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

[charles@uswnet.com (Charles Copeland)]

My wife doesn't hike but thanks to my two sons, she's now been on a couple
of day hikes and enjoyed them.  It has been my boys that have been the
biggest and happiest surprise.  I have always hiked either alone or with a
screaming horde of Boy Scouts.  My sons (10 and 12) *love* hiking and now
nag me to take them to a trail (they are really twisting my arm - OW!).

They have also convinced "mom" to go along and who knows, maybe she'll join
us for longer ones (she has to overcome her fear of camping alone in the
woods).  Now I look forward to my hikes with them and enjoy watching their
appreciation and wonder of the wilderness grow.

Charles




> From: Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net>
> Reply-To: Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net>
> Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 09:01:44 -0400
> To: at-l@mailman.backcountry.net
> Subject: Re[2]: [at-l] Spouses who hike together/do singles want hikers for
> partners?
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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