[at-l] How to help a newbie?

[daveh@psknet.com (Dave Hicks)]

I am not sure what you mean by a week.  Many folk are talking about a week
off from work, which often translates to five or six days on the trail.

I would suggest a minimum of ten full days on the trail in a shakedown.  If
he (and you, if you feel you need to be along) can, take the two weeks
before a Monday holiday.  Say you take the last two weeks of August.  You
could leave directly from work on Friday the 16th and not need to be back to
work until September 3rd.  Assuming reasonable shuttling, you could start
hiking by noon on the 17th, have 15-16 days of hiking.

Somehow, this is related to the advise some OD types gave in a management
development course, which I attended, once.  The pitch was that a vacation
needed to be two solid weeks for certain personality types; because it takes
a couple, or four, days to quit thinking about all the
problems/task/challenges/etc you left back at the office, then one to three
days from the end you start thinking about getting back and the things you
need to do when you get back.  So, with just a week you never re-create
yourself.

Up until I retired, all my sections were vacation days.  Therefore, when I
heard this advise, I knew that it was true.  My one-week hikes were quite
different from my two-week hikes.  Most of us don't settle into the routine
of hiking in just one week.  Two weeks won't give him that Virginia blues
feeling of when-is-this-state-going-to-end, or the
I-been-out-here-"x"-long-and-I've-only-gone-"y"-inches-of-that-three-foot-ma
p.  But, it will let some of the feeling of long distance hiking set in.

Chainsaw

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shane Steinkamp" <shane@theplacewithnoname.com>
To: <at-l@backcountry.net>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 5:57 PM
Subject: [at-l] How to help a newbie?

SNIP
> Then I usually drag them through some day hikes and help them buy cheap
> equiptment.  We graduate to a week, and then I go one last time with them
> and don't help unless they really get into trouble.  This forumla has
always
> worked.
>
> With Bob, however, I am unsure.  While thru hiking is just a series of day
> hikes (ha, ha), it's also something more.  So, here are the questions:
SNIP