Originally Posted by
Tipi Walter
The biggest thing I miss on my backpacking trips are my old backpacking buddies from the 1980's. I often sit by my tent at the end of a day and pretend I see my old friends coming up the trail to talk and reminisce.
A sentiment that is no doubt shared by all of us with too many miles under our boots. Let's offer a wistful toast to all our companions who now hike under the trees that bear the golden apples of the Hesperides:
"In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,
By crystal streams, that murmur thro' the meads:
But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;
The path conducts you to your journey's end.”
This said, he led them up the mountain's brow,
And shews them all the shining fields below.
They wind the hill, and thro'
the blissful meadows go.
(Virgil, Æneid, 6.642)
As we remember them under the trees they left behind:
My laughter is o'er; my step loses its lightness;
Sweet countryside measures steal soft on mine ear.
I can only brood on the past and its brightness,
While those I have mourned once again gather near.
From every dark nook they press forward to meet me,
And wisfully scanning the broad leafy dome,
I find other faces fond bending to greet me:
The ash grove, the ash grove alone is my home!
(I remember the step-grandfather I never met, who hiked off in 1940, never to return; the uncle who first took me into the woods half a century ago; the young man in whose company I first hiked above treeline, and who was cut down in a plane crash a few weeks afterward; another young man to whom I taught trail cooking, whose ashes lie amidst the ruins of the Twin Towers; and numerous other companions with whom I lost touch, but who could hardly still be hiking today. Remember to save me a spot, guys!)
Deprivation on the trail
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I find I miss two things
