Thursday, March 31, 2011

What is a hiker?

Somewhere between tourist and explorer there occurs in human development a stage which is physically and psychosocially impossible. It is that unfathomable stage known as the hiker. A creature of undefined by psychologists, misunderstood by park rangers, either admired or doubted by tourists, and unheard of by the rest of society.

A hiker is a rare combination of doctor, lawyer, Indian and chief. She is a competent woods person with her copy of Desert Solitaire as proof. He is the example of manhood in worn-out hiking boots, a sweatshirt two sizes too large and a hat two sizes too small. She is a humorist in a crisis, a doctor in an emergency, a trailblazer, backpacking stove tender, and song leader. He is a comforter in a leaky tube tent on a cold night and a pal who has just loaned someone his last pair of dry socks.

A hiker dislikes 5:00 AM alarm clocks, waiting in line, taking the car to the mechanic (and being asked, “You drove it WHERE?”), and proofreading reports. She is fond of sunbathing in the Grand Canyon, exploring, rock climbing, a 1965 pick-up truck, and weekends. He is a dynamo on weekend hikes, exhausted the next Monday, but recuperated in time for the need weekend. She is good at finding lost trails, downhill hikes, and chasing scorpions out of sleeping bags. He is poor at crawling out of a sleeping bag on raining mornings, remembering salt, and getting to bed early. She is a lover of the out-of-doors, knee-deep in poison ivy.

Who but he can carry a wet sleeping bag, play sixteen games of Uno in succession, carry two packs, whistle “A Fistful of Dollars” through his fingers, speak pig Latin in Spanish, stand on his hands, sing 37 verses of Ging Gang Goolie, and eat four helpings of dinner.

She is expected to hike 25 miles in a weekend when during the week all the walking she does is from the car to the elevator. He is expected to take a 1989 VW over a jeep trail. He is expected to ride for 300 miles sharing the back of a panel truck with 16 other people and 23 packs. She is expected to hike energetically when all she has had to eat are pop tarts, rice and chicken soup, roll-ups made with stale tortillas and beef jerky, and 3 melted chocolate bars. He is expected to sleep warmly in the mountains in a sleeping bag so thin you can see the stars through it.

For all this, she gets blisters, a beat-up pack, sprained ankles, twisted knees, a sunburn on her nose, and a bad cold. All for the glory of seeing a place that the tourists never go. You wonder how he can stand the pace. You wonder why she doesn’t quit all the nonsense and press on to higher things. But on Saturday morning when the hiking group gathers in the parking lot to brandish road directions and trail maps, you know why.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Recently SUV (stupid useless vehicle) clubs have been complaining that there aren't enough off-road sites for them. Apparently the 2 percent of our public lands which are preserved as Wilderness are too much. Notwithstanding the fact that that is about the same amount of land under pavement.

Anyhow, the cry of the month is "access". Access for all who don't want to walk, primarily. And I just want to say that I couldn't agree more.

If hiking trails are too narrow for those poor 4X4'ers, then by all means they should be widened to accommodate those mistreated dusty little souls with their accompanying ice chests full of cold beer. Of course, not everyone can afford a 4X4, so then we'd have to smooth the road enough to accept a high clearance vehicle, like a VW bug. On the other hand, not everyone wants that kind of car, either, so we'd have to grade the roads to accept a passenger car.

Now we have a problem with car owners who don't have a powerful enough engine to chug up and down a steep grade, so bring on the bulldozers and blasters and keep those road grades to less than 10 percent. Then there are those who don't want to get the car dusty, a notable goal. So we have to pave the road.

Now we have those who don't want to spend that long of a time on the road, so we shall put in hotels and cafes for their convenience. And if they don't want to suffer that long of a drive, we'll sell the land to developers and they can put in their second houses and enjoy the Wilderness for as long as they want in comfort.

Of course by this time, the entire United States looks a lot like downtown Los Angeles. Not to worry: frustrated hikers can go north to Western Canada, where the mountains are really too rugged for a lot of road building. But then the poor SUV's are left out again, so we'll just have to widen those trails...

On the other hand, wouldn't it be cheaper and, in the long run, more accommodating for all to say that cars can drive on the pavement, SUVs can drive on the dirt roads, and hikers can hike everywhere else? And if any SUV person really, really wants to see the middle of a Wilderness area or a National park, they could lower their standards enough to walk.

