Am I Really Doing What You Think I Said I Was??

I talk a lot on these pages about hiking, but language is a funny thing.

The spoken word is nothing more than a jumble of random sounds, very much like the vocalizations of a baby, the only difference being that a group of humans have agreed to string these sounds into repeatable patterns and assign these various combinations to particular concepts or meanings.

There is logic to a few of these sound/concept matchups, such as "plop" or "smack". But most have an obscure, largely unknown, and frankly pretty tenuous link between the sound and the concept. For instance the English word "husband" can be traced back to a mashup of the Norse words hus (house) and bandia (dweller) which is fairly straightforward, but try to track the logic behind calling a shelter hus, and someone who lives in a particular place bandia and things start to get pretty random.

But that isn't important. As long as a large enough group can come to an agreement on what sounds link to which concepts, no matter how random those links, all is well.

Or is it?

When I say "I'm hiking" - am I really?

Short answer: - sorta.

Not so short answer: - maybe, but probably not in the way many of you think.

Really long answer:

Language is all about communication, and in that sense, in order to successfully get your point across in one piece and the way you intended it, each and every word needs to be precisely matched by both parties, the speaker and the listener, to a previously agreed upon concept.

Yet already there's a problem with that, and it really starts with me being imprecise. 

When I'm referring to my work-out laps on the property I usually say "I'm hiking the property" and when I'm out on some wilderness trail I also say "I'm hiking",  but those are two very different activities.

Now, to make it even worse, let's throw you, the listener, into the mix.

When you hear someone say "hiking" you immediately have an image in your head of what "hiking" entails and additional clarification is rarely needed.

Or is it??

Your personal image of hiking comes from your own experience and exposure, which may or may not match the image in my head. (And we've already seen that the image in my head shifts around as much as a kid on a hard church-pew listening to a looonng sermon accusing him of all sorts of horrible sins.)

To take an extreme example of personal perspective, there is a segment of hikers out there that call themselves through-hikers, and the focus of their "hiking" is on getting from here to there, on "bagging" trails. To push this even farther, the Colorado Trail is 486 miles long and currently - well, always - the race is on among a subset of the through-hiker community to beat the FKT. (Fastest Known Time)

There are three versions of the FKT that apply to any major trail. Supported, where you have friends and family meet you at agreed-upon spots at agreed-upon times to resupply. Self supported where you cache supplies along the route yourself before setting out. And the big kahuna, unsupported, where you set out with everything you're going to need, supplies and food, on your back and do the trail end to end with no assistance.

Today the unsupported FKT to beat for the Colorado Trail is 9d, 12h, 32m.

Yep, think about that! Allowing for nine 8 hour stops to sleep, and no other breaks during the day, that works out to "hiking" non-stop for 16 hours a day for nine successive days, then wrapping up with an "easy" 12 hour day, for an average of 51 miles per day, or a sustained ambulatory rate of 3.1 miles per hour, which just so happens to be the recommended target rate for your daily 40 minute aerobic walk.

Oh, and this is not walking quarter-mile laps on the high school track! This trail crosses two major mountain ranges so there is a lot of serious up and downing along the way!

For the rest of us mere mortals, when publishing estimated hike-times for various trails the National Park system uses 1.5 MPH as an average hiking speed.

Me? Well I'm doing good to cover 10 miles in a 10 hour day!

But if I was moving any faster I may not have spotted those hawks sunning themselves way up the side of that ridge on a frosty morning.



If I wasn't poking along I would probably have missed the tiny speck of movement that was a couple Aoudads negotiating the cliffs up there across the canyon.



If I had been actually "hiking" I may have missed the momentary drama high over my head of the "trumpet" portion of a trumpet vine flower  being discarded to blow away on the wind because it's associated bud had already been pollinated

 


while her sister bud still awaits her deflowering.

So maybe I should be using some other word to explain what I'm doing out there on the trail?

John Muir actually disliked hearing people say they were "hiking" because in his mind  it indicated the activity of getting-from-here-to-there, (And rightfully so since "hike" appears to be derived from "hyke" which was defined in an 1809 English dictionary to mean "to walk vigorously". And to support that vigorousness, going further back in English times, "hyke" shows up in The Noble Art of Venerie, or Hunting published in 1611 where it is described as a word of encouragement given by the huntsman to spur the hounds on.) and Muir felt our natural places deserved better than as just a place to get through.

