Laziness and bushwalking

[mikethepike]

If the laziest person in the country asked me what he should do to increase his spirit and liveliness of mind and body, I would tell him to take up bushwalking, or more specifically trail walking because these activities and laziness make the perfect match. Regardless of how far you walk from the car or bus stop, you have to walk back no matter how lazy you feel. If you are halfway between huts, you have to continue on regardless of any sudden attacks of laziness. I would offer the same advice to anyone who had lost their sense of purpose because unlikely as it might seem, you always feel that you are engaged in doing something useful when you go bush/trail walking even though it has no direct benefit to anyone or anything other than yourself.
Further proof of the match between bush/trail walking and laziness is the short walking day of most walkers adopt – 6 to 6½ hours and huts on any trails I can think of are only a few short hours walk apart. I often like walking days to be long particularly if walking solo as it removes the need to provide evening entertainment because you feel weary at day's end and just want to go to 'bed' once eating is over. I like days like that because I am a lazy person and such days tell me that laziness can be defeated.
Obviously walking isn’t necessarily about long days but if walking was working, a typical day's walk would not be an honest day's work! If walking was working, many walkers would be facing the sack. Plenty of lazy people apparently have made the connection with walking because the only people I see on trails, apart from those coming in the opposite direction and at campsite or huts, are people sitting down!

[kanangra]

Mike it sounds like you and i have a fair bit in common. I too like to put in a solid 12 hour day if I'm on the trail. But Then sometimes I think; it's not a race, maybe I should slow down a bit and smell the flowers more? But it doesn't last long, I just get up and get going. Just the driven type I guess?

K

[Jag]

Oh yeah it's the zen of 60% effort releasing endorphins . I stick to trails & zen like still often miss markers . Apparently I miss scenery also.

Subsequently people never ask me about my hikes cause I don't do photos & I don't remember much. That's the point of it all - to just be there.

[Strider]

Subsequently people never ask me about my hikes cause I don't do photos & I don't remember much. That's the point of it all - to just be there.

I couldn't agree more.

[sanbot]

If the laziest person in the country asked me what he should do to increase his spirit and liveliness of mind and body, I would tell him to take up bushwalking, or more specifically trail walking because these activities and laziness make the perfect match. Regardless of how far you walk from the car or bus stop, you have to walk back no matter how lazy you feel. If you are halfway between huts, you have to continue on regardless of any sudden attacks of laziness. I would offer the same advice to anyone who had lost their sense of purpose because unlikely as it might seem, you always feel that you are engaged in doing something useful when you go bush/trail walking even though it has no direct benefit to anyone or anything other than yourself.

It's so true what you say about increasing liveliness of mind and body (I always feel great even though I might be physically tired and sore) but I think you have it half right there. Yes you would have no choice to walk back but a lazy person would still have to get motivated in the first place to get onto a trail.

[mikethepike]

I think that maybe I should have put the odd in the opening post. I started this topic because I've been on crutches for the last 6 months following a bad foot injury and with more surgery to come and am not sure just what the limits might be to my bush walking. I know that plenty of bushwalkers are happy to limit themselves to doing easy to moderate walks in traditional walking areas but its seems to me that you can do that type of walking in your more advanced years so why not do more challenging walks while you are still young and physically able. Most bushwalking looks a pretty lazy activity to me though many people do make things difficult for themselves by carting too heavy a rucksack.

Mike it sounds like you and i have a fair bit in common. I too like to put in a solid 12 hour day if I'm on the trail. But Then sometimes I think; it's not a race, maybe I should slow down a bit and smell the flowers more? But it doesn't last long, I just get up and get going. Just the driven type I guess?

I think we may have something in common here kanangra. Long distance days doesn't mean being in or feeling like you're in a hurry (that's the place of rogaining), it's a matter of the hours spent walking in a day - steady walking and not as many or long rest stops that often happen in club walks. I still believe I see a lot (when I'm not daydreaming as I walk but that only happens on trails not cross-country walking), I do stop to check things of interest. I plan walks in semi-arid areas and an interest of mine is soil lichens. In this situation, unless you were to carry a lot of extra water, long days are essential.

