[at-l] What's backpacking mean to you?

[Mark Hudson]

Man, if I only had one answer!

- Because life on the trail is SO simple: How far am I going today? What's
for dinner? Is that a hotspot on my foot? And everything I need is on my
back...
- Because time slows down on the trail. You get to live every minute. I
never sat down at the end of the day and thought it went by SO fast.  And
you never find your self on a Tuesday wishing it was Friday afternoon
instead, like living the working man's life.
- Of course there's a bit of testing myself against the trail. A bit of Type
A stubbornness can sometimes get you far.
- The chance to clear my mind of daily distractions and concentrate on
what's around me.
- The chance to burn off a couple of town-aquired pounds....

And the reason changes from minute to minute sometimes? Ask me when I
climbing a mountain and I'm testing myself. Ask me when I'm having lunch
under a tree and I'm enjoying what's around me....

- But most of all, for me, hiking is not what I do, it's who I am...

skeeter