Hiking...Hiking...Hiking...

I've often began adventure planning by musing on hiking...

I page back through my C. Fletcher books, especially my early 1980's edition of the "Complete Walker". It's kind of falling apart now, and I do see the ironic reflection of myself considering yet another recent injury... Fletcher's books are full of notations, where I was trying to remember the rumination he was making and the quotation I was hoping to remember...

Like one of my very favorite ones: "You will discover as the years pass that hiking becomes a beautiful, warm, round pumpkin that sits up on a shelf, always ready to be taken down... It wouldn't be the same round and personal pumpkin, of course, if you hadn't grown it yourself... And its always sitting up there on the shelf - that big, beautiful pumpkin - just waiting for you to wave the wand and turn it into something more magical."

The adventure of hiking is one of my first enthusiasms. There have been those that took me through the Canadian Rockies, across coastlines and deserted beaches, among the Colorado mountains, meandering within deep canyons, more recently above the High Sierras, and those towards the many summits I've then climbed...

What has seemed to be a simple act of walking within our wild lands, has had a profound effect upon my life and so many others I know while soloing, being with family & friends, even leading challenging groups...

What often reminds me of these experiences, interestingly, is not just the pictures, but the checking out of gear... Especially the boots, the packs, and now over the last years the staffs and hiking poles I now use...

Lately I've been visiting and appreciating great Hiking Blogs like 'Two-Heel Drive', who have such a unique means of passing forward ideas, images, and experiences...

I have probably placed more 'Summit Stones' while out on long hikes and at hiking trailheads than on any other type of adventure. Even a short day out hiking has never been lost time... And as Muir wrote: "I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in...".

I recall too, within my current frustrations that, it was the Romans who would muse and say: "Solvitur Ambulando", which I believe means 'the solution comes through walking'...

I am so looking forward to the enjoyment of another season of growing more pumpkins.....

DSD