[at-l] Stress and noise (was) Speed Hiking

[nealb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (William Neal)]

I recently saw a blurb on TV.  Someone studied noise and high blood pressure
(an indicator of stress).  Apparently a sleeping person's BP goes up when a
refrigerator starts running.  Some of the anti-stress suggestions included
closing the windows tight to keep out street noise, wearing ear plugs,
drawing heavy drapes against the windows (for sound insulation)....

Which may explain why I got so "nervous" the first few nights at home after
several months on the trail.  I HEARD every little sound.  Even the humming
of the wires.  An 18 wheeler on a distant highway.  The sound of shift
change several miles away.  And on and on and...  I had to either stay awake
'til I dropped or I had to get out of the apt. and go several miles away to
a quieter spot.

Did anyone else notice such "stress" related reactions?

William, The Turtle

-----Original Message-----
From: RoksnRoots@aol.com [mailto:RoksnRoots@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 2:21 PM
To: spiriteagle99@hotmail.com
Cc: AT-L@backcountry.net
Subject: Re: Re[8]: [at-l] Speed Hiking


--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
In a message dated 4/4/2003 12:22:13 PM Eastern Standard Time,
spiriteagle99@hotmail.com writes:


> Yup - but it had nothing to do with "speed hikers". < >  His original
vision
> was largely concerned with mental health, the substitution of slow-paced
> rural life for the perceived madness of the ever-increasing pace of the
> urban rat-race.  That was the purpose of the camps - the Trail was to have
> been simply a connector between the camps.


       ***   It's clear that MacKaye had a prescient understanding of 'pace'
hiking long before the endurance challenge hikers of the 1990's. The reason
he did was because of his self-contained, presumed AT concept (as Jim
finally
admits). Jim stops short, however, of describing MacKaye's total design
which
included large tracts of wild lands preserving the natural integrity of the
region. Maybe Jim's omission of this critical part of the Project is a good
example of why Benton looked unfavorably on an exclusive hiking focus. A
self-fulfilling prophecy (or prescience) of sorts.



> Yes - and no.  The term "speed hiking" has a specific meaning - it was
> coined, I believe by HWMNBN, as a pejorative with respect to the 1991
> record
> attempts.


      ***   Too much wiggling Jim. The semantic precision of the term "speed
hiker" doesn't escape the fact that MacKaye described a worry over hikers
focusing on speed and distance over total Trail concept. He was obviously
concerned over what eventually came to be. Some would call that
'prescience'.
To try to avoid recognizing this by explaining the difference between 1990's
speed hikers and those of MacKaye's day is obvious. Hence the statement,
"MacKaye had no idea of something that didn't exist until many decades
later"
is entirely incorrect. His quoted concern over hikers walking the Trail for
the sake of covering a prescribed distance is a direct reference. This is
accentuated by his specific reference to "race courses". How much more do
you
want? Absurd to quibble over, perhaps, but realize which side of absurd you
are on. Maybe WF coined the specific term "speed hiking", but MacKaye
obvious
identified it.




>   I was told
> by someone who knew both MacKaye and the history of the matter that
MacKaye
> considered thruhiking to be a form of "racing through the Trail". < >
> But I don't have an answer for that.  Read on ----


      ***   You might try looking at my previous post explaining this. I
believe it to be accurate. As you asked D. Fales "try answering this if you
are for real".



>    MacKaye was a
> walker, a hiker.  He was also of much the same attitude as you - he was a
> naturalist, a wanderer, curious and inquisitive.


         ***    I believe he was also a "regional planner &
conservationist".
Am I wrong on this Jim, or do you just like seeing your logic and wording
while debating Weary? So far, all of these explanations have touched on
hiking related matters only. I wonder if you ever considered that the answer
might come from the as-of-yet-unaddressed conservation side? I'm fascinated
by what was in MacKaye's head. So far, I have yet to see anyone on this list
cover what I believe Benton was thinking -even those who have read him
extensively.





> And MacKaye would have highly approved of that attitude.  Unfortunately,
> being of that state of mind, the "explosion" of thruhiking also bothered
> him
> because thruhiking requires a preoccupation with time and distance that
> could - and generally, but not always, does - interfere with the leisurely
> examination of the minute detail along the Trail, and therefore with the
> slow-paced rural life that MacKaye envisioned >



        ***   So where does that conflict with a pre-awareness of speed
hiking? You look like you are trying to cover up a mistake by filling in
with
things you were shown by those who disagreed with you. You are basically
proving Weary's point while attempting to refine it via the point he was
trying to make. You have surrounded the grain of grit with pearl, but the
grit was yours...




  >
> You said:  MacKaye became "worried that certain trends -- especially the
> single-minded quests for speed and distance -- violated his vision of the
> trail's purpose."
>
> Cool - but the extrapolation of that thought into "speed hiking" is
> illogical.  MacKaye was "worried that certain trends --".  But there was
no
> "trend" with regard to "speed hiking" at that time.



       ***   Certainly one is an extension of the other. This is pure
semantics Jim. The evidence is clear that MacKaye understood and discouraged
an emphasis on forward pace hiking at the cost of his idea of Trail. That
covers "speed hiking" too.

       Geesh, I remember Jim calling Weary verbose! The rest, while clever
Trail thinking, is, in my mind, the sorry attempt of a man who considers
himself a Trail voice to wiggle out of something he said that was clearly
wrong. Let's not kid ourselves over what this is about. The origin of
looking
deeper into MacKaye started long ago when some hiking-oriented list members
questioned the authenticity of bringing a greater AT ideology or 'mindset'
to
the awareness of AT users. As MacKaye's own words clearly show, he was
concerned over end-to-end expediency overtaking the Trail's greater goals. I
chuckle to think of Benton MacKaye coming onto AT-L and speaking of his
concern only to be accused of being a "troll sent by Wingfoot to disrupt our
list" - or an extremist, or "foul gas refusing to go away!"...