>"..."You would not believe the number of people who quit the trail without even >seening the first white blaze". Which is why the best advice we can give a beginner is to put on a pack and do a few 14 mile days with a 40 pound pack up the steepest mountains you can find. In 1993, nearly a third of the people I met on Springer either called it quits or planned to at Neels Gap. Weary