[pct-l] Re: History of Ultralight (was: new resource for homemade

[CMountainDave at aol.com (CMountainDave@xxxxxxx)]

In a message dated 6/17/03 2:16:50 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
stillroaming@lycos.com writes:

<< 
 Why some of you folks berate him for sharing his
 experience is beyond me. Troll? Petty jealously? 
 Reliving the glory days?
  >>
I'm not berating him. It's just that the impression is given that anyone who 
hiked in the "old" days was doing it wrong.  Iterating again, most of us were 
into lightening our loads long before his book was written. New materials 
certainly helped. Fleece is much lighter than wool for instance. He just put a 
book together about it, that's all. It's like the younger generation of 
backpackers are trying to take credit for something they didn't really do and see Ray's 
Way as the perfect opportunity to reject mom and dad's "music" and stake 
their own claim to fame. Nothing wrong with that, but let's call it what it is. 
Sure, there were plenty of coneheaded baby boomers trying to reason that 50 to 
60 pound loads were the norm, but as examples given have shown, lightening 
loads was nothing new. Probably boy scout masters were the main impetus behind 
heavy loads, reasoning (and adventurerizing to an extent) that there was a 
disaster waiting around every bend of the trail if you weren't prepared for any 
possibility. And managers of public land didn't help any by agreeing with them and 
advertising it for fear of lawsuits in the "sue em" age. Yeah Ray pointed out 
that the King had no clothes, I will give him credit for that!
    If there is any petty jealousy involved its that he made a whole bunch of 
money stating the obvious, at least to some of us 'Old timers"
 
  P.S.What rascals old Colter and Bridger were by ignoring the axiom that one 
should never hike alone when the danger was indeed quite severe. And can you 
picture them in shorts and sneakers? Now there's hilarity for you