“You are never going to make it through the Whites or the Mahoosacs with that pack,” another backpacker tells me.
I nod and think I heard you the first four times you told me.
He is traveling with a friend, wearing spandex, carrying only a fanny pack. He began to lecture me on the weight of my bag, even though I asked him not to. Then he starts to brag, “We go three miles an hour,” he says. “And two miles an hour through the whites.”
I ask him if they are Northbound thru-hikers, and he tells me that they are section hikers. Apparently, he’s been hiking parts of the trail on and off for eight years and will finish in the next two. He and his buddy paid to be driven to the trail on a logging road just south of the mountain I met them on. This means, that by the end of the day, I will have done more than twice the mileage they did and summited three extra mountains. I’m not saying that I’m hardcore because I know that there are people out there faster and stronger than me, and I have total respect for section hikers-it’s hard to get enough time off to do the trail. But you have to have a particular brand of cluelessness to lecture a thru-hiker on their pack weight, when you slept in a bed the night before, then shuttled to the trail so that you can do a hike short enough to make it to town so that you can sleep in a bed again. It’s really not that hard to do three miles an hour that way.
“All I’m saying,” he repeats, “Is that you are never going to make it through the Whites with that bag.” (sixth time now).
I say, “You may be right, but you have to carry the weight of your gigantic ego, so things probably even out.”
No, I didn’t say that, but I wanted to. I also considered pointing to his rather large stomach and saying, “It looks to me like you are carrying a lot of extra weight that I’m not.”
But I didn’t say that either. Actually, I believe that people of all shapes and sizes are beautiful. I also believe that no matter what your shape or size, lecturing me about my pack is just plain rude.
