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"Because it's there."

The Slackcountry

"On a recent Saturday, about 16 miles and roughly 32 minutes after leaving my home on Muldoon, I found myself standing in the Glen Alps parking lot in Chugach State Park.

It’s a busy day; the lot is completely full and the access road lined with illegally parked cars. I’m fortunate to secure a parking spot just as a mini-van pulls out. I offer up my thanks to the parking gods, grab my pack, and walk to the steep, wooden stairs that mark the start of the Flattop trail.

As I go up the trail I pass hikers of all abilities, ages, and levels of preparedness. Some people carry small backpacks, some have hydration belts wrapped around their waists, others have nothing. I observe an astonishing assortment of footwear, with Crocs, flip-flops, hiking boots, sneakers, and Tevas all represented. I shake my head at the poorly shod hikers. I want to stop and ask if they know they are attempting to climb a mountain that gains 1,300 feet in elevation in just under two miles. Instead, I carry on and shudder to think of the rescues waiting to happen."

Staying safe in the slackcountry
 
thør said:
"On a recent Saturday, about 16 miles and roughly 32 minutes after leaving my home on Muldoon, I found myself standing in the Glen Alps parking lot in Chugach State Park.

It’s a busy day; the lot is completely full and the access road lined with illegally parked cars. I’m fortunate to secure a parking spot just as a mini-van pulls out. I offer up my thanks to the parking gods, grab my pack, and walk to the steep, wooden stairs that mark the start of the Flattop trail.

As I go up the trail I pass hikers of all abilities, ages, and levels of preparedness. Some people carry small backpacks, some have hydration belts wrapped around their waists, others have nothing. I observe an astonishing assortment of footwear, with Crocs, flip-flops, hiking boots, sneakers, and Tevas all represented. I shake my head at the poorly shod hikers. I want to stop and ask if they know they are attempting to climb a mountain that gains 1,300 feet in elevation in just under two miles. Instead, I carry on and shudder to think of the rescues waiting to happen."

Staying safe in the slackcountry
Click to expand...

Good read.
 
thør said:
"On a recent Saturday, about 16 miles and roughly 32 minutes after leaving my home on Muldoon, I found myself standing in the Glen Alps parking lot in Chugach State Park.

It’s a busy day; the lot is completely full and the access road lined with illegally parked cars. I’m fortunate to secure a parking spot just as a mini-van pulls out. I offer up my thanks to the parking gods, grab my pack, and walk to the steep, wooden stairs that mark the start of the Flattop trail.

As I go up the trail I pass hikers of all abilities, ages, and levels of preparedness. Some people carry small backpacks, some have hydration belts wrapped around their waists, others have nothing. I observe an astonishing assortment of footwear, with Crocs, flip-flops, hiking boots, sneakers, and Tevas all represented. I shake my head at the poorly shod hikers. I want to stop and ask if they know they are attempting to climb a mountain that gains 1,300 feet in elevation in just under two miles. Instead, I carry on and shudder to think of the rescues waiting to happen."

Staying safe in the slackcountry
Click to expand...

I'll never forget the two guys I saw in jeans and button down shirts, leather sandals, carrying plastic shopping bags, two and a half miles up the Old Bridal Path on their way to Greenleaf Hut in the Whites (NH), on a splattering rainy day with gusty winds and temps dipping into the fifties. In a couple subsequent years I'd be involved in body recoveries up there. I guess they made it, but man did they look miserable.
 
Peregrinator said:
I'll never forget the two guys I saw in jeans and button down shirts, leather sandals, carrying plastic shopping bags, two and a half miles up the Old Bridal Path on their way to Greenleaf Hut in the Whites (NH), on a splattering rainy day with gusty winds and temps dipping into the fifties. In a couple subsequent years I'd be involved in body recoveries up there. I guess they made it, but man did they look miserable.
Click to expand...

It's that type of trip that makes people not want to take the next trip. Still, It's pretty amazing what some people can tough out. I thing there are physical factors that help, but it's attitude that tips the scale.
 
thør said:
It's that type of trip that makes people not want to take the next trip. Still, It's pretty amazing what some people can tough out. I thing there are physical factors that help, but it's attitude that tips the scale.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. They were sort of whiny, but they kept going. I'm sure it helped to know the hut crew was waiting with wool blankets and delicious food. I think it's about 80% mental though. "Can I take one more step?"
 
Peregrinator said:
Absolutely. They were sort of whiny, but they kept going. I'm sure it helped to know the hut crew was waiting with wool blankets and delicious food. I think it's about 80% mental though. "Can I take one more step?"
Click to expand...

I think that the one more step attitude is what gets you there. Staring at the destination is disheartening when you're tired and cold.
 
thør said:
I think that the one more step attitude is what gets you there. Staring at the destination is disheartening when you're tired and cold.
Click to expand...

...or halfway through a marathon looking at that damn bridge ten miles away...
 
“Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible, I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”
—

Mary Oliver, from How I Go To The Woods
 
The prayer of an Alaska runner

http://media.adn.com/smedia/2013/10/18/22/23/EvOQB.AuSt.7.jpeg

"It's past midnight and I'm running down Flattop Mountain, the air milky grey with the Alaska twilight, the moon fat and full and hanging in the sky like something ripe. I leap over rocks, hurl myself down small ridges. All around is silence, an immense and penetrating silence that fills my chest and hums my veins until I can taste it in my mouth, linger it against my tongue.

Once I saw a wolf up here, late at night, the dog and I running in the green darkness, and we froze, all three of us. I grabbed the dog's collar, held tight. The wolf lifted its head and loped off through the brush, its stride smooth and achingly graceful. I wanted to follow, wanted to feel my own stride even out until it became lush and primal, until I lost all sense of time and logic, until wildness wept through my veins.

On the way down, I tore up the mountain, scree and mud flying as I ran, my hands clenched, tiny cries escaping my throat and lifting up in pure and terrible glory."

Read the full story, here.
 
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