Re: [at-l] Trail Fest and an Adventure

[ThatSloetoe <sloetoe@yahoo.com>]

--- DaRedhead@aol.com wrote:
> Toney, Cassy and I decided to hike up to Lovers Leap.  Someone told us
> there was a short blue blazed trail up to it, so we decided to take it. 
Somehow we lost it - and suddenly the trail was MUCH steeper than any trail
should be.
 So, to sum it all up - Cassy thinks she had the grandest 
> adventure ever, and proudly proclaimed (to the amusement of two hikers) at 
> the top of the mountain that "I'm a great little hiker and climber!"  When
> we came back down and were walking across the bridge towards the
campground, I looked back in amazement at where we had been, and what we
travelled over
> to get there. 

Some Quick Thoughts from That Sloetoe.....
1) As I recall, the rock of Lover's Leap is like much of the Smokies -- very
ancient, broken, weathered, unreliable for holds or friction or anything.
This would rightfully put a scare into anybody.

2) Wait a week before you come to any conclusions, though. If, at the end of
a week, you tell this story with growing humor, then you can be confident
that the next time you're in this situation, the humor, the *fun*, AND the
confidence and common sense which come from experience will be there. If, at
the end of a week, it grows in whoa-scarry and foreboding, then you might
take some comfort in knowing that most probably there won't BE a next time,
as you'll know your way out sooner given this experience...(Well, yes, IMHO &
YMMV and all of that...)

3) Children's climbing ability is related to their ability to map a path
through obsticles, which is related to their ability to hold the entire piece
of terrain (even "vertical" terrain) in their heads, and follow a given
direction around one obsticle after another, making links. Cognitively, this
is also how we humans read. It's the neatest thing, but good climbers *tend*
to become good readers/thinkers. Congratulations on giving Cassy a healthy
dose of "Surmounting Obsticles 101". Cool.





=====
Sloetoe


"And yet we shouldn't have needed the cataclysm to love life
today. It would have been enough to think that we are humans,
and that death may come this evening."   Marcel Proust, 1922.

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