His preferred term, a preference he shared with Henry Thoreau and John Burroughs, two more bearded naturalists, was saunter, which I suppose is a perfectly good word, if only it weren't for it's French origins. (A personal tick of mine, cringing at all things French, including language, that comes from spending the last 5 years of my career working closely with them.)

There's a few other possibilities, like meander and lollygag, but these words are subject to the same personal interpretation as hike. Not to mention the potential negative connotations. (The senile old man meanders. The clueless old fool lollygags.)

So I guess I will stick with telling you I'm hiking and just live with the fact that I'm probably not actually doing what you think I said I was doing.

As If 2020 Hasn't Been Challenging Enough!

 

As if 2020 hasn't challenged our collective resolve enough this had to happen!!

I've got - I had - three of these shirts. Denim, washed and worn over the course of nearly two decades to the buttery softness of a hug from a teddy bear.

I use them as over-shirts on top of my standard sleeveless shirt. (I don't like wearing things I have to pull on over my head so as an alternative I cut the sleeves out of my old, light-weight office-shirts to wear instead because - well even I don't want to see my old-man belly all day!)

One serves for general daytime use, one for evening wear, while the third rests in the closet until it's rotated into the roster on the next laundry day, which, since I have ten pairs of socks, is every 10 days whether it's needed or not.

And yes, that includes even the hottest parts of the summer. Not that I wear one of these shirts when out and about in the barn or on the property during our warm to hot to melt-down weather, but - well, let's just say The Wife's thermostat is calibrated differently than mine - so when I go inside around mid-day for our one meal of the day that highly refrigerated air boarders on being painful, so the over-shirt goes on.

The same holds true summers and winters for the shirt on evening-wear duty.  After the sun sets and I've showered, it goes on just before we settle down with popcorn to wind down and watch something prerecorded off the satellite dish. Again, because, while The Wife keeps lowering the thermostat in the summer, that refrigerated air is just too much for me, and during the winter we rarely turn the heat on.

All in all, a nice, comfortable, settled routine in the midst of all this chaos.

Then on one recent - fateful - wash day this shirt went in intact and came out like this!

OK, OK, maybe there already was a snag in the sleeve, perhaps it could even have been called a small tear, but it is a work-shirt after all,

and perhaps the fabric was getting a little thin.

But did I really deserve this!?

No No! I know that might sound whiny, but you don't understand just how traumatic this is!

I have't bought clothes, other than underwear and socks, in 15 years, but just a few months ago I cut the sleeves off the last of my office-shirts, my two remaining over-shirts are just as old and worn as this one, and the resale shops around here are all closed by Covid.

What am I going to dooo?!!

OK (hack) OK (sniff) I've recovered from my meltdown; at least for now.

Rest in peace old friend.

One Last Hike in Lost Maples

OK, I know y'all are probably getting pretty tired of Lost Maples by now, but seeing as how this trip was done in February of 2020 during the last few precious days of "normal" times, I'm milking the memories for all they're worth, so bear with me for one more post here.

Last hike, for this trip anyway. And not by choice.

It's Friday, the campground is fully reserved for the weekend, and my name isn't on any of those reservations. To get a weekend slot here you have to plan a lot farther ahead than I did. (And this was before Corona released hoards of neophyte campers out into the wild with their brand new RV's, shiny new boots, and overly large and smoky fires!)



So this morning, knowing I was going to be on the trail well past the noon GET-YOUR-MANGY-BUTT-OUT-OF-MY-SITE deadline I moved The Van up to the trailhead parking-lot in front of the Murphy House.

It's warmer this morning than yesterday's 27 degrees - but not by much. The temp is 32 as I gear up for this hike.



Can you see them up there? That little white dot sitting high up on the ridge in the sunshine while I stand down here in the shadows freezing my ass off? (I'm pretty sure my left thumb has already fallen off but I am not going to take my glove off to check.)



