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[pct-l] Slightly tongue-in-cheek, some lesser hazards.



LOL! 

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces@mailman.backcountry.net
[mailto:pct-l-bounces@mailman.backcountry.net] On Behalf Of Corky Corcoran
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 8:20 PM
To: pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] Slightly tongue-in-cheek, some lesser hazards.

While there are a few things that do frighten me, trying to compare 
the warnings about cougars, mountain lions, bears, ticks, spiders, 
more cougars and bears, and then wolves with the number of folks I 
know of who have been killed or seriously injured while hiking the 
PCT is frustrating.  I'm not all that knowledgeable, but considering 
the people-days it looks as if it's pretty safe.

Bear repellent may or may not work, but it looks heavy.  And I have a 
tactic which has always worked.  I grovel and cry, wheedle and plead 
as I back up slowly, in a vertical convulsion which makes me appear 
very large.  As for bugs, I suspect that by the time I scattered or 
sprayed insecticide all over, and then slept, I'd do myself more 
damage than the occasional 6 or 8 legged thing.  As well as incur the 
wrath and possible hostility of the purist who saw me.  I suppose I 
could call it "Hindu resting powder", blessed by the Swami 
Andorandorandor.  A suspicious purist, though, is not a pretty 
sight.  Even normally they aren't very pretty, as a rule.

However, a few hazards were left off.  Trees.  They fall.  No one 
seems to have bothered to warn us about that.  Trees are very common 
along some stretches of the PCT.  I'm not worried about the ones in 
the daytime, they go rather slowly and with some warning.  But at 
night.  And branches.  The dead ones are "crack and hit"  before you 
can even think of the 23rd Psalm.  Widow-makers those are called.  I 
do feel a bit safer because I'm not married anymore, but I'm not sure 
if they are aware of that.

And people.  The thing that really scares me on the trail is people 
with vehicles.  I don't trust 'em.  And hunters.  If there's a gun in 
the neighborhood, I'd rather have it but they are so damned 
heavy.  And I'm not about to shoot anything.  But still.

So, I'll take my chances with the cats, dogs, bears and bugs.  It's 
the trees swaying in the wind at night that scare me.  And  the homo 
marginally sapiens looking for some mammal to blow the hell out 
of.    Scares the bejesus out of me.

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