insight pared

KNOWLEDGE SHARED

Outdoor bold

To access Roland's weblog and column archives

Tip o' the Day

The guy said he wanted to pick my brain. I told him he wouldn't need more than a few seconds. He said he and his wife and another couple wanted to pack by horse into the Bob Marshall Wilderness for a few days during the coming summer. "We'd like to go in on June 21st and come out July 1."

"That pretty well limits you to the valley bottoms," I said.

"Valley bottoms? I don't understand."

"The high passes will still be blocked by snow in late June."

"When, then, should we visit the Bob?" he asked.

"It depends on what your group's objectives are. For instance, if fishing is top priority they need different guidance than if viewing the splendors of the high country is their chief goal. If you wish to avoid other people, you'll need to choose a different itinerary and timing than otherwise.

Might they wish to view wildflowers at their zenith? Or how about wildlife?

How many horses will their party employ? What about horsefeed?

Then there are bugs: horseflies, mosquitos, ticks during season.

Trail opening times should be considered. A discussion of trail flow patterns could be important, depending on their itinerary: the cliff trail along Gibson Reservoir is an excellent example, as is the Holland Lake Trail that has loose rules about travel direction and times. Either have places that can be dangerous for parties--particularly horse parties--to meet.

Water crossings is another topic worthy of close scrutiny. Generally we're talking of crossings during spring run-off (May-June). But past records disclose that travelers have drowned attempting Bob Marshall water crossings in July and October, as well as May and June.

The guy picking my brain said his group would like to do all the above.

"So would I," I told him. "But I've spent most of a lifetime trying to do that very thing. And there's still places I haven't seen.

Uh-oh! I've ran out of space. So let's continue this discussion on visiting "the Bob" next week. Plan to continue....

MASCULINE REBELLION

Sure, sure, just when I wallowed through the critical years of life by surviving until our little urchins turned into big pains, then finally left home; just when I'm planning to put up my feet, lift up mine eyes, and snore most afternoons through; well, that's exactly the same time employment turned equal, women turned liberated, and kids wanted to return home. Not that I'm unalterably opposed to any of the above, but why gang up on the underclass when I'm already outclassed?

Equal opportunity is, of course, a morbid joke. What it means is that the distaff side wants my job--which is okay provided I get hers. But popular fiction aside, no lady in her right mind has any intention of letting a man into her kitchen, not after having marshalled the world's heavy industry into making over yesterday's torture chamber into a repository of Orwell's vision of the Twenty-Third Century.

So insidiously have the ladies prepared their kitchen defenses that only a man of astounding bravery or abominable ignorance would dare risk entry. Just the other day I moved a package that for six months had blocked access to the ice cubes. In the same spirit of adventure that brought me to the ice cubes in the first place, I opened that package. Know what I found? Bones. As far as I know, they could be human bones.

Last month, amid an intelligence crisis, I sought to open a can of sardines. I began with a can opener and ended with an axe. Even then I barely got to the contents in time for breakfast. Knowing what I now know, you couldn't chase me into a kitchen with a flame thrower.

The chief problem with the ladies channeling the captains of industry into making light with job preference and kitchen gadgetry is their very success. As selfless as we all know industry captains to be, they're still required to abhor red ink on their reports to stockholders. And after saturating the female market with every advanced heart's desire, then slaking occasional thirsts for the youth of our fair land, the captains belatedly discovered a heretofore unknown market segment: adult men.

So finally, whether the products are mixed, poured, pressed, ground, pounded, aerated, saturated, fumigated, or strained through a silk handkerchief, we are finally getting our just desserts. Barely in time! There are new plastic arteries, pacers for an overworked heart, joints for hip and knee, and a vulcanized cap for our skull after the surgeon quits digging divots from it. There's iron for our blood, marrow for our bone, false for our teeth, and a mop to replace the hair that aliens abducted lo those many decades ago.

Please understand these products all come under the heading of industry charity; there's no real reason to keep us around now that wives no longer find us either necessary or expedient. The reason I know this is because with respect would come recliner chairs with built-in bar and a fly-tying bench, or a robot console TV that follows us from room to room and changes channels on our whim.

Equal opportunity--what a laugh! My little wife has a pie wheel trimmer, I get an oxygen bottle. She gets a rotary mincer, I get a blood pressure pump. She gets a royal Caesar's Palace weekend, I get an appointment with my most dreaded doctor for a colonoscopy exam. I resent being pretzeled by Mendele wannabees while she's pampered by handsome maitre d's with hands in my pockets.

The way I see it, to achieve REAL equal opportunity means the important stuff is yet to come: an automobile jack that makes punctures a pleasure; an unemployment check issued on demand; a portable Christmas tree stand that can be folded into your vest pocket; a sardine can that may, on one's best day, be opened without disecting one's thumb with an axe.

Men arise! I say.

"Get out of bed," she says.

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

Comments

for more info about these and other Roland Cheek books

Click Here

Click Here

for detailed info about each of Roland's books

Read Reviews

Read their first chapters