This is the pair of Redtail Hawks that built that nest I showed a few posts back, just sitting up there soaking some morning rays and surveying their territory. (Yeah, that 50X optical zoom on my Cannon SX50 does a fairly decent job doesn't it. Not as good as a setup that costs twice as much and is more cumbersome to haul around, but not horrible either. I think I'll just hang onto this well used and abused camera for the time being.)

I just hope I don't look too tasty down here. . .



Today's hike is simple. Around the West Trail, clockwise this time since I've already done some or all of it counterclockwise a couple times this week.

Which means I start out by turning left at the Y and climbing up past the old ranch headquarters, now the Superintendent's residence.

More climbing puts me opposite Primitive Camp D, which is tucked up against the south boundary of the park in a side-canyon to the left,




  then along some ledges



and up a rocky creek-bed, thankful that it's not raining and the footing is dry as I squeeze by some rock faces,



and finally top out on the ridge near Primitive Camp E which is over there behind the trees somewhere.



Now, after all that climbing, I have to drop right back down the other side of the ridge through Mystic Canyon as I head towards my lunch spot.

Dropping down, or climbing up, Mystic Canyon is not your groomed-trail stroll. It's narrow and gnarly in here with the trail sharing space with the creek-bed in several places. And yes, if you take it slow and quiet, it can be an enchanted place with perhaps just a touch of spookiness thrown in when the wind blows just right.

What a great place to hike!

My lunch-spot destination is beyond the lower end of Mystic Canyon near a spring on Can Creek.

When I leave the trail and climb down towards the creek to find a location away from any potential foot-traffic where I can hang out in peace for a while (I originally wrote chill out instead of hang out, but - well, it's cold enough today without talk like that!) I come across this big (I'm guessing 8 inch) steel pipe laying down there.

I'm sure that it was used at one point to pipe water from a spring up the creek to somewhere else, but who needed that much water up here?

Now, based on the tiny little footprints, it apparently serves as a raccoon highway



that ends rather abruptly where some flash-flood in the past ripped the thick metal away like wet paper.



All week long I've been coming across these, and every time the bright color tricks me into thinking it's either some trash I need to pick up or else someone has dropped an M&M, but in actuality they belong there. They are some sort of very hard nut/seed.




One final trip past the ponds, where I briefly lost my live-in-the-now and succumbed to the melancholy-of-endings since this is pretty much the period that punctuates the last of this trip.



Which The Van, the Quad-B, and I officially end by spending the night at the eastbound I-10 rest area at mile 514 near Kerrville prior to heading the rest of the way home in the morning.

Trail Detritus

(Note: This all happened on a trip in Feb 2020, before Corona. For now my trail-trash-collecting is on hiatus until all this crap settles down again.)

 
When I hike I move The Van's key from my pant's pocket down to one of the flap-covered thigh pockets on my cargo pants where it won't fall out even if/when I go ass-over-teakettle while tumbling down a hill. (If I'm falling down a cliff I'm not likely to need my key again but at least someone will be able to find it- - -) This leaves me with an empty left pant's pocket in which I stash a well-used and re-used, but equally empty, quart freezer-bag to deposit trash into.

It's primary purpose is to collect my own trash, but as I go along I'll pick up crap left behind by others and stick it in there too. (Including the damn tissues and wipes which need to be outlawed on trails since it's clear a high percentage of people are just completely incapable of carrying used ones back out for themselves!) Sometimes I'm tempted to just walk on by this crap left by someone else, but a sense of guilt and an uncomfortable feeling of irresponsibility seems to force me to turn back, do the right thing and add to the collection in my pocket.

During my working career I noticed that the culture of a company, even large companies, can be shaped and influenced by only a few, sometimes even just one, person.

I don't know how that culture-shaping works in public spaces, but regardless, some parks have a trashy culture while others, similar in facilities and ease or difficulty of access to large population centers, have a clean(er) culture.

Whatever the reason, Lost Maples State Nature Area is one of the cleaner parks and during my chilly meander out to the Grotto and back, a round-trip distance of just over 6 miles (From the campsite, only about 3 from the trailhead.) on a popular trail, I collected hardly anything at all in the way of other people's trash.




Just part of a candy-bar wrapper, a bit of squashed and unidentifiable paper, and a pen top.

