{"id":5209,"date":"2011-04-13T20:48:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T01:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=5209"},"modified":"2011-06-12T20:05:48","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T01:05:48","slug":"the-case-for-hiking-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2011\/04\/13\/the-case-for-hiking-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"The case for hiking, revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"White<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s just walking on dirt. So why can’t I stop hiking?<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a><\/div>\n

It’s not everything; it’s all the little things that seem huge at the time: like when that startling flash of brown in the tree canopy turns out to be a flying squirrel<\/a>. Or when stumbling into a bush causes a family of deer to come bouncing out the other side. <\/p>\n

Or maybe it’s the sensation of your heart falling back down out of your the throat the first time you hear a rattlesnake’s proximity alarm<\/a>. Yep, it sounds just like it does on TV.<\/p>\n

Nature reassures the Baptist of the existence of a benevolent God. And it convinces the atheist that no supreme being could’ve conjured such wonder. You won’t find that at the mall. But you will on a hike. <\/p>\n

And you will find out why looking at the top of a hill triggers such a strong urge to climb it. At the top you’ll see a panorama available to everybody able to get up there, but for a moment that world is yours alone, because you’re the only one up there.<\/p>\n

Except for those times when you share the trail. I’ll never forget the 79-year-old retired cop<\/a> who left me in the dust on a 2,000-foot climb under a scalding sun. He walked three miles before he took his first sip from his water bottle. <\/p>\n

Then there was the paraplegic, his legs ruined by diabetes, who wheelchair-hiked<\/a> to top of California’s third-highest mountain. The last mile took eight hours. Most amazing thing I ever saw.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s why I keep doing it. I like being amazed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s just walking on dirt. So why can’t I stop hiking? It’s not everything; it’s all the little things that seem huge at the time: like when that startling flash of brown in the tree canopy turns out to be…<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5209"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5921,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions\/5921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}