[at-l] Young men's stamina; CHAINSAW; Re: Hoplite's recovery time..

[sloetoe at yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- Mark Hudson <hudsom@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> <<I needed no "recovery" when I finished my throughhike in
> '79, nor do I need recovery now, post-6 weeks' worth, nor on
*any* hike I've done.>>
> 
> We're all waiting for the Gathering so we can pump a couple of
> 12 year-olds about how they hiked their old man into the
ground <vbg>

### "Pump"? Ha! Just give 'em a second, and they'll let you
know. To be honest, though, I did pretty well. What I noticed
was that I was a better "starter" then they -- whether first
thing in the morning or simply getting up from a break anytime
during the day, and that *sometimes* I was better at the end of
the day. But boyyyyyy, during most of the day, they'd look back
and say "Dad? You there?" or, on a couple of occasions
(especially if the destination involved a swimming hole[!!!]),
they'd just light out and were gone, and there was little I
could do to catch 'em short of running.

And they always had this evil grin when I got into camp, as if I
hadn't noticed that they'd just smoked my butt. Ha! Nothing like
carrying dinner to insure young men's affections remain rightly
placed.

One long, hard, wet day that I directly recall having a shred
more energy at the end than the boys was somewhere in western
Maine; we'd done some big(ger) amount of miles over tough(er)
terrain, in plenty of mud (maybe, we wuz beat, most of the day
was a fogg). We had had our tarp ripped off leaving Gorham (two
stories for another day) and the boys had no shelter except for
their badly leaking bivy sacs (yet another story for another
day); so we needed shelter space until the replacement tarp
reached us. (Feeling vulnerable? Self-*in*sufficient? Ugh.) So,
tired and bedraggled, we pull into this western Maine leanto
round about sunset, and find it well occupied.

Asked hopefully "Is the leanto full"? and rather than a "Come on
in!" or a "Pretty well full!" or something somewhat conclusive,
we got some lame-oh answer about "Yeah, it kinda/sorta/maybe is,
maybe." Now, it's getting on toward dark, and nobody in the
leanto was moving, and the area around seemed pretty packed, and
I muttered to the boys as we passed in back to look for a
sheltered bed space in the thick vegetation "Sheesh, not that
hard of a question. It (the leanto) *is* or it *isn't* full."

Finding little attractive un-ocuppied sleep-space, I said "Guys,
we need to get water, make dinner, and move on after dark." So,
in a moment, we're down at the water source getting ready to
make/inhale dinner, when a voice calls down from the direction
of the shelter "Sloetoe! That you??"
"Why, yes it is. Who's that?" I call back.
"Chainsaw!"

After we'd passed by, he'd put two and two together and realized
"Hey, I know that guy!" and came down to say hello AND TO
FORMALLY INVITE US BACK TO THE SHELTER -- that they'd all "make
do" as needed. What to do? As my bivy was watertight, maybe we
could squeeze just the boys in..., but then it looked like it
wasn't going to rain (maybe), so we could just move on and avoid
the whole leanto-crush scene....

As I'm weighing these things, acutely aware of the boys' frozen
motions, their ears straining to hear right in back of me,
Chainsaw comes out with
"Or, you could just borrow my tent -- probably sleep all three
of you -- the Wanderlust 2for2."
I looked quickly at the boys, wondering if they'd heard, and
their hopeful eyes made plain that not only had they heard, but
what their clear preference was. ("Stop! Now! Tent!") As the one
with the most energy, I knew *I* was running on reserve.

So, that was that. It didn't rain, but with Chainsaw's help, the
boys spent a dry and even *relaxed* night in a secure shelter,
worry free.

THANKS Chainsaw.

=====
Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
   Pro Pondera Et Meliora.