[pct-l] MUIR HUT INCIDENT

[Reinhold Metzger]

In response to some recent chatter about the Muir hut:

I have been at the Muir hut at least a dozen times and always admired it's
beauty and architecture and told myself I have to sleep in it someday, but
never did.
Three or four years ago I arrived at the Muir pass shortly before nightfall,
it was raining and cold, and decided that would be night for me to sleep in
the Muir hut.
There were a dozen or so hikers, about equally divided among the sexes,
inside fully intending  to weather-out a rainy crowded night in the Muir
hut.
After a few minutes of chatting, being the comedian that I am, I
said.......''THE  WAY  I  SEE  IT  THERE  IS  ROOM  FOR  ME  AND  THE  WOMEN
IN  THE  HUT.........THE  REST  OF  YOU  GUYS  HAVE  TO  SLEEP
OUTSIDE''.........The girls giggled, the guys just stared at me in a hostile
way so I decided it might be best if I just went on my way.
So, I never got to sleep in the Muir hut and never quite understood why the
guys were so hostile and unfriendly.
It seems to me that I read some where hikers fiercely protect and resist
sharing, with other hikers, their food an their women, which could explain
the men's hostility towards me.
In retrospect my decision not to sleep in the hut that night probably spared
me severe bodily harm.

JMT Reinhold