[Cdt-l] The Long Walk

[Bob Sartini]

I agree with everything you said. "long distance hiking " with town
stops every 4-7 days is simply recreation and seems like a big deal
only to certified couch potatoes. Did Rawicz have Guthook? Mountain
house? Trail runners?  Cuben Fiber ?  Steripen? A tarptent? Jetboil?
Quickdry clothes? Neo air?  We equip like astronauts compared to some
of the epic journeys of history.


On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 10:50 PM, Charlie Thorpe <charliethorpe at att.net> wrote:
> Hello All -
>
> I just finished reading "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz.  Wow...!
>
> Mr. Rawicz was a Polish army officer captured by the Russians when they moved into Poland in 1939.  He and some fellow prisoners escaped from a Soviet labor camp early in WWII and walked from north Siberia through Mongolia, the Gobi desert, Tibet, and the Himalayas, ending up in Calcutta, India.
>
> Their long distance hiking equipment consisted of an axe, knife made from a saw blade,and completely inadequate  prison clothing supplemented by skins from wild and domestic animals.  Their food was anything they could find along the way and their total ability to carry water...through the Gobi desert...was a tin cup.
>
> Their long walk certainly put my distance hiking into perspective for me.
>
> I have long felt that successful distance hikers don't necessarily need special athletic ability, high level of outdoor skills, exotic gear, or even lots of money.  IMHO, the hikers I have met who make it to the end of their long trail are those who can set a clear and fixed goal for themselves and...day after day after day after day...do all those little things it takes to reach that goal.
>
> Mr. Rawicz and his small group of escapees spent over a year reaching their goal through unimaginable hardships that makes the civilized distance hiking we do seem almost like a cake walk. I have a new hero.
>
> Mr. Rawicz died in 2004 at almost 90 years old.  Could there be something in this distance hiking game that helps us age a little more gracefully?
>
> Time to get out and walk some more...
>
> - Charlie
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-- 
Everything is in Walking Distance