There's a whole hiking culture that I sometimes forget, living so far from true hiking destinations.
Like the trail etiquette of leaving your walking stick at the trailhead for the next visitor to use.
The thrill of surveying the map before you strike off into new territory, and signing the visitor's notebook, mostly just to prove to the authorities that, yes, this trail is used, and so it deserves funding and upkeep.
The preparatory rush of planning your route and then seeing how the various junctures actually appear "on the ground." Hiking in the state game lands of Southwest Pennsylvania is good enough, but there's a whole hiking underworld in the best parts of the nation's public lands. It's a civilization with its own rules, and tools, and assumptions. It's something that I always love to rediscover.
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