But I also came back with some unusual items that day that don't really fall into the category of trash.



As I passed through Primitive Camp A on my way out to the Grotto in the morning I noticed a pyramid-style tent like this one set up in one of the clearings back off the trail. Not a style I find particularly useful, but we each have our likes and dislikes.

On my way back out that afternoon the site was empty and I later caught up to the young couple that had obviously occupied that camp.

Why obvious?

Because he had a bulging pack slung precariously over one shoulder, a very manly, my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours, long-handled ax dangling from his belt down to nearly his boot-top, (A pretty useless item - the ax - and the usefulness of a big dick is debatable - in a place where no collecting of firewood is allowed, nor are open fires of any kind permitted in the back-country where they were.) and with one hand was dragging a bright red wheely, you know, the kind of luggage designed for airports?, over the rocky trail making a racket that sounded like thunder from a distance (On my way to the Grotto that morning I wondered what the heck made those tracks in the trail. They were too perfectly parallel and in-sync to be two different bikes and too close together to be a tricycle) while trying to control a large and very loud and unruly dog with the other hand. While the other half of the couple was struggling along with an armful of long tent poles hugged closely to her chest, a DYI Center bucket overflowing with stuff dangling from an elbow and banging against her legs, and various bags and sacks hanging off her and the tent poles, all swaying and jerking uncomfortably with every step. (Which is probably why I was able to catch up to them.)

I have to give them credit. They were out there on the coldest night of the week, but holy cow! There's a right tool for the job guys! (I shouldn't point out other's shortcomings and mistakes because I've been there done that myself, but if only these youngsters would realize that I'm always right and always know best their lives would be so much easier!!!)

Not wanting to get tangled up with them, and especially that snarling and slathering dog, I turned back and found something else to occupy myself with for a while to give them time to get well out ahead of me.

But when I did make the rest of the journey out to the trailhead, along the way I came across a lost and lonely footy laying right in the middle of the trail. (Not my first such trail-find. For some reason speckling the trail with socks, especially near swimming holes, seems to be a popular sport.) Then later I stumbled on a bark-collar. A first for me.

At first I thought the collar was just some strap that fell out of their bucket and grabbed it up without much thought. But when I figured out what I really had in my hand I immediately dropped the damn thing and jumped back to a safe distance lest it do its shocky-thing on me!

Not wanting to just leave something like that laying around to surprise any unsuspecting animals or kids that might happen along, I snuck up on it from behind, very quietly, and gingerly removed the battery before putting that thing in my pocket! I mean big dick or not, who wants fried pubes?!

Having seen that dog in action, I'm guessing the collar just pissed it off even more so even if they could manage to get it on the dog, what's the point?

I wonder if they'll blame the missing footy on the dryer or the dog?

At any rate, they were gone by the time I made it to the trailhead so this crap all went into the trashcan. You know, the one conveniently put there for when you do the responsible thing and carry your trash out.

A Nippy Meander to Lost Maple's Grotto

It was 27 degrees this morning (February 2020) and a smart person would have huddled in The Van for a few hours with a hot cup of oatmeal clenched in his hands, but - - well, you know - -



Instead I was headed in the direction of the Grotto, because why not?

During color season this parking lot at the day-use area fills to overflowing and they end up closing the park to new visitors. This morning there was one car out there that I later found out belonged to a young couple camping at Primitive Camp A.

I'm normally a pretty slow hiker, but once in a while I get downright snailish, shuffling forward, or maybe sideways, or even backwards, for a few steps then stopping, looking around, and just enjoying being there for however long the spirit wants.

This was one of those meander days

and it took me from breakfast through to dinner to cover about 6 miles.

Today, up behind this carefully terraced tree across on the other side of the river



I found the reasonably modern (poured concrete floor) remains of a house




on a bench above the river.

That's all I got.

Other than speculation I haven't been able to find out anything else about it.

So I meandered on.




Did I mention it got a little nippy overnight?

In 1983 there was a real freeze in Texas. It lasted for days and plumbers all over the state were in plumber-heaven crawling through vented attics (Yep, that's where tract-house plumbing and water-heaters go in south and central Texas) replacing burst pipes.

