[at-l] "Trip" report and ramblings...

[Cosmo.A.Catalano@williams.edu (cosmo catalano, jr.)]

Did a road trip to Campmor yesterday (Thursday)--it was a business trip,
honest!  Saw a little gas stove (Peak Micro?) $24.95.  Uses 3100 or 3200
propane/butane cannisters.  Really small, light, simple.  Looked pretty
nice.  Has anyone used one and would like to comment on it?

Also had a great trip back to Williamstown via parts of the AT--7 Lakes
Parkway, Bear Mountain, Fhannestock State Park, NY Rt 22 (Pawling), Jones'
Nose--the shortcuts added an hour to my trip ;)>.  Nice to see those white
blazes leading into the woods from the roadside.

Between trail crossings, it struck me how we romanticize The Trail from a
distance (in a car for instance, or on this list), yet we all know when we
get on it, that the experience is vastly different:  sweaty, dirty, hurting
body parts, bugs, rodents, tedious food, etc; vastly different from most of
our every day lives.  I'm aware of this dichotomy (Word of the Day,
Felix?), but every time I drive by the trail at Mass RT 2, or scan the
ridgeline east of my house, I still feel its pull.

Is it because I know it reaches the length of the country?  That at any
given moment there are people somewhere on it's footpath headed to or from
here?  I am intimately familiar with many other trails in this area, yet I
get a little frisson (another WOTD?) every time I cross it's path.  Other
trails are just not the same.  Maybe it's just me.  I meet hikers every
year in and around Mt. Gerylock who were unaware that the path they are on
goes to Maine and Georgia.

Just some ramblings in the fevered spring...


Cosmo

"There are three great times for thinking --
 On the john, in the shower, and while hiking.
 And the best of these is while hiking."

 Colin. Fletcher.

Life is Fast, Walk Slowly


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