College Student seeks Camino Mentor

[Jack Christensen]

Frank,
I'd sure like to see the list of stuff you had in your pack.  It'd be an
inspiration to me to cut down to what is really required, as I never got
much below 9 kg.
Thanks,
Jack

-----Original Message-----
From: Road to Santiago Pilgrimage [mailto:GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU]On
Behalf Of Frank Metcalf and Mary Doherty
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 1:16 AM
To: GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU
Subject: Re: College Student seeks Camino Mentor


I guess we live in alternate universes that share the same camino!  I
reported primary experience--mine and my two companions'--rather than that
of "those guys . . . many of these guys" etc., which leaves a lot of leeway
for innocently fudging the examples. Funny thing, I was there the same
general time (O Cebreiro on June 7 2002) in a front-page storm, and we had
no trouble with any of these dire problems relating to running shoes . . .
worn by others. The only person we saw in sandals then was a tough French
woman named Francine, who finally did don socks in the cold, and strode on
to Santiago. We saw very few people in runners besides ourselves at the
start, but the numbers grew somewhat as boots were abandoned after the
meseta. The suffering "many" in running shoes must have cleverly avoided
us. We thought the ankle-deep mud was funny, not miserable, and we enjoyed
the hills too instead of huffing and clumping laboriously up them.

There's a beneficial cascade brought on by light loads (our base was 6 kg,
max 7): shoes can be much lighter than they "should" be, thus even less
energy is spent, the hills flatten out, nimbleness on steep or difficult
ground increases, mood elevates, and so on. If we were to recast our
discussion away from "footgear" and toward "the cascading benefits of
ultralight travelling," we'd probably all be on the same page. Except that
few of us seem to have experienced it directly.

Besides our loads, we felt that conditioning made a cascading type of
difference, as did, psychologically, a long history of life and wilderness
travel in Canada's Far North (where I was a tundra archaeological surveyor
by canoe). Life history can't be remade, but loading and training are, in
the end, personal choices. I speak with converted zeal about this because
I'm a hopeless packer, and the camino--my fear of it--set me right. The
benefits were outstanding, and, having been helped by an ultralight pilgrim
predecessor, I want to encourage others in turn.

Frank Metcalf, Vancouver BC


Ed Madden said:

. . . I found many times (e.g. O Cebreiro) where I was walking on very rocky
ground.  In these conditions, boots/socks offer great protection against
damage as well as grip underfoot especially on slippery wet rockface.

During May/June 2002, I experienced days of very heavy rain but my
Gortex-lined boots kept my feet well dry.  Those guys in
runners/trainers/sandals really suffered.  Their feet (and socks) got
thoroughly  wet and it was abject misery for some.  Then of course, once
wet, it can take days for the trainers to dry out. Stuffing newspaper into
them overnight just doesn't do the trick, so you end up walking in wet/damp
footwear for days.  No wonder many of these guys got blisters and fungal
diseases.  And even when the rain ceases, I found many places where the
ground had turned into ankle-deep mud.  You know, the thick, heavy,
cling-on type.  Walking in this with boots was hard-going.  Walking in
ankle-deep mud with trainers was abject misery.  No wonder some had to take
the bus over these stages.