Craig wrote: "Interesting about someone blindly following a GPS along a road marked with signs telling them not to go there." With youth comes a lot of stupidity, and sometimes it goes well, sometimes not. Once, soon half a century ago, we were a gang of teenagers that trekked into the most inaccessible part of the Swedish north, following the latest maps available, made some 80 years earlier. We knew the conventional route up onto the highland plateau in the central of the Sarek National Park, but by studying the map we found a hereto unknown shortcut, between two low peaks. Piece of cake, we thought. Unfortunately the pass wasn't exactly like it was on the old map (on the new, avaialble just days after we left civilisation there was no pass). There was a lower sector between two peaks, some 1.000 meters up, and it definitely not in level with the high plateau behind, and there was a small gorge behind the map's pass. The first two in our group of fifteen scrambled straight up the rock face, setting off a small rock slide. While some of the group decided to make dinner before trying it, I, who was third, didn't like the idea of rocks tumbling down, so I kept to the left, where the ground was firmer, but also rockier. Pretty soon I was climbing a rock face, with my 60+ lbs back pack. Those below studied me in their binoculars, chatting happily, interested if I would fall down, or not. I did not, somehow. I managed eventually get to the top, and down the less steep side towards the gorge. Some way down the hill I unpacked my sleeping back and fell instantly asleep. Some of the stragglers passed me, I seem to recollect, and when I eventually awoke properly, I was totally alone. Low clouds filled the gorge and covered most of the other side, towards the plateau. Eventually, I saw a single tent far, far below. I packed as fast as I could and raced down the mountain side, eager not to lose my bearings. And it was some of my friends, and a day later we were all assembled again. We were young and stupid (the oldest of us maybe 19), but nothing bad happened - more well prepared has had bad luck and fared much worse. A friend walking the Kungsleden alone (a 1,000 km trekk from one end to the other), one day saw a guy some distance ahead sitting near the track, probably admiring the view. Another lone trekker, how nice, but as my friend got closer he thought the man sat a bit oddly, like he was propped up by the back pack. And so he was! Been like that for a few weeks, at least, but my friend was the first to pass this gentleman's last resting place, as it was very late in the walking season. A few days later my friend managed to reach a cabin with a phone, and call the proper authorities. So doing stupid things, like trekking, or paddling, alone, can be both rewarding, and fatal! But you can also have a fatal accident, when you least expect it. Another friend used to work in the harbour, as a longshoreman, when one day a crane repairer dropped a wrench. It hit a colleage of my friend, half of it sticking out of the guy's hard hat, but he was still conscious, so my friend called an ambulance, and all went well till the doctors lifted off the hard hat, to inspect the damage. The skull failed fatally the moment the hat was taken off .... Another guy I knew slightly, worked in one of the shipyards here. All hot jobs were, for safety reasons, done outdoors, in a container, so as usual he put his hard hat on, with his small soldering job outdoors, wearing his old worn clogs, again, as usual. It was a clear cold day, and just in his path there was a little patch of ice, and naturally he slipped, falling backwards with such a snap that the hard hat (who he used without a strap under his chin) fell off and he crashed his head against the hard ground, cracking his skull in the process. Nobody missed him till after lunch, and by then he had bled to death. If he had had a wooly hat, or why not a Russian-style winter hat, made out of thick fur, he would probably not even had had a concussion! Occasionally the odds are against us, and we get away scot free! Scot free and Scotland, is Swedish did you know that?! Scot, or as we Swedes spell it today "skatt", means tax, so when the Vikings ruled northern England they called it the Land of Tax, as the inhabitants were forced to pay tax to their Viking rulers. So originally scot free, was evading paying the taxes due to us Vikings ;-)! "En skatt", is a treasure, but many collected "skatter" becomes a Treasury :-)! As the Phrase Finder puts it: "Scot as a term for tax has been used since then to mean many different types of tax. Whatever the tax, the phrase 'scot free' just refers to not paying one's taxes. No one likes paying tax and people have been getting off scot free since at least the 16th century. This reference from Vincent Skinner's translation of Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus's A discovery and playne declaration of sundry subtill practises of the holy inquisition of Spayne dates from 1598: Escape scotte free." http://www.phrases.org.uk/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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