[at-l] A HYOH opinion

[jmayer@rochester.rr.com (Jim Mayer)]

Last weekend another fellow and I did a round trip of the Black Forrest
Trail in Pennsylvania.  We drove down Thursday night and hiked Friday
through Sunday.  Our mileage was roughly 17, 13, and 13 which was pretty
good given that I, at least, am hardly in thru hiker condition!

For the 17 mile day, we just got up early and had a relaxed hike.  We woke
up (without an alarm) at around 5:30, started hiking at 6:30, and finished
around 5:00.  We took breaks about every 45 minutes to an hour (and whenever
there was a good view or the blueberries got too thick :-) ), and even snuck
in a half hour nap at one point.

When we reached camp at 5:00 I could easily have done the stealth camping
thing of eating dinner then hiking on another couple of hours.

Anyway, my point is that beyond the libertarian "HYOH" philosophy (i.e. my
hike is my hike until it hurts anyone else), how far you travel in a day has
a lot more to do with how long you hike than how fast you hike.

-- Jim

P.S. To head off any legalistic HYOH philosophy, I view hurting the trail
itself as hurting all future hikers, and therefore covered by the "anyone
else" "clause" :-)

----- Original Message -----
From: <DaRedhead@aol.com>
To: <at-l@backcountry.net>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 11:03 PM
Subject: [at-l] A HYOH opinion


> From a '99 AT thruhiker and a current PCT hiker
SNIP
>
> "We stop to talk to many of the people we pass. Not all of them, but many
of
> them. ALWAYS, we are asked how many miles we hike each day. Our response:
> 20-25 miles. ALMOST ALWAYS, the people we're talking with tell us that
we're
> going too fast, that there's no way we can enjoy the scenery, the
wilderness,
> the experience if we're running down the trail.
>
> To those people, I say HIKE YOUR OWN HIKE.

SNIP