Our Kings Canyon trip is just around the corner — which makes me a little nervous. I don’t have much time to get YaYa geared up and in shape for this challenging trek. Fortunately, we are both motivated to give it our best shot.
I’m know that it will be time to head out before we know it — and I don’t have a plan for if he isn’t ready to take on the trip. So I’m hoping we can pull it off. Besides, it can only benefit his football readiness as well so it’s a win-win as far as I see it.
With the trip in mind, we’ve begun hitting the hiking trails. On Saturday, theMan, his daughter, her friend, YaYa and me heading out for 5+ mile trek. It was good fun. And while YaYa pulled up the rear for a good portion of it, the need to “chase the coyotes” (aka pee) gave him a sudden burst of energy. He ran ahead on seemingly fresh legs in order to do the deed. Onlookers marveled at his energy and we all laughed at how he left the seclusion of the trees to run in the direction of the sightseers.
On Sunday, I drug him out for a short lesson is trekking pole use. Given that I haven’t a whole lot of experience in their use, I was not the best of teachers. And since he had football conditioning followed by hiking on Saturday, he was not all too eager to hit the hills again. “My feet are sore.” he complained.
Feet?
Yeah, he said “feet” rather than legs. That was good enough for me to drag him out again. Since the goal was solely for the purpose of familiarizing him with the poles, we were only going to take on the big hill then turn around and go back down.
So we grabbed our gear and heading out to the nearby trails. We fiddled around with his poles until we found a reasonable pole length. Then, after a brief here-is-how-you-do-this, we started out.
It was a lesson in patience and tolerance. He with me and my constant correction to his technique and me noting his lack of ability to put my words into his actions. Primarily because, although the hill was steep, he could walk up it fairly easily without the aid of the poles.
But he stuck with it and, little by little, he improved. We even did a little speed-trekking on the way back for added fun. Ironically, my making him keep his poles on his half of the trail, to keep the competition fair, worked nicely to bring his poles more tightly to his body (something I’d been on him about the rest of the hike). We were laughing wholeheartedly when we reached the parking lot.