[north-north-west]

Mike it sounds like you and i have a fair bit in common. I too like to put in a solid 12 hour day if I'm on the trail. But Then sometimes I think; it's not a race, maybe I should slow down a bit and smell the flowers more? But it doesn't last long, I just get up and get going. Just the driven type I guess?

I think we may have something in common here kanangra. Long distance days doesn't mean being in or feeling like you're in a hurry (that's the place of rogaining), it's a matter of the hours spent walking in a day - steady walking and not as many or long rest stops that often happen in club walks. I still believe I see a lot (when I'm not daydreaming as I walk but that only happens on trails not cross-country walking), I do stop to check things of interest.

Yep!. Yep, yep, yep.
Get up early, watch the sunrise, photos, pack, get going. Keep going. No rush, just slow and steady.

[Mechanic-AL]

I guess the hours a person puts in and the distances they cover would relate directly to the reasons there are out there in the first place. If peace and serenity are your thing then thankfully there are still a lot of places where you won't have to travel too far before you have achieved your objective. I hate reading that a walk from point A to point B should be do-able in a certain amount of time. I can apreciate that this sort of stuff is a guideline for most but it does tend to lump us all in the same basket a bit and asume that everyones primary objective is to simply get from one point to another in a day. If I happen to come across an area that I find particulary pretty or interesting I would rather spend time to apreciate it rather than marching sraight thru, even if this means I haven't reached my alloted 'target' by nightfall.
I personally get a buzz out of reading up on the early surveyors and bushmen and usually chose a walk that follows in their footsteps ( as most of us are doing) and try to imagine how they would have felt when the area they were in was vastly unknown.
Everyone has their own driving forces and motivations for bushwalking and if building up a giant resume of epic walks that have been completed in a string of 12 hour days is what gets you out there then I respect that you are doing whatever floats your boat.
I just couldn't give a rats if I have done a 12 hour day or a 3 hour stroll. I just know I'm doing something that I get a huge kick out of
..........and I'm sorry, but theres no way in hell I could ever regard it as being lazy !

AL.

[MickyB]

Totally agree Mechanic-AL. Well said.

[mikethepike]

I log my trips on paper, but only really so I can get them up on Bushwalking Blog when I get home.

That quote is from <Between bushwalks/Keeping a bushwalking diary> topic and I quoted it here because it contains an active link to Neils' blog's which has an autobiographic article concerning the many positive changes to self that occur when a 'nature loving couch potato' gets out walking in the bush. The ideas in it pretty well sums up the thoughts I had in mind when I started this blog and I thought you might like to read it.

Everyone has their own driving forces and motivations for bushwalking and if building up a giant resume of epic walks that have been completed in a string of 12 hour days is what gets you out there then I respect that you are doing whatever floats your boat.

I agree and I respect people regardless of why and how they walk. I've done leisurely walks myself but in recent years I've for some reason developed an interest in doing multi day walks where I like to cover a lot of ground. Sometimes I see it a sensible strategy for the type of country I may be walking in but on other trips I just like the idea of covering a lot of map area and getting to as many places as I can in the time available (Ok I'm a peak bagger ). I wonder sometimes if my subconscious motif for such walks is to do a series of last hoorahs before the body becomes decrepit with age.

Long days can often be sensibly justified of course. On some trips in slow rugged country, long days are required or you just don't seem to get anywhere. And long days in mid-winter are not that long if you restrict walking to comfortable daylight hours and compare those hours with summer daylight hours eg in Tassie (or Norway ). Take the Western Arthurs walk as an example of of walk styles. It is essentially a 5-6 day walk starting and finishing at Scott Creek Dam but I think as many parties opt for 8 or more days for the walk because of lack of fitness/low natural scrambling speed/too heavy rucksacks as do parties who just want to chill out up there. Everyone to their own thing but some of it could be due to laziness which gets back to my original thesis - bushwalking and laziness are a good match!