Re[2]: [at-l] Spouses who hike together/do singles want hikers for partners?

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob Cummings)]

I grew up in a hiking and camping family. My mother had six kids, all of whom were living in a tent
before the age of one. I was born in May, camping that June.

During the depression years (1929-1941 for you youngsters) my mother would load an army surplus tent
(WW I vintage) into our car and head for the White Mountains to camp for two months in the shadow of
the presidential range. My Dad would come up on weekends.

The cycle stopped temporarily during World War II when my Mom went to work in a shipyard as a
machinist, but continued later until she was well into her 80s. Dad never particularly enjoyed
camping but went along anyway.

When I married 40 years ago, my wife announced shortly after the ceremony that she wasn't "going to
lower myself to sleeping on the ground." Me being of a persuasive sort, she gradually changed her mind.
We began backpacking when I tired of loading our station wagon to the gills -- the surplus tied
four feet high on the roof. I wanted to show my wife and the three kids how little was really needed
for a weekend.

My youngest was at Chimney Pond, half way to the summit of Katahdin in June the year he was three in
March, walking all the way. His oldest sibling was seven at the time. We waited until he was five to
summit,  raising the ire of rangers who
said you had to be six. Our bedtime stories all winter had talked about "this year you will be big
enough to climb the mountain." But the rules had changed during the winter. I didn't have the heart
to tell him he couldn't climb after all.

I did all of the AT in Maine with the three kids before they reached the age of 12, mostly on
weekend and week long section hikes.

So what about now? I'm the only one still hiking.

Weary