[KenWittlief]

ok, how long can a post be?

When I was in college I started going backpacking every June. One trip was a 100 mile loop through the Allegany National Forrest in NE PA. 10 day trip. Went with a close friend. First day our packs weighed 60 lbs each, and we stopped every 40 minutes or so and collapsed.

Your first night out, when it starts getting dark everything is dead quiet and this panic comes over you. You start thinking "This is stupid, if we pack up now we can make it back to the car by midnight" but its too late to leave. Strangely the next morning you feel right at home in the wilderness. I think its something eveyone should do, it changes your whole perspective on life.

The last day we were out we could not find water along the trail all morning. By noon we were getting pretty thirsty, and there was a good size stream we were due to cross. For some strange reason I had a sudden craving for beer, which is weird cause I dont really like beer. We come across the stream, and sitting on a rock, right in the middle, with water flowing half around it, is a can of beer! The sun was shining down through the trees, like a spot light, on the can of beer. We just stood there in disbelief, and yelled out to see if anyone was around. it was like someone was filming a commercial.

My friend gets an idea, and runs downstream a bit, and finds another can. Someone must have put them in the stream to cool, and left them.

So we are both standing there, still with our packs on (now mostly empty), when we hear this clamor coming up the trail from the other direction. We start thinking (ut oh!).

These 6 college kids come up to the stream, drenched in sweat, drop their packs, and start drinking from the stream. they barely noticed us at first. Then they started asking us:

How long have you been out here? ten days
How far did you hike? about 100 miles

they had started out that morning, only a few miles down the trail. After a long pause, one finally asked, "Where did you get the beer?!"

I looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Didnt you guys bring any beer?"

He shook his head and said "you got any more?"

I finished the can, crushed it in my hand, and said "Sorry, last one!"

You had to see us to fully appreciate, we were in great shape after 100 miles, we still had our packs on, standing there with our worn hiking staffs. They stared at us with their mouths open, like they were in the presence of some sort of Lumber-Jack Gods.

The other thing I really love to do now is sailing. There is a mystical quality when you pull in the main sail and the vessel accelerates silently through the water. Everytime you sail the conditions are different. I have been out in 8 foot whitecaps, where I could just barely keep the boat under control, and I have been in the bay in 2mph winds, where my HobieCat slid across the glassy water like a hot air ballon drifting through the sky.

And trapping out, where you are hooked into a harness that runs to the top of the mast, and you stand on the outside of the windward hull of the catamaran, leaning back sideways. when the hull lifts up out of the water you dont think about ANYTHING else but the next wave you are about to crash through, and the subtle changes of the wind on your face, as you instinctively work the tiller and mainsail to keep the boat up on one hull, flying along at 20mph.

Its something everyone should be required to do, at least once.