[pct-l] I had to walk 5 miles in the snow to get to school...

[Bighummel@aol.com (Bighummel@aol.com)]

Jeffrey writes:

"Strider's comments can also be looked at as a piece of institutional
history."

Hold on there.  Now I'm institutionalized?  AH!!!!!!!!  I know that I'm 
getting up there, but I had no idea that I had arrived! 

(Jeffrey, I know that your comments were well intentioned and I take no 
offense, the following is not directed at you)

Just because I've been hiking for 35 years does not mean that I still carry a 
60 pound pack and refuse to accept the improvements in equipment that have 
evolved.  I have fully accepted many of the ultra-light ideas and strategies 
and merely held onto the best of what I have from the old days.  Do not 
mistake my fully loaded Kelty Tioga on show at last year's ADZ with all-1977 
era equipment for my current hiking strategy.  It was merely an accumulation 
of nostalgic equipment that I just can not part with.

However, the ONE thing that has not changed in 35 years and WILL NOT change 
in the next 35 years, regardless of the improvements in equipment, 
communication and gizmos, is my wilderness ethic.  I CHOOSE to leave home the 
gadgets and gizmos that remind me of my everyday life as I CHOOSE to go out 
into the wilderness to escape, at least in theory, from those things of 
everyday life. This is my choice and I do not preach that it is superior or 
better or more pure or any other bull shit that has been thrown at my 
previous post.  I am not anal about this in that I am not offended by someone 
who has these gizmos in my hiking party or that I may encounter on a hike.  

Even though I may be able to get the New York Times over a satelite 
connection to my pocketmail at 11,000 feet in the middle of northern 
Yosemite, why in the hell would I want to? 

In line with the ultra-light ethic; I take that equipment that will enable me 
to accomplish my hike, no more.  Each person, I believe, makes that decision 
as to what equipment is necessary for them.  For one person that may mean a 
satelite phone, a barometer, an altimeter and multi-function watch.  To 
another it may mean a photon LED flashlight and a compass.

All I am suggesting is to consider closely what you NEED versus what you 
WANT.  A lot of the equipment that people WANT to bring tends to get shipped 
home or thrown out somewhere around Warner Springs.

I believe strongly in Hike Your Own Hike and refuse to be put in a box of 
"how is was"

Strider