics who search for excuses not to go to Mass once a week and on a handful of additional days each year.
I don’t know where you are planning to hike, but I decided to check to see just how difficult it is to find Catholic churches in popular hiking areas. It took me less than a minute to find a Catholic church in Yosemite by typing “Catholic church in Yosemite” into
Google. It took me less than another minute to pull up the web site for
Our Lady of the Snows Parish in Yosemite that includes Mass schedules at two locations within the park. Googling “Catholic church in Yellowstone” brought up
a page of Catholic services in the Yellowstone area. Other possibilities for information include calling the Catholic diocese in the area in which you plan to hike.
My point here is that it is Not That Hard to find Masses in popular hiking areas. All it takes is a determination to do one’s best to find a Mass that can be added to one’s travel schedule. If, and only if, you do your best and come up empty after diligent research (made all the more simple and convenient for travelers by the advent of the Internet), then and only then do you have just reason to miss Mass on a Sunday or holy day of obligation while traveling.
