Excellent book. Read it when I was in elemental school.Any of you younguns ever read "My Side of the Mountain"? It is a great story for the naturalist/survivalist.
Excellent book. Read it when I was in elemental school.Any of you younguns ever read "My Side of the Mountain"? It is a great story for the naturalist/survivalist.
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Boots that fit well and give support - details will be different for each person, because feet are different. My all-leather Asolo TPS 520 (women's) were expensive but well worth every penny. They are good for day hiking and essential for pack hiking. Good socks, several pair! A lot of people do use the "trail running" shoes seen at REI for non-pack-bearing use on easy (non-rocky) trails, and this seems legitimate to me, because the trail running shoes are 2# lighter than my 3.5# Asolo pack-hiking boots. Wide-brimmed hat in the summer, plus sunglasses - hat does double duty of protecting face and neck from sunburn, and enabling me to see magnified "live view" focusing on small-format camera.
Absolutely. When I backpacked into the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River range a few years ago, for ten days of alpine climbing, my partner and I chose completely different shoes. I wore very light, low-top approach shoes. I know from experience that I can get away with this, and the advantages in weight and comfort make it worth it. My partner was younger than me and in great shape, but knew that his old football injuries meant he needed ankle suport. He wore mountaineering boots. Given the chance to do it over again I think we'd both wear the same things.
For day trips I almost always wear trail running shoes. Even in the winter. A friend who's an ultra runner turned me on to Seal Skinz waterproof/breathable socks, and microspikes (superlight, slip-on crampons for soft shoes) ... they let you go anywhere, and at great speed. Assuming the snow's shallow enough that you don't need skis or snow shoes.
I've done my share of fast light travel in my youth. Now you've got a fad of these trail runners in their sneakers of even traction sandals that GOTTA get from Point
A to Point B or they could be in real trouble. People seem to forget that the Indians had centuries of learning where little caves and so forth were, that they were
genetically matched to the mountains, and had a lot of true technology of their own for getting around. But we don't have any record of how many of them might
have gone hypothermic over the passes. A runner who has just cleared a twelve or thirteen ft pass and then has another one to get over before he can drop down
at the end of the day might have second thoughts stuck out in the open for a night or getting injured. It's their sport, and I pity them for missing so much of the view just to say they covered the distance in so many hours. Muir Trail mentality. But that doesn't match anything a view camera user is going to do anyway. I'd like to see someone run under our circumstances! I'd be thrilled if Quickloads came back.
"Fad of trail runners in their sneakers ..."
What else would you wear when running a trail? And I don't think you can call something a fad after 30 years.
I'm indebted to trail running. I only do it a few times a year for fun and training, but its popularity means there's an endless variety of great shoes to choose from. By far the best hiking shoes I've used.
The fact they're stuck on a trail defines it. But I did it before anyone ever thought of the term, and most of it "off trail". Grew up doing that. Never thought of it as "trail running". We'd charge down canyons thousands of feet deep then grunt our way back out. Ordinary weekend. And I wore real boots. Had to. My feet have always been messed up. Once walked out 35 mi with an 85 lb pack and both ankles sprained. Those boots acted like a cast. But when I took em off, things hurt like hell for the next six weeks. But as kids we also made our own "trail bikes" for getting around before anyone ever heard of that term. The roads were so slow that we had all kinds of shortcuts, sometimes on abandoned logging trails or old narrow-gage RR trails. Couple weeks ago I ran into one of the pioneers who was involved in turning that home-made trail bike thing into the commercial giant it now is - over in Marin, of course, where it all began on Mt Tam.
Ok, your feet are messed up. And my climbing partners ankles are messed up. Lke Nancy and I were saying, it's a completely indivdual choice. No reason to impose your special needs on everyone else.
Nobody's imposing anything. I did have such bad feet that I personally went either barefoot or real boots. Shoes were torture. But what might seem a little uptight
when I say that I won't travel with anyone not wearing real boots and carrying sunglasses and mittens etc, is based on a lot of real-world experience. I always ask
them to bring along two pair of sunglasses, for example. The last guy that didn't listen to that lost his crossing a stream and would have ended up snowblinded on
the hike out, except for the fact I carried a spare myself. Those Oct snowstorms are the worst out here. You get those Indian summers where its blue sky and 70
degrees, then all of a sudden a whole bunch of people trapped in the backcountry cause their feet would freeze if they try to hike out, and rescue crews overextended getting to so many of them. Sometimes they're never seen again until they thaw out the next summer, if even then. Usually fishermen out on a dayhike in shorts and a T-shirt. Sky goes black and a couple feet of snow fall. Difference between fun and death that time of year can just be a little common
sense gear.
Check out this book.
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
by Laurence Gonzales
Drew Bedo
www.quietlightphoto.com
http://www.artsyhome.com/author/drew-bedo
There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!
For me a goal of outdoor activities is to avoid the "survival" situation. If I'm ever forced to cut down a tree, trap a marmot, or eat grubs, I would consider it abject failure.
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