They can even bring along a six pack of beer, if they promise to carry out the cans.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Don't ask of your friends what you yourself can do.
- Quintus Ennius

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Clean up your own mess. Your mother doesn’t live here.
-Anonymous

The Brotherhood of the Rope demands that hikers and climbers take care of their own. Or themselves. When a fellow traveler is injured, dehydrated, blistered, burned or otherwise dehabilitated, they get them out without resorting to outside forces such as the Park Service or Search and Rescue.

The Brotherhood has frayed a bit in years past. With the advent of cell phones, GPS, and the nanny state too many hikers, climbers, and even mountaineers on the world’s most challenging peaks have begun stepping over their dying comrade to make the summit, then when they are safely back, placing a casual call to 911.

Add to that the increasing number of “ego climbers” who find themselves in challenging circumstances without the years of experience which one usually approaches such challenges. Many are the “independent” climbers who boast of their solo status while relying on larger parties’ fixed ropes, medical facilities, and radios. Then when something goes wrong, they berate these expeditions for not risking everything to save them.

In wilderness medicine classes we are taught to improvise for splints, bandages, padding, and whatnot from hiking equipment rather than first aid kits. We are further told to use the victim’s equipment. The reasoning being that, if I use up my clothes or pack or sleeping pad on the affected person, I may become affected myself in the fullness of time. And I shall have used up the equipment needed to keep me safe and sound. Rule number one is, “I’m number one”. Don’t make another victim.

I, of course, can picture someone bleeding profusely and protesting mightily when I cut up his/her $200 technical running shirt to bandage said bleeding. When, in fact, I play the part of victim for a learning scenario, I make myself as malevolent as possible (“Do you know how much I paid for these pants?”). Conversely, I can picture coming to the rescue of one of those minimalist hikers who pride themselves on the lightest pack. The lightest pack means no first aid kit, no spare clothing, no, in point of fact, spare anything. “I need an extra shirt to staunch that spurting artery: too bad you don’t have one”.

Oft am I approached by people who know me (and many who do not) asking for equipment which they require but did not fetch along themselves. “I don’t bring a first aid kit,” one such informed me, “because I know you’ll always have one”.

Often in the desert one espies hikers (usually male) dashing madly into the arid climes with a half-liter of water, a can of soda in one hand, or more often, nothing whatsoever in hand or non-existent pack. On one hike into the Grand Canyon one such scampered past me, a half-empty bottle clutched in one sweaty palm, no pack on his ample back. It was a warmish day: temperatures topped 100 in full sun.

In the course of time, I met a fellow traveler who queried, “I have a philosophical question. Did you see that male who rushed past in such a hurry”

“Oh, yes”.

“Do you think he had enough water?”

“I know he didn’t.”

“So my question is, when he collapses on the trail, do I have to give him some of my water?”

“I refer you to the National Outdoor Leadership School’s Outdoor Medicine curriculum: don’t make another victim”.

She nodded, and we were in accord. If said male collapsed due to testosterone poisoning, we were not going to dehydrate ourselves for his sake.

For the record, we last saw him hiking out. Totally out of water, during the hottest part of the day, but heading the opposite direction as we, so if he did collapse it would not be on our heads to provide hydration.

Self-reliance can be taken to extremes. A close friend on an off-trail route, which I have never and will certainly not now attempt, fell 40 feet when part of the route crumbled under her tenuous tread. Her compatriots hastened to treat her shattered legs (tee shirts and sticks for splints), and then discussed how to get her out. She was all for climbing out herself until her innate good sense reasserted itself. If she could not climb down with two good legs, how was she to climb out with none?

Two fast hikers were dispatched to fetch a helicopter, but once on the rim, it was dismissed. My friend was tossed unceremoniously into the back of a pick-up and driven willy-nilly (four-wheel drive road) back to the city and medical aid. “We don’t need Search and Rescue. We take care of our own”.

Said friend now decries this lack of trust in the powers-that-be, and both of us wonder if her 30-years-after-the-fact arthritis in both feet are at all related to the delay in proper medical care. Not to mention bouncing around in the back of a pick-up whilst navigating a Navajo Reservation dirt road.

Self-reliance requires that I carry in my pack a bottle of water and a bag of nuts, a small first-aid kit and enough clothing to be comfortable if I became injured and had to either haul myself out more slowly than I am accustomed or wait wearily for rescue. No wonder those denizens of the outdoors who dash by with half a can of energy drink come to me when they are injured, or hungry, or cold, or thirsty.

Sometimes I help them out. Sometimes, particularly if they let fly a less than charitable remark on their way past about people who burden themselves with a largish pack, I resort to a less than charitable response. “No hablo inglés”.