Re: [Paddlewise] Conquering Kayakers?

I believe it is much easier to request 6 months off from work to snowshoe
blindfolded across Antarctica, than it would be to request a warm and sunny
Tuesday morning off to paddle an uncrowded bayou. It places the burden of
being "unreasonable" where it belongs. Additionally,  does it seem less
reasonable to bankrupt oneself in behalf of a quixotic journey, as opposed
to owning 16 kayaks, paddled at best, a few days each per year?

What does strike me as unusual is those folks who "journey" to suffer. The
"hardship " of travel was already becoming  passe by the late  19th Century.
Much of today's "hardship" is inexperience, poor-planning, foolishness, or
very bad luck. "Hardship" is little more  than self-indulgent decadence.

As for my decadently self-indulged opinionated self? I prefer very long
canoe trips in the bug-dom of northern Canada, in the very maw of that which
the Canadians call "Summer".

----- Original Message -----
From: jrussell <jrussell_at_pclink.com>
To: <PaddleWise_at_lists.intelenet.net>
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 1999 8:27 PM
Subject: [Paddlewise] Conquering Kayakers?


> Hi All,
> I recently pondered aloud to a group of sea kayakers that I had noticed a
> personality "type" that is driven and eager to accomplish a certain kind
of
> outdoor "feat" such as circumnavigate a large lake, or be the first to
> paddle solo across a wide expanse, paddle 600 miles alone in a short
number
> of days, or conquer some other outdoors challenge.  I wondered about this
> because while I love to kayak (and bike and ski and snowshoe), I don't
> really have a need or desire to do this sort of thing. I'm happy just to
> paddle and while I would love to say circumnavigate Lake Superior, it
isn't
> something I feel I need to do -- it doesn't have more appeal than other
> trips I can go on.  So part of my curiosity is -- what is this about? What
> makes people want to paddle to conquer? (I realize it's not just paddling,
> of course.)  The second part of my outloud musing was that it seems to me
> that, more often than not, these folks are men. So I wondered (and this
got
> me into a bit of hot water since I'm female) whether there was some gender
> thing going on here (and *I* wasn't the one to use the word
testosterone!).
>
> Anyone have any thoughts on this?
>
> -Jody
>
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