Chapter Sixteen

Bear the Great – Chapter Sixteen.

 

Trail greetings were as many and as varied as the hikers you saw out there.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Ho.”

He only used “Ho” when his opposite number coming the other way had already used “Hey” or “Hi.” Repetition was one form of plagiarism he avoided at all costs. “Morning” was fine because he rarely hiked in the afternoon, but he preferred a single-syllable greeting to anything longer winded, and not only because he valued economy of effort in all things. “Parsimonious” could have been his middle name, though that was in fact “Elliott” – with two “l’s and two “t’s.” But he was out here to hike, dammit, not to socialize. The chatty Cathys?  They were welcome to stay home as far as he was concerned.

“Have a good hike” and “Nice day out” were both equally noxious and inane.

Couldn’t have a bad one if I tried. We’re on the trail, you moron. Any day on the trail beats a day anyplace else – in case you hadn’t already noticed.

Of course he was not about to get that loquacious with an opposite number no matter how moronic they might be. Some battles are best left to fight another day, or not be fought at all.  Come to think of it, maybe this was why Ranger Aylin wouldn’t let him anywhere near the guard shack at the entrance to @RoxStatePark? Ah well. There were worse fates than always being put on Corridor Clearing detail. Much worse.

 

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Today he was wearing a black ballcap with the Herky logo and a matching black tee with “IOWA” spelled out in big block letters across the front. He didn’t often coordinate his wardrobe like this. But when he did, it ensured he’d get a couple of “Go Hawkeyes!” greetings. And he was OK with that. Well, as long as some guy with a big beer belly spilling over the waistband of his falling-down gym shorts didn’t try to regale him with tales of collegiate exploits as a backup tight end in Iowa City thirty or forty years ago. Sheesh. Some people really should just get over themselves.

The best greeting he’d heard on the trail this week was when he’d been wearing the bright red ballcap with the “StL” logo he’d inherited from his late father-in-law who had once helped build old Busch Stadium and had thereafter remained a life-long Cardinals fan. No, the greeting wasn’t “Go Cards!” It was “Yeah, I miss Nolan too.” This being Denver, and the Arenado trade being perhaps one of the most egregious in MLB history. He was considering getting a t-shirt that read  “The Monforts Can Bite Me.” But he didn’t even want to think about having to explain that one to people unfamiliar with the Rockies current ownership group.

 

 

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Of course, trails were shared with more than just other hikers. Some allowed horses, and if there was one inviolable rule of trail etiquette, it was that horseback riders ALWAYS had the right of way over anyone else out there. He was good with that because horses were smart, they took their time, and they knew their role – just like God and Nature intended – and unlike certain humans.

On a narrow dirt trail, you often had to step off to let others pass. The rule of thumb was that singletons yielded to larger groups, and uphill yielded to downhill everything else being equal. On wider paved trails, slower folks stayed right, and faster travellers passed by just like cars on a highway. Well, like cars on an American highway anyhow. But the wild card in all of it was the bikers.

 

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Mountain bikers with a good head of downhill steam could be on top of you before you even had a chance to blink. God help you both if you didn’t already have an ear and an eye cocked against this possibility on a narrow steep stretch. But the thing that REALLY got his goat? It was the standard biker trail greeting when passing from behind: “On your LEFT!”

Really? Do you need to shout that in my ear as you’re hurtling ass-over-teakettle past me, blowing my hair back – and I don’t even have any hair! Hey buddy, I’m not hard of hearing here.

Well, truth to tell, he actually was more than a little hard of hearing, but it wasn’t worth getting into a fight over. It did give rise to certain fantasies though. One such idle daydream was sticking out a big red STOP sign at the end of a fake clown arm right in the offenders face as they attempted to whiz past. Another was having a canned air-horn that might be loud enough to startle the dead, goosing the offending bikers but good in their spandex-clad backsides.

Most devious would be a James-Bond-like 007 device attached to one’s waist-pack that would shoot out a stream of cayenne-pepper bear repellent straight into their reflective goggles on their way past. The key would be getting the angle just right. But the advantage was that since he always had bear spray in his pack anyway, it wasn’t going to be any extra weight to carry around. Economy of effort in all things.

 

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That phrase “ass over teakettle” was one his dad had always used to describe something slippery or out of control. It was a great phrase and probably had origins in a time when people actually carried teakettles around on their way between the kitchen stove and whereever they were going to end up drinking their tea. He was reminded, inexplicably, of another phrase his dad sometimes used, “long in the tooth.” That described something or someone getting older, and it came from the fact that horses’ and mules’ teeth actually grew longer the older they got. And his dad had been an old mule-farmer from a long ways back. The irony, of course, was that his dad, who never lost a single tooth in all his 96 years, wore his own down to nubs by the end. Go figure.

Such were his musings on the trail. Well, at least when he was not being accosted with overly verbose greetings from those headed in the opposite direction. Or assailed from behind by bikers streaking by “ON THE LEFT!”

 

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Just this morning there was a story in the Post about a 37-year-old trail runner who had recorded the “fastest known time” for the 487-mile Colorado Trail.  Six days, 15 hours, 8 minutes. For those of you keeping score at home that’s an average of 80 miles daily, with 20 hours on the move out of each 24, and averaging 3.7 mph excluding rest breaks. Power-walking the uphills, running the downhills, with 92,000 feet of vertical climb overall. Frankly just the thought of it boggled his mind.

Still, to accomplish this feat took a team of 20 to pace him, keep him supplied with food and water and – just as important – give him constant Stuart-Smalley-style affirmations of his essential goodness and fitness for the task at hand. Not that it wasn’t impressive in and of itself. Of course it was. But that kind of thing just went against the grain of everything  good and holy about hiking. Enjoying the beauty of nature at a reasonable – and sustainable – 2.5 mph pace. Doing it all on your own without any outside help or interference. Not to gloat, but when the guy finished in Durango, he went straight to the hospital for treatment of an ankle injury. “Done, and I’m dead,” he posted afterward on Strava, the social media app for hard-core long-distance cyclists and ultra-marathoners.

Well, good for him. But not my cuppa tea. Gimme good ol’ South Rim Trail any day of the week. I see a power-walker coming the other way, arms pumping and neck-veins bulging? I’m gonna keep my head down and not even say “hey.”