Had a really interesting conversation with some SOOP folk on Friday evening over some pasta and eggplant marinara sauce we'd whipped up after a meeting at Gateway with Kevin. Michael (MikL) mentioned some dissatisfaction with the outdoor community's general attitude that everything must be bigger, higher, faster, harder; that the outdoors must be some wild and disembodied thing to which we must drive four hours to Yosemite to experience. It's unfortunately true, I think. Really I'm only a fringe member of this so-called outdoor community, but there is indeed some permanent, mutual egging-on thing that gives us the tunnel-visioned hunger for goals and numbers rather than the experience. "Because it's there" isn't really a satisfactory answer for summiting the higest peaks, traversing the trickiest icefields, or diving to the darkest depths. Most people aren't meant to climb Everest; others aren't meant to backpack 15-mile days; some aren't meant to sleep more than seventy-five yards away from a toilet. It's a truism that's made an increasing impression on my brain from winter break through these SOOP trips. So be it, then. Let us each enjoy nature at the distance or proximity most comfortable for himself. Mine happens to be a little closer than most yet a lot further than others. =)