by Dan Glass, KTA Council Member
Recently, my wife and I were walking down from the top of Colonel Denning State Park, Cumberland County, on our journey back from seeing the vista at Flat Rock. Not far from Newville, Colonel Denning State Park offers a nice camping/fishing/hiking retreat for those people who live near Harrisburg. It also boasts the heavily trafficked vista at Flat Rock, which finds its way into many guidebooks.
I’ve been there a handful of times, and this was the first time when I didn’t see the horizon behind the haze or raindrops. Let me just say, “It was good.”
As we sat behind hikers gawking and meditating, it seemed like we could see forever. I know some people say you can see all the way north to Reading and south the Shenandoah Mountains, but I felt that there seemed to be at least one purple mountain majesty far behind some of the others, and it was pretty far away but not necessarily Virginia far away.
While heading back, our discussion turned to hiking gear and things that we have purchased to make our journeys easier. This conversation came out of my feeling that having a LifeStraw or other water filter with would have opened up the clear mountain stream on top to our drinking pleasure. Nothing like the trail to make us feel like shopping at REI, Cabela’s, or EMS.
In the midst of this conversation, I remarked on how I love my Keen boots, especially since they fit well and don’t give me blisters. I also spoke of how I appreciate my Cabela’s ECWS winter-base layers since I like being warm in cold weather without having to wimp out when the breeze bites too hard. Of course, there are other nice touches as well, but while coming down through the rocks, I concluded that my trekking poles are my number-one favorite piece of gear. While they’re not as expensive as some poles, I find that Black Diamond makes a nice pair of hiking poles, and they really do help me get up the trail “in 4WD” (as thru-hiker Lakeland once said) despite my looking weird when I walk with them. In addition, they also keep my hands from swelling up while stabilizing my backpack-clad body in journeys both up and down the hills. Finally, they brace me going downhill. That’s a nice touch. Sure, they feel like something extra to carry on the flat lands, but for what they do on those hills—the push and brake and oomph—I wouldn’t hike without them.
Finding ourselves on the flat section again, my wife nodded in agreement with my thesis statement of how 2 poles were more stabilizing than her walking stick. In addition, those 2 Black Diamond poles were much nicer than our cheap knock-around pair, which I use when she absolutely needs to use the nice pair. Here, they’ll sometimes break loose and collapse into themselves. Let it be said that’s not fun. Nevertheless, I really need them only when trekking poles are absolutely essential for 2 people at once, such as at Ricketts Glen this past winter, where we were on lots of snow and ice.
Nevertheless, as I spoke my love of the 2 metal contraptions, I realized that I wasn’t telling the whole truth—I wasn’t thinking completely through to what my favorite gear actually was. The book Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, identified that piece of “gear.” In that story, the English teacher made the following statement:
“You are your most valuable asset. Don’t forget it. You are the best thing you have.”
Now, I know that I’m an English teacher by day, and that means that I’m in solidarity with other teachers, but it wasn’t the profession that made these words stand out. I’ve heard variations to them in many other ways. “Be here now.” Pretty much every single page out of Bear Grylls’ book A Survival Guide for Life and Laurence Gonzales’ books Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why and Surviving Survival: The Art and Science of Resilience. Kevin Costner telling Tim Robbins, “Don’t think; it can only hurt the ball club,” in the movie Bull Durham.
However, this quote was in the midst of a middle-school book. This book, which now seems to serve as a replacement for Jack London’s Call of the Wild, is pretty hardcore when it comes to the concepts of what it takes to make it in the outback. This isn’t something that I just throw out there. Paulsen is as for real with the outdoors as anyone looking at his canon can attest to.
The main character in Hatchet is Brian Robeson, a 13-year-old boy on a flight from New York to see his father in the north woods of Canada. Before he is able to get there, the pilot, who is the only other person on the flight, has a heart attack, and Brian is forced to take over the controls until the plane crashes into a lake. From that point on, Brian is forced to survive on his own. Fortunately, to do this, he has a hatchet that his mother had given him.
