[l/m 6/1/91] Distilled Wisdom (8/28) -- Words from Colin Fletcher XYZ

[Eugene N. Miya]

If you are just beginning activities like hiking, perhaps some of the best
books written on the subject are those by Colin Fletcher. He has tried to
keep his editions current with trends such as equipment, but his spirit
comes through in books like The Complete Walker (his beginner guide)
and The Thousand Mile Summer (walking the length of California
12 years before it came popular).

Excerpts from The Complete Walker:

There is a cardinal rule of travel, all too often overlooked,
that I call "The Law of Inverse Appreciation."

It states: "The less there is between you and the environment, the
more you appreciate the environment."

Every walker knows, even if he has not thought about it, the law's
most obvious application: the bigger and most efficient your means of
travel, the further you become divorced from the reality through which
you are travelling. A man learns a thousand times more about the sea from
the "Kon Tiki" than from the "Queen Mary;" euphorically more about space
at the end of a cord than inside a capsule. On land, you remain closer
in touch with the countryside in a slow moving old open touring
car than in a modern, air-conditioned, tinted-glass-window,
80-miles-per-hour-and-never-notice-it behemoth. And you come closer
in touch on a horse than any car; in closer touch on foot than on any horse.

But the law has a second and less obvious application:
your appreciation varies not only according to what you travel "in"
but also according to what you travel "over." Drive along a
freeway in any kind of car and you are in almost zero contact with the
country beyond the concrete. Turn off onto a minor highway and you are
a notch closer. A narrow country road is better still.
When you bump slowly along a jeep trail you begin at last to sense those
vital details that turn mere landscape into living countryside. And not
long ago, on the East African savanna -- where it was at
the time not considered destructive to drive cross-country over the pale
grasslands -- I discovered an extending corollary to my law:
"The further you move away from any impediment of appreciation,
the better it is."

It is less obvious that these same discrepancies persist when you are
travelling on foot. Any blacktop road holds the scrollwork of the country
at arm's length: the road itself keeps stalking along on stilts or
grubbing about in a trough, and your feet travel on harsh and
sterile pavement. Turn off onto a dusty jeep trail and the detail moves
closer. A foot trail is better still. But you do not really
have to break free until you step off the trail and walk through waving
grass or woodland growth or across rock or smooth sand or (most perfect
of all) virgin snow. Now you can read all the details,
down to the print. Drifting snow crystals barely begun to blurr the four
footed signature of the marten that padded past this lodgepole pine.
Or a long-legged lizard scurries for cover, kicking up
little spurts of sand as it corners around a bush. . .And always, in snow
or sand or rock or seascape grass there is, as far as you can see in
any direction, no sign of man.
That, I believe, is being in touch with the world.

--Colin Fletcher

Other foot notes

* It would probably be a good thing if you reread this paragraph at least once
-- and tried to remember it later on. This is essentially a "know-how"
book, but we must never lose sight of the fact that what matters in the end
is the "feel how" of walking.

* Frankly, my advice to those genuinely interested in walking has always been
to forget the books and to get out and get on with it. Relying on the
two finest teachers in the business, trial and error. I'm not at all sure
a piece of me that doesn't still stand by that advice.

"Once you become a walker, you become a conservationist: no one can walk
for days on-end through wild and unspoiled country and then stumble on some
man-perpetrated horror without having his blood start to boil.*
*At least, I used to think this was so. I'm afraid I am no longer
so sure.

Appendix IV: Pleasant Quotes for Contemplative Walkers

While some people take dispute with the above as being "elitist,"
counters those those call of elitism exist. Those counters are not
included at this point for several reasons which not be elaborated.
See the "natural" debate.

TABLE OF CONTENTS of this chain:

1/ DISCLAIMER
2/ Ethics
3/ Learning I
4/ learning II (lists, "Ten Essentials," Chouinard comments)
5/ Summary of past topics
6/ Non-wisdom: fire-arms topic circular discussion
7/ Learning (3)
8/ Fletcher's Law of Inverse Appreciation and advice <* THIS PANEL *>
9/ Water Filter wisdom
10/ Words from Rachel Carson
11/ Scouting <pending>
12/ Netiquette
13/ Questions on conditions and travel
14/ Dedication to Aldo Leopold
15/ Leopold's lot.
16/
17/ Information about bears
18/ Poison ivy, frequently ask, under question
19/ Lyme disease, frequently ask, under question
20/ "Telling questions" backcountry Turing test (under construction)
21/ AMS
22/ Words from Foreman and Hayduke
23/ A bit of song (like camp songs)
24/ What is natural?
25/ A romantic notion of high-tech employment
26/ Other news groups of related interest, networking
27/ Films/cinema references
28/ References (written)