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TOPIC: Lake Julian Pine Forest
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/t/d22329594e027ae2?hl=en
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    == 4 of 5 ==
Date: Tues, Dec 9 2008 7:10 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE
 
JP-
By the reading of your report, it was a bit of a thrash...good work! I was especially interested in your comment about your 'hiking stick'. As a younger man, I used no stick while hiking (well, I once used a hiking stick while crossing a spring flow creek in the high sierras, while running a rope across, so I could belay my hiking partner across behind me). But with advancing age and pounds, I first found myself using a pair of 'hiking sticks' when dropping from the "Rim" at Grand Canyon, to the "River", and back up.
My question? Do you, out of economy of effort, use just one? I am imagining that you use just one when "off trail". Do you use a pair of sticks when hiking challenging trails? While I hadn't until the last few years, I wish I'd done so long ago!
-DonRB
 

== 5 of 5 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 10 2008 1:00 am
From: James Parton
 
 
Don,
 
I have used one so long I have never thought about why. On the trail
or in the woods I feel lost without one. I started it years ago
because I thought it looked cool but I quickly found out that the
stick was often a big help, especially going downhill. I use only one
stick and prefer a natural one, not one of the aluminum type. Also the
stick/staff has to have an appeal to me and any stick will not do.It
has to have unique character. My old one was cut from a hawthorn tree
about 5 years ago. It will be missed and I probably will go back again
to look for it. Another useful thing about a stick is I use it as a
size reference with trees if I have no one with me to pose with one in
a photo.

People have told me that my " trademark " is my boonie hat, hiking
stick and camo.
 
James Parton.
 

== 3 of 5 ==
Date: Wed, Dec 10 2008 12:52 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE
 
 
 
James-
Noting your email address, I can see how one (the stick species) may have influenced the other (address)!
Much of my time in the woods was as a federal employee, and we were burdened with heaps of safety gear, but oddly enough, never required to use hiking sticks, staffs. With cruiser vest loaded with paint cans, oil containers, files, record books, lunch, or what have you, and usually with rag tape, paint gun, clinometer and/or machete in hand, I'd have lost a staff at the first thrash!
It was hiking down into Grand Canyon that they first proved their purpose...initially they (yes, I like a pair of them) were very helpful negotiating the terrain that was made so uneven by daily mule train passage and the percentage of the 3-4,000,000 visitors making it some distance down the trail. Later on, as night came (this was a July hike), and my flashlight bulb failed, the sticks became feelers, allowing me hints as to the terrain ahead, with naught but starlight to guide me, perilous dropoffs pretty much most of the way down to the bridge crossing the Colorado River.
Since then, I'm happy to have them along on hikes with primitive surfaces or off-trail passages. It's amazing how much they assist balance, and how much further one can walk, with legs free of most of the balancing effort they took without the sticks.
While I employ telescoping ski pole-like sticks (I really like the nylon webbing for wrists), I have used hickory and ash branches back east, and other species, as they offered themselves up...here in Alaska, the diamond willow (so named for the diamond created by interlacing growth of opportunistic invasives like honeysuckle, etc.) is a favorite of many, for an attractive and durable stick.
-DonRB>