During the winter of 2011, I completed the smallest of four trips into Glacier National Park’s backcountry, seven days. With my average daily travel at approximately six miles, I thought I had done well on my snowshoes and said as much on my website.
Less than a day later, I got an email with the subject being “Breaking the myth”. Accusing me of doing pathetic mileage, some fellow, his name is unimportant, informed me that on cross-country skis, he could do 20 miles per day. I think he may have missed the part about the ascent of a steep slope while I was carrying over 90 pounds.
Going back a little further, in 1976, during the autumn, I watched a man pull a steelhead trout out of the Snake River in Washington. He was teaching his approximately eight-year-old son how to catch a steelhead using 3-pound test line. It took him 20 minutes to land the behemoth fish. As he was removing the hook, I made the comment that the joke was on him, that he had caught a rainbow trout.
On one knee, he stared up at me for a few moments then glanced at his son. I watched as their facial expressions quietly noted that there was a goddamned fool in their midst. I slunk away and a short time later did some research. I found out that among some other things, rainbow trout are landlocked steelhead who do not have the ability to live in the sea.
In 2011, I deleted the fool’s email without responding.
Today, I suspect there are more than a few who believe my half-mile to three miles per day winter travel on the Continental Divide is pathetic. My reads of the doomed Scott Antarctic Expedition of 104 years ago say otherwise.
Hello Richard,
There may always be those who wish to be “one-up” on everyone else. They have a self-centered inability to celebrate others accomplishments.
Your adventures and stories inspire me to get out more. For me that “more” is about going to different locations and experiencing each hiking companion, each step and each mile with joy (and safety).
I would rather have wonderful conversations and remember the spectacular scenery than brag out distance or peaks — and be all alone.
Sadly, I am one of those who spends substantial amounts of time alone. Based on my experience, we are not built for that type of existence. My wife goes with me on most of the “off-season” trips. I do recognize however, the accomplishments of others, and from time to time I try to learn from them. The Scott Expedition is a case in point-a tough bunch of Englishmen.