This event included Christmas day, a day that The Wife and I were here at Lost Maples. (All alone. Not even a ranger to give our entry fee to. Yep, this was back in the days when we were still courting and The Wife would grit her teeth and travel with me once in a while, though this trip she was damn glad we could afford a hotel room in Hondo and didn't have to stay in the tent like we planned.)

When we got to the Grotto that day ice was sheeting off the rocks above us as the morning sun did it's stuff.

It was a magical thing.

There wasn't near that much ice today,

but there was enough to keep me entranced for a few hours as it slowly melted away,

once in a while sending a cold dagger crashing down into the soft tufa below, leaving a scar that will take decades to repair. (From the conspiritalist part of my childhood I remember the story about the woman that killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb then made the murder weapon disappear by feeding it to the detective!)

I finished up by making a side trip back to the bird-blind, but the birds were smarter than me today and stayed snuggled up at home.

Cold or not, it turned out to be a great day for a meander.

A Lazy Day in Lost Maples (sort of)

My intentions for today (sometime in February 2020) was to just kick around and take it easy, letting my, not quite a teenager anymore, body rest, repair, and recover after a pair of back-to-back days of ambitious hiking.

It sorta worked out that way, but not completely.

Just off the corner of the overflow parking area in Lost Maples State Nature Area is a (sanctioned) bird-feeding station with a blind. (The park was obviously quite busy the day this aerial image was taken. Not so the day that  I was here this time.)  

Standing on the Sabinal River crossing looking downstream towards the campground

I started off this morning by limbering up the Quad-B, my bicycle.

Though, given the worn state of her already cheap bearings I don't think limber is in her vocabulary anymore. In fact she wouldn't coast down a hill even with a 400 pound bear chasing her!

But regardless, I got her down off the rack, taking care to be quiet given the early hour, checked her out, then pedaled over

The view from inside the blind

to the bird-blind.

February is hardly the optimal time for birding around here but- well, who cares?



Though maybe not a photog's paradise,

Dove butts

there was enough going on to keep me entertained for a couple hours of just "being". A state I equate to that of the "living in the now" goal of several eastern philosophies/practices. 

Even though I couldn't have put words to it at the time, this was a state I was familiar with as a kid, often lazily swimming back and forth off one or another of the beaches we spent so many summer days at, just "being" out there by myself with nothing but the flow of the water over my skin, the sound and rhythm of my breath, the stretch and flex of my muscles, for as long as Mom, the designated lifeguard, could stand it.

But as the birthdays began to stack up past the "I'm X and a half!" stage, the cacophony of life shoved "being" aside and demanded I pay attention to the "what's about to be" instead as I navigated the savage jungle of getting ahead, getting stuff, getting somewhere. The getting, getting, getting, demanded by modern society. (Many anthropologists agree that our hunter-gatherer ancestors had more leisure time, more me-time, than our post-agrarian kin, and definitely more than our post-industrial revolution grandparents.) It's only now, after decades of running the rat-race, that I'm learning that ahead isn't really all it's cracked up to be, that I don't need stuff to be happy, and that I'm already somewhere.

Now I'm relearning how to just be, and frankly it feels like I can breath again.

But eventually it was time to "be" somewhere else.

Back to the Ponds again.

When I got back to my campsite I was energized, so I traded the Quad-B for my pack and, on foot, retraced the route back to the blind, and beyond.



The result was a bit of an odd hike where I retraced some of my steps of a couple days ago on the West Trail, but left the "normal" trail up there at the very top of this image and climbed a steep service road



that comes out on top of the ridge



where Primitive Camp F lurks,



and where I found another solitary spot to hang out and just "be", and, of course, slip in a late alfresco lunch too.

Once I'd had enough of that I leisurely closed the loop by picking my way back down the other side of the ridge.




Like yesterday, this was another single-hump hike and since I had done much of the route just two days ago I'll spare you a repeat of the photos.



When I got back to camp this - well, let's call it a dog - was among the new arrivals.

It was windy and the really long fur was rippling like a Kansas wheat-field so it's hard to tell exactly how big it is under there, but look at the size of its feet!

To paraphrase any number of childhood westerns, "This Van ain't big enough for the two of us!"