[at-l] HAVE to hike - was hammock camping

[icw39@ncfreedom.net (Clark Wright)]

awesome poem; I reckon I hike and climb because I physically can [and I
need to thank the Good Lord above for that great gift every day!];
because it satisfies something fundamental in my soul; because it allows
me to interact with others in more positive ways than anywhere else;
because it is a feeling of accomplishment; and because it triggers deep
feelings  of returning home . . .  :)

the journey IS the destination!

Thru-Thinking all the way! :)

Jim and/or Ginny Owen wrote:
> 
> DaRedhead@aol.com wrote:
> >How many of you hike because you HAVE to, as opposed to those who hike
> >because they can???
> >
> >Just curious.
> 
> Red -
> Me
> 
> Maybe the following will explain a little -
> 
> Walk softly,
> Jim
> 
> I wanted the gold and I sought it;
> I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
> Was it famine or scurvy – I fought it;
> I hurled my youth into a grave.
> I wanted the gold and I got it –
> Came out with a fortune last fall, -
> Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
> And somehow the gold isn’t all.
> 
> No! There’s that land. (Have you seen it?)
> It’s the cussedest land that I know,
> >From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
> To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
> Some say God was tired when he made it;
> Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
> Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it
> For no land on earth – and I’m one.
> 
> You come to get rich (damned good reason);
> You feel like an exile at first;
> You hate it like hell for a season,
> And then you are worse than the worst.
> It grips you like some kind of sinning;
> It twists you from foe to a friend;
> It seems it’s been since the beginning;
> It seems it will be to the end.
> 
> I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
> That’s plumb full of hush to the brim;
> I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
> In crimson and gold and grow dim,
> Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
> and the stars tumbled out neck and crop;
> And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
> With the peace of the world piled on top.
> 
> The summer – no sweeter was ever;
> The sunshiny woods all athrill;
> The grayling aleap in the river,
> The bighorn asleep on the hill.
> The strong life that never knows harness;
> The wilds where the caribou call;
> The freshness, the freedom, the farness –
> O God! How I’m stuck on it all.
> 
> The winter! The brightness that blinds you,
> The white land locked tight as a drum,
> The cold fear that follows and finds you,
> The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
> The snows that are older than history,
> The woods where the weird shadows slant;
> The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
> I’ve bade ‘em goodbye – but I can’t.
> 
> There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
> And the rivers all run God knows where;
> There are lives that are erring and aimless,
> And deaths that just hang by a hair;
> There are hardships that nobody reckons;
> There are valleys unpeopled and still;
> There’s a land – oh, it beckons and beckons,
> And I want to go back and I will.
> 
> They’re making my money diminish;
> I sick of the taste of champagne.
> Thank God! When I’m skinned to a finish
> I’ll pike to the Yukon again.
> I’ll fight – and you bet it’s no sham fight;
> It’s hell! – but I’ve been there before;
> And it’s better than this by a damsite –
> So for me, the Yukon once more.
> 
> There’s gold and it’s haunting and haunting;
> It’s luring me on as of old;
> Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
> So much as just finding the gold.
> It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder,
> It’s the forest where silence has lease;
> It’s the beauty that fills me with wonder,
> It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.
> 
> --- The Spell of the Yukon
>          by Robert Service
> 
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