Category: Matt Dickerson
In honor of outdoor sports, our home state of Vermont, the recently completed winter Olympics and National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me” (hosted by Peter Segal and Carl Kassell) — and by demand of my reading public — I present yet another edition of my own sporadically offered quiz column. Last time, I offered a collection of strange outdoor products guaranteed to improve your hunting, fishing or camping experience. Contestants had to determine which one of them was false.
We were at the top of the ridge. We’d been going steadily uphill for nearly an hour, winding our way up the slope heading north and east. Finally, we cut through a familiar pass between two hilltops, and were ready to start our descent.
Cross-country ski conditions weren’t great on the ascent, but they were okay: better than we’d expected. At the bottom of the mountain, where we live, the open meadows and farm fields were largely barren of snow. What little was left after the meltdown in January had gradually disappeared until only the woods still held white ground cover.
Today’s column is brought to you by the number 5. Here are 5 things to do outdoors in 2010, and 5 ways you can do them.
ONE: Hike one of Vermont’s 4,000-foot peaks. There are five of them.
In increasing order of height, and starting closest to home, Mt. Abraham is 4,006 feet in elevation at the summit. It is not only the lowest 4,000-footer, but also the shortest to climb, with the Lincoln Gap trailhead starting already at 2,424 feet, leaving a vertical climb of 1,600 feet (counting the ups and downs) over 5.2 miles.
This decade began with snow as nice as anything Addison County has enjoyed in the past few years. (I’m speaking, of course, to those like me who enjoy the white stuff.) We had such deep, light, fluffy covering that it was difficult for my wife and I not just to walk out into the woods every morning on our snowshoes, no matter how much work was beckoning to us.
One of my favorite NPR shows is “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.” Hosted by Peter Sagal, it airs locally on VPR Saturday mornings from 11 a.m. to noon. One segment on this quiz show challenges contestants to distinguish between the real and the phony: actual news stories vs. made-up “news.” products on the market vs. imagined products, etc.
In my previous column I made light of the human propensity to whine — a trait at least as common among outdoor enthusiasts as in the general population. And November and December are especially good months for complaining. For one thing, it is the season for steelhead fishing and duck hunting. Of all hunting and fishing sports, these may be the two that inflict the most suffering, and thus also engender the greatest level of stoic pride among participants.
Hunters and anglers are, in many ways, like normal people. Which is to say, we like to boast. Normal people who have hunters or anglers for acquaintances understand, and sometimes accept, that. The misconception that normal people have about hunters and anglers pertains not to whether or we are given to boasting, but to the nature of that boasting.
When you take something for granted, you often lose it.
History and personal experience have shown this to be true of much, if not all, that is important. It is true not only of our possessions, but also of our relationships; health; traditions (including hunting, fishing and other outdoor traditions); clean soil, water, and air; wilderness (and more broadly the beauty and availability of those spaces where we engage in our most cherished outdoor activities); freedom (of all types); and the very food that will tastefully (and abundantly) adorn our tables this Thursday.
