[pct-l] Yee gawdz, get ahold of yourselves! Or, smallberries speaks and ...

[Slyatpct@xxxxxxx (Slyatpct@xxxxxxx)]

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In a message dated 1/7/2003 5:15:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Bighummel@aol.com writes:

> I guess that I'm not understanding something.  Mr. Smallberries said in his
> post and recent reply that these are his opinions.  Whether he makes a
> statement under such distinction that sounds like a demand of lecture or
> not,
> it still remains his opinion, does'nt it?
>
>


Yes they are. Do you seriously want me to answer the rest of your questions?

Sly



>
> Sly writes: "Many of your ideas of hiking have long since past, especially
> on
> the
> PCT."
>
> Really Sly?  Which ones?  (by the way Sly, I'm not purposefully singling
> you
> out here, please read my friendly intention as "you ultra-light thru-hiker
> types who think that anyone carrying over 20 pounds, fully loaded, is from
> the 1970's")
>
> Boots?  Surely not, as I have personally witnessed a significant percentage
> of thru-hikers who still prefer boots to trail shoes.
>
> A 3 season tent?  Although the latest craze is to carry a tarp only I have
> similarly witnessed many making or buying 3 season tents for thru-hiking
> the
> PCT for good reasons.
>
> Polarguard and no down?  This has been exhaustively argued here without any
> clear resolution of "best" practice.
>
> A good first aid kit?  You're kidding me, right?
>
> Hmmm, what I think that I'm hearing here is that someone, like myself, has
> stood up and said, "wait a second, there is another way to do this that is
> not as risky as the ultra-light - 30 mile per day fan club is singing" and
> you don't like his tone or his message.  Okay, yep, I've also been guilty
> of
> criticizing ultra-light 30 mile per day as risky and taken similar heat, so
> maybe I'm being a bit sensitive in reverse.
>
> Hike Your Own Hike means that ultra light and 30 mile days is great for
> some
> but there will always be some who choose to hike half that and carry twice
> as
> much weight because that is what they define as their personal "right way
> to
> do it".
>
> In reading of many remote wilderness serious problems and having first hand
> experience in others I find two general "conspiring factors" seem to come
> up,
> over and over;
>
> 1) "Incremental Stupidity"; means that you make a series of minor
> assumptive
> or poor decisions that now have culminated into getting yourself into
> serious
> trouble, (I've done this several times!) and
>
> 2) "Random Intersecting Circumstances"; a number of circumstances that all
> occur at once, that given one at a time, you could handle but together they
> overwhelm either your capabilities and/or your equipment (or lack thereof).
>
> A good hiking strategy, IMHO, should plan for these two "conspiring
> factors".
> Hiking 30 miles in a day and finding that a snow storm is hitting as the
> sun
> is going down, at 10,000 feet in the Sierras, may put you in a situation
> where hiking out is not a option.  What then?  Will you have enough energy
> to
> fight the winds to put up your tarp in the driving snow and will it stand
> up
> under the weight? What if you wake up to 2.5 feet of snow the next morning?
> Don't say it doesn't happen.  It does in the Sierra late in the Spring and
> it
> does in the Nth Cascades in early Fall, some years, not all.
>
> IMHO, HYOH, YMMV, do not take as a flame or criticism of any one's
> intentions, intelligence or correctness,
>
> From Sth California, where El Nino is in full swing, it is 80 degrees, the
> wind is gusting between 30 and 60 mph and the ski industry is beginning to
> whine after a few good early storms are melting off fast.
>
>