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Post by Sniffles on Feb 21, 2015 3:03:01 GMT
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Post by rhyls on Feb 21, 2015 8:47:01 GMT
I'd love to walk there! Done All UK, Getmany Some of Malaya (In Army then) SOme of the Pyrenes Spain'
Now can't walk up my stairs without puffing.
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Post by zedtsayid on Feb 21, 2015 17:50:32 GMT
These are mine, spent a number of years tramping around the area.   This is at the northern end of the Sawtooth Mtns. |
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Post by rhyls on Feb 21, 2015 23:30:26 GMT
I so miss all this. I'm 80 in December and up to 2 years ago was still rough camping with an exsquaddie of mine. We have walked possibly 1000s mile in the last 60 years. Like I said, hit with COPD. A breathing disease. Gave up smoking 45 years ago. Never been a big drinker.
People ask, why do you do this? all day, walking in rough terrains, bad weather of all kinds.Can't ever explain the joy.
Mountains in particular I love, Never enjoyed much flatland. Even camped in snowy weather. Miss it all.
So if your able, enjoy it all.
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Post by mewgull on Feb 25, 2015 14:21:40 GMT
@ Sniffles:
Thanks for those pix, wish I had the money to go there some day. And yes, Skyrim probably tried to catch this atmosphere.
@ Rhyls:
It looks like you enjoyed life in a very sensible way, better than most people do. COPD is a mean thing, tends to be forgotten by smokers who only stare at the risk of developing cancer. I used to smoke the pipe, but I gave it up some 10 years ago. Now at 50 years, I hope I can avoid COPD as long as possible. I think you can be quite proud of what you have seen and reached by your own power.
I still like to pack up my camping equipment and to go for long bicycle tours of several days. Recently I have started to walk to work, just some 2 or 3 miles across the fields. Still, some colleagues of the same age state firmly they could never do that.
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Post by Sniffles on Feb 25, 2015 23:03:47 GMT
The only thing I don't miss about those mountains is when the sun goes down, which can be as early as 3:00 PM down in the canyons, the temperature drops like a rock. Goes down 20F degrees in summer and up to 50F in winter in less than an hour. Short sleeves to 'where's my parka!'. Up at Bull Lake Creek, near 10,000 ft elevation it gets up to about 85F during the day and around 20F at night in the summer.
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Post by rhyls on Feb 26, 2015 15:31:22 GMT
@ Sniffles: Thanks for those pix, wish I had the money to go there some day. And yes, Skyrim probably tried to catch this atmosphere. @ Rhyls: It looks like you enjoyed life in a very sensible way, better than most people do. COPD is a mean thing, tends to be forgotten by smokers who only stare at the risk of developing cancer. I used to smoke the pipe, but I gave it up some 10 years ago. Now at 50 years, I hope I can avoid COPD as long as possible. I think you can be quite proud of what you have seen and reached by your own power. I still like to pack up my camping equipment and to go for long bicycle tours of several days. Recently I have started to walk to work, just some 2 or 3 miles across the fields. Still, some colleagues of the same age state firmly they could never do that. I sometimes on a moor high up, used to think as a fell runner went past, 'That looks hard' Forgetting I've walked just around 12K with someting like 70 Kilos on my back.with miles still to go. But coming out of the tent at dawn ,making a brew, listening to the world waking up. Money can never buy that, one can go do it but if you have walked there,it's a different experience.the silence, or the humming of the bees,etc, so loud, priceless! So missed now. Walking to work, wonderful !! Brings one so much closer to nature, the seasons, where one finds oneself!I think. Why can't they do that? Car too easy?. |
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Post by mewgull on Feb 26, 2015 17:06:16 GMT
But coming out of the tent at dawn, making a brew, listening to the world waking up. Money can never buy that, one can go do it but if you have walked there,it's a different experience.the silence, or the humming of the bees,etc, so loud, priceless! So missed now. You put it into perfectly right words. Get your legs out of the tent, feel the cool, dewy grass on the soles of your feet and light your camping stove for some coffee. Pack up up equipment and set out for a relaxed 80 to 100 kilometers day trip. Stop at some small villages along the way, take some pictures, have a chat with locals and experience the landscape changing around you at a speed you still can follow mentally. Cycle touring is great! Walking to work, wonderful !! Brings one so much closer to nature, the seasons, where one finds oneself!I think. Why can't they do that? Car too easy?. Car too easy? Probably. Some have to drop off their children at school, but I guess in most cases they never tried and they never compared real time on short distances: With the car I have to get in (often de-icing the windows before, in winter), have to search a parking spot near work and so on. On foot I just walk door to door. Recently, I had some strenuous days at work, getting acquainted with the ideosyncracies of some new software, so I was quite happy to prepare myself for the tasks ahead, repeating questions left from the day before and so on. I can do this when walking but not when driving a car. Most important: Walking some kilometers at a brisk pace gets the blood circulation going, so the oxygen supply for the brain is far better than from just sitting. But I digress. I used to lead groups of teenagers on long hiking trips thru the mountains. Very interesting how they started to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings once they got used to pedestrian speeds - and got past their muscular aches of the first few days!  |
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Post by rhyls on Feb 26, 2015 17:32:26 GMT
That's quite coincidental. I used to be a walk leader, Teaching map and compass and head guide for a government Walking For Health 'initiative', to get people afoot. n my local area.
