[pct-l] slow hiking

[reynolds@iLAN.com (Reynolds, WT)]

Am I to assume from this discussion girls, that all men are in peak physical
condition and look like models and only women suffer from this hateful,
male-dominated, view of the outdoor advertising business ...... or are you
just becoming ultra feminists?

Did you read the golight vs heavyweight artical in backpacker. Did you dig
the hike they did? I got all that gear but that hike would kill me. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Christine Kudija [mailto:cmkudija@earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 2:10 PM
To: JoAnn M Michael; pct-l@backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [pct-l] slow hiking


Okay, guys, the following contains female ranting for the sake of ranting to
sympathetic ears/eyes, and you don't have to read it if you don't want to.
Related to the list?  Sure - it has to do with the manner in which we hike,
appreciate Nature, and overcome our less-than-perfect or youthful bods in
order to be out in Creation.  (hmmm....let's see what flames I get from
THIS.)

JoAnn - your request for "some discussion about those of us (I'm not alone,
am I?) who are over weight and not in the best of physical condition . . .
it gets real boring seeing all those super thin women backpackers in
commercials and advertising.  Not all people who enjoy/love the out-of-doors
are in top shape doing 15 to 20 mpd"  certainly "weighs" in with me!!!!!
I'm somewhere in the middle between fast and slow, depending on whether I'm
going up or down hill, trail or cross country, and constantly fight the
battle of creeping pounds, trashed knees, asthma, chronic epstein-barr
virus, and strabismus (lazy eye = no depth perception nor binocular vision).

I try not to look at the women "backpackers" in magazines b/c (1) they're
FAR too clean, (2) they're probably not backpackers anyway, just models who
aren't in the top 8, and (3) they get paid to LOOK the way they do.  The
rest of us (who get paid, anyway) get paid to do something other than look
pretty in a backpack.   It's the "models" who DO spend their lives guiding,
climbing, rafting, kayaking, running - that I get insanely jealous of.   Why
don't I do those things?  B/c I've made other life choices, that's why,
which are commensurate with my other abilities.    I rejoice (sometimes,
when I can get over being jealous) with those who CAN fly along the trail,
pacing their personal cheetahs, because I know what exhilaration feels like.
My personal version of exhilaration occurs simply at a slower pace.

I feel a personal drought when away from the high Sierra for too long.  On
returning I am revived and refreshed - and only burdened when it's time to
go back to the city.

What is important, imVho <G>, is that we continue to be out there, not only
for ourselves but for all the other women - the majority of us - who think
they're too fat, too out-of-shape, too ill, too tired, too arthritic, too
old to enjoy even a moment on the Trail - or heaven help us, to don a pack
and put one foot in front of another and see where their feet take them.

FWIW,

Christine


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