Re: [at-l] Thruhiking - Learning about it

["Will O'Daix" <thegreenghost@email.msn.com>]

<snip>
>Did anyone leave the Trail because of their gear??

this came up the other evening when 3 of us got together here...
one good answer was, *out there you make do with what you've got*...

I have a friend who teases me about being a gear-head, she just can't figure
me out... I am gear crazy at home but could care less about it out there...
there's a time & a place, & one of the things I like about the list(s) is
that part of them is a place to improve & learn about stuff, some of which
is gear... besides, even the people I know who make it, continue to
tweek/tweak their stuff after most trips... imo, it is part of the learning
process... (heck, even jim is learning how to burn tomatoes in a dehydrator
& he has done both the at & pct :)

I use some of my anthropology background in my thinking, when we talk about
things, gear... we aren't just talking about things... we're also talking
about technology, the knowledge, the skills, behind the things, it's our
knowledge base, our skills that we use, in part, to survive-make it...

so, anyway, it's sort of goes like this... there's a monkey in africa who
has gear... a tool (it's controverisal for me to call it that in some
circles)... which is a stick, the monkey goes & gets a stick, strips the
leaves off the stick (& maybe the bark?)... then the monkey sticks the stick
down one of those giant african anthills-termite hills... when the stick is
covered with the little critters, the monkey pulls the stick out & the
monkey puts the stick into her mouth & licks the stick clean... (ah, fresh
kababs :)... the gear is the stick but it's also the technology, the
knowledge used to prepare & find the stick & how & where to get a good fresh
meal...

imo, to answer your question, I suppose there are a few direct cases where
gear ended a thru-hike by causing an injury by being directly responsible
for an injury (I even think I know of a couple of them)... but I would guess
those to be very few... there probably are people who get mad at their gear
(I was mad at a pack once, shoot I'm still mad at it, now that I think about
it), there is bad some bad stuff, that deserves a few choice curse words...
but for the most part, gear doesn't end a hike or get us up mountains... it
may be the excuse du jour, but after a little decompression, even people who
don't go ga-me understand it wasn't because of gear for most folks...

so, anyway, did I tell you about my tyvek poncho?
safe travel / will / the green ghost.





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