CREST Outdoors Club
Mountaineering
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The Philosophy of Hiking What makes a good hiker? The best hikers, and the ones who love the sport the most, have learned to feel very comfortable on the trail with them and with the natural environment. This can only happen after you spend a lot of time out there, once the outdoors begins to feel like home. And it doesn't stem from having the right gear, necessarily. It's having the right head-a good attitude, and a positive frame of mind. Don't expect nature to respect you manmade comfort level and your desire to control your environment. In our desire to avoid discomfort we may become more uncomfortable. Leave your cultural level of comfort at home. Forget about your material wants. Just concentrate on your physical and spiritual needs. Yes, you can wear one T-shirt the entire journey; you don't have to take showers; you can survive on one hot meal a day; you don't need a roof and walls around you at night. Leave your emotional fan at home as well. Feel free to laugh and to cry, to feel lonely and to feel afraid, to feel socially irresponsible and to feel foolish, and to feel free. Rediscover you childhood. Play the game of the trail. Roll with the punches and learn to laugh in the face of adversity. This all sounds like good advice for our daily lives, doesn't it? That's one of the reasons hiking means so much to us. Trail life teaches us how to live all the other parts of our lives, too. The most important lessons we have learned in life that trail have taught us. -Excerpt from "A Hiker's Companion, 12,000 Miles of Trail-Tested Wisdom" | ||||
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