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[at-l] And now, a scenic break....
With all dew (and misty) respect to the eminent Mr. Toe, whose wisdom and passion for the Trail usually makes me stand up and cheer, I've got to say that this one made me want to sit down.
I would never argue that runners see less, or experience the Trail in a less fulfilling way than the average slow-packer, but I think that misses the point.
The example of seeing wildlife before it sees you, and backpackers before they see you, points up the precise problem: the same could be said for sports car enthusiast flying along a narrow country road, or a fat-tire mountain biker pounding down a trail with a Mountain Dew in his teeth. It's great for him, but what about the possum in the the path?
I see more hawks along the interstate highway than I do when I'm on the A.T. because on the Trail they see me first, and make themselves scarce. On the highway, though, wildlife doesn't have time to react before you're there next to it (or on top of it), and due to your pace may not even recognize you as another animal at all. As a slow-packer, creeping turtle-like across the landscape under my Cordura shell, when someone bursts along the path behind me at a runner's pace I feel a lot like the startled deer or bear. It breaks the spell. It makes me look over my shoulder. It pulls me out of my trance.
Is there anything inherently wrong with it? I guess not. Would I want to deny the Trail to the runners? No. But do I like it? No.
One of the things I like best about hiking is how the world slows down to a walker's pace when I do it. The A.T. is pretty crowded, as trails go, but one of the things that makes it bearable is that typically most of the hikers in a crowded time are going the same direction, at about the same pace, and thus it doesn't feel crowded. There's an illusion of wilderness and solitude. I suppose if Trail running on the A.T. became more common than it is, and I encountered runners constantly overtaking me during a hike, breaking the illusion repeatedly and making the Trail seem more like a par course than a wilderness path, I'd start looking for other, less traveled paths to walk. It's not a terrible problem now, really, but I'll never be one to encourage trail-runners because I believe that a rapid pace, of any sort, is inherently foreign to the experience I value most while in the woods.
The quote from Mr. Loomis suggests to me that when he runs he looks inward, seeking himself. A fine pursuit, that. I only hope that in doing so he doesn't force me to look over my shoulder to keep from being startled by his pace, so foreign to my own.
--Rhymin' Worm
Sloetoe <sloetoe@yahoo.com> wrote:
> from the at-l archives of November, 1998, we havehttp://www.backcountry.net/arch/at/9811/msg00733.html
"I have found many friends and more importantly myself on the trail, and I will continue to log the miles not to fill a training log or to lower my times, but to find again each day the man I worked so hard to create the day before." Greg Loomis, Ultrarunner 4/15/01
Read this little piece (authored by an Olympian marathoner) before you
opine again about trail running, and *maybe* you might not come off
looking so badly ignorant, bigoted, and backward.
I challenge *anyone* who's run trail to tell me that trail runners "see"
less than hikers. Over the weekend, I ran in to Damascus from VA603, over
Grayson Highlands, Mt. Rogers, Elk Garden, Whitetop, etc. In just this
recent experience, I saw more wild flowers, spooked more wildlife,
*smelled* the differences in the landscape as I rose and fell through the
different biomes, and as just one more measure of difference, *always* saw
the backpackers, dayhikers, and maintainers I met *long* before they were
aware of me. And trail runners notice *less*? Pathetic ignorance,
knee-jerk bigotry, and avoidably backward.
And as far as rudeness goes, I can tell you stories about backpackers who
were rude to me as a runner -- plenty of 'em. Yet somehow I fail to see
all backpackers as rude -- perhaps because I know rudeness has nothing to
do with the pace of one's traverse.
And notice I said "pace" and not "speed." Speed seems a term bent to the
pejorative in hiking circles, like someone's bounced into your personal
temple and said "Yeah, yeah, Rev, can we hurry it up?" And the anti-speed
consensus seems to be that the absurd, foolish, scenicly insensitive and
socially rude trail runners -- *by*mere*virtue* of their *pace*of*travel
-- cannot possibly absorb or appreciate the natural resource they traverse
as much as can the hiker.
Ohhhhhhhhh bullshit. Do you think that their brains are somehow turned
off, rather than electrified? I can tell you that if I were not 100% into
what I was doing, scanning ahead, scanning from side to side, looking at
changes in the terrain, looking for rocks, roots, trees to vault,
anticipating switchbacks, I'd pretty quick run smack into a tree. And into
that razor focus comes... a perfect cream trillium nestled next to a
full-glory periwinkle mountain laurel -- early spring and late spring
juxtaposed within 12" of each other. Had me shaking my head for a quarter
mile.
But I would never denigrate a saunter -- I'll be engaged in a 3-weeker
soon. I *would* note, however, that trail running, or "mile-making"
backpacking, for that matter, allows you to utilize parts of your short
term memory that go *un*utilized at slower paces, so that you get a
feeling not only of the trees, but of the whole forest through which you
pass; not only a feeling for the slope in front of you, but for the whole
mountain; indeed, not only for the mountain, but perhaps for an entire
range. *This* feeling -- this sensual acquisition -- is too transitory to
be held in one's head when hiking slower, and there's a loss to slower
paces that's huge.
I've throughhiked.
I've sectioned.
I've built and maintained.
I've run.
I am offended to read the rightious comments made in ignorance, especially
about persons who should be seen as "fellow travelors" -- for that's for
sure what the trail runners think of you.
Have a paced day,
Sloetoe
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