Ranged walks according to health etc, I led the 5 mile group.
It's nice to see people suddenly become aware of "Hey, have we just walked 4 miles?" Didn't know I could do that! I'll come again. Then when you get them up in the high hills, Wow, so full of awe, an awakening to what's up there.
But we can never describe properly to someone, what we get from doing this.
I and you too, I'm sure, have been made to realise our place in the universe, how insignificant we are. Many many times.
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Post by rhyls on Feb 26, 2015 17:38:26 GMT
I see you live in germany. I lived in Bad Fallingbostel, for some years. Only back in the Uk 4 years. Wish I still was over there.
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Post by Sniffles on Feb 26, 2015 23:03:13 GMT
You guys are making us so homesick! We both ride bicycles and invariably, no matter which direction we start out in we end up heading for the hills and wide open spaces to the north. Then we have to resist the urge to just keep going. Chain our bikes to a tree and go see what the view is like from the top of that hill. Then the next one beckons... It's worse for my darling as she just shrugs getting too far out to make it home that night. Break out the blanket and wait for the sun.
No, there's a land. Have you seen it?
It's the cussedest land that I know.
From the big dizzy mountains that screen it,
to the deep death like valleys below.
Some say god was tired when he made it.
Some say it's a fine land to shun.
But there are some who would trade it
for no land on earth... and I'm one. . . -Robert Service, The Call of the Yukon-
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Post by rhyls on Feb 27, 2015 0:51:52 GMT
Homesick for where? I don't understand. Sorry.
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Post by Sniffles on Feb 27, 2015 3:00:40 GMT
Waving arms and pointing to the first 5 pictures of this thread. Hello?  (That was our back yard when we were kids.) |
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Post by rhyls on Feb 27, 2015 7:43:58 GMT
I thought you were in the USA. But if that was your playground as kids then yes,I'd feel very homesick. Sometimes in ypour threads you seem to be there, then sometimes in Thailand.. I'm just a confused oldie. |
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Post by mewgull on Feb 28, 2015 9:11:01 GMT
Same with me. Sniffles must have seen quite a bit of this old planet in her life.
And, yes: I would feel very homesick too, if I had spent my childhood there!
About Germany: I live in the heart of Hessen county, in a fairly rural area, having studied in Marburg, Freiburg and close to Basel. All of them really beautiful towns, but having my diploma, I went countryside again: Need that feeling to be in the open fields in a few minutes.
I don´t know how many times I went from Marburg to Basel by car or train. And then, a hunger arose to really get to know that route, so I did it in a week by bicycle instead of doing it on the Autobahn in 4 boring hours.
Some 670 kilometers with my bicycle, every night at a different camping ground, meeting lots of people on the way, exchanging more spontaneous smiles than ever.
Richard Bach once said that the intensity of experiencing a landscape is inverse to the speed you travel along. He had his closed cabin monoplane exchanged for an old open cockpit biplane. I felt the same with my bicycle.
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(That was our back yard when we were kids.)