[pct-l] Older Hikers--Louis Lamour quote

[mkwart at gci.net]

I don't know why it's so hard to slow down hiking. I am determined to 
pursue it, though. Mindfulness as a concept is an important tool to do 
that. There is a book called "The Mindful Hiker" that deals with this. 
But I still get caught up in gaging the success of my hiking day in 
number of miles traversed. Everyone is doing everything faster and it's 
a hard trend to buck. especially since many people are young that are 
getting into long distance hiking and they will naturally go faster and 
be stronger. The only thing stopping me from going long distances in the 
70's was a 65 pound pack. Now If i was getting into backpacking things 
would be a lot lighter.

I was a graduate student at the University of Fairbanks in Cross 
Cultural Studies, basically Native Studies. One of the books we had to 
read for a traditional knowledge class was titled, "The Earth is Faster 
Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic environmental Change". No longer 
can traditional knowledge predict weather and environmental changes like 
it could in the past. Everything IS faster now--and we are reacting to 
that fact. I, for one, would like to slow down, but how do you do it 
when caught in the maelstrom of confusion that is our present society?

My last hike on the Arizona Trail brought the issue to a forefront for 
me--I was hiking more but enjoying it less. I was like a barn soured 
horse heading for camp at the end of the day. I don't know the answer, 
but I am going to try to hike slower. We need a movement in hiking like 
the Slow Food movement.

--Fireweed