I won’t ruin the story for you since it’s worth reading. Besides, it only takes about 2 to 3 hours to read the whole thing, and it presents many conflicts that would make Mr. London proud that people are reading a book that follows in his footsteps. Nevertheless, for the youthful target audience, it’s a modern classic and a Newberry Honor Book. For an adult, it says what it means to survive simply and to the point.
This would be true whether it were in the city or the woods, which is why it’s a great book for all lovers of the outdoors to read.
Such lines as, “He did not know how long it took, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work. It wasn't just that it was wrong to do, or that it was considered incorrect. It was more than that—it didn't work,” stand out to readers young and old. They also show why I was wrong in what my most important gear was—that what was really best was my own knowledge and my mind-set going in. If I didn’t know how to use that knowledge, and if I didn’t have the right mind-set, then no GPS, axe, .357 Magnum, water filter, tent, flint + steel, or iodine tablets would save me from permanent damage.
In short, I either had a plan going in or I didn’t. I either knew what to do in case of trouble, or I didn’t. I either remembered my stuff, or I didn’t. In short, what my mind does in case of an emergency is where I am or where I’m not.
I remember one time reading a “who would survive” quiz, which picked a lot of famous characters, but in the end, it was comically goofy Ned Flanders on The Simpsons. This was based on how even keel he was, not to mention resourceful. Sure, he might have been the anti–Homer Simpson, but in case of emergency, that’s not really a bad thing (even if people would rather have cold beverages with Homer).
For me, I think about instances like my first time seeing a bear in the wild. I had read a lot about what to do, but I was still scared when Ms. Bear roared to her cubs, who were instantly descending the tree as if it were the Batpole. Fortunately, I just got a really good story, and the bears realized that the dorky, lumbering body walking through the woods was just a hiker who would have loved to take a picture of them as opposed to turning her into a rug on his wall. Thus, we both walked away unharmed and filled with knowledge of what the other side was all about.
I never did get that picture.
For what I once had never heard, the sound of a growl, I was more comfortable the next time around, when I walked with my dad and we heard a growl across the valley. That’s learning. That’s healthy respect and distance, as opposed to fear. That’s being comfortable in the woods. That’s knowing my dad, who knows about the woods, isn’t as fast as me—I hope. (Well, actually, I kid; my dad is one of the wisest outdoorsman I know, even if he had never heard a bear growl before that day.)
As for other good mantras, taking the President’s advice and not doing stupid stuff is other good advice. Don’t go off-trail in the dark (or at all) to take a shortcut. Don’t know better than the map. Carry extra stuff just in case.
Listen to your wife when she says we should bring water—even on the short hikes!
And learn from others who have hiked before us.
In this, I just read a quote by Mount Everest hiker Mick Burke (who later died on the journey, but let’s forget that bit of irony). He said, “At some stage you believe you’re too exhausted to carry on. Then you take another step up and you realize you’re not too exhausted. You can take another step, and another. It’s your mind that’s exhausted, not your body. You realize you’re alone, miles from anywhere and nobody is going to help you. Only you can get yourself up the mountain. It’s knowing this that makes you think you’re too tired to carry on.”
To this, much of what keeps us going is our brain. Much of what stops us is our brain.
Ed Viesturs stated one of my favorite maxims: “Getting to the top is optional. Getting to the bottom is mandatory.” That makes a lot of sense. After all, this is a man who turned around at the top of Everest because he knew he couldn’t make it back in time.
I’m glad my brain works well a fair bit of the time. I’m glad that I didn’t end up a Popsicle or vulture food on “some damn fool adventure” or other that I took.
As a result, I share my wisdom of my follies and others’ successes to ensure that we don’t have more rescues like those that seemed to happen a lot this past winter.
Here’s hoping you have some great adventures this year.