heeee

In the message above, I mention the 70lb hike up Wittenburg - that summer was a drought - a bad one, so we were carrying a LOT of water - to the point we got a late start to get more water carrying gear - we went from 2 qts each to 7 qts EACH - and we were glad to to have it - typical summer Catskills - 90 degs, 90% humidity

So we start of late - KNOWING we won't make the spring between Cornel and Slide the first day - and not know if it's actually running - but we know the spring on Slide IS - aka it MIGHT be 1 1/2 days to water (hence carrying 7 qts each)

Anyway, we make it oh, 2/3rds of the way up Wittenburg the first day - when, by gosh, the weather looks threating. We make camp, and eat etc - and we take out one of the spare tarps in put it in a depression in the ground. Sure enough, that night they get the first rain in like a month - we have MORE than enough water in the tarp to refill all our water, drink our fill for breakfast, etc.

Down the mountain comes a VERY bedraggled couple - cold, we and VERY thirsty - it seems they went up the mountain "light" - no gear - and the ONLY thing to drink was two bottles of----- SCOTCH!!

They have now been out 24 hours - and have realized their mistake - They look at us and say "would you be willing to trade a couple of bottles of water for a bottle of scotch?" Our reply (remember - we have filled all our gear and drank our fill was" - NO - water is worth more than scotch, but we'll GIVE you two bottles of water - they expected us to GIVE them water bottles - nope - we dummped the scotch on the ground and filled their scotch bottles with water - told them to drink up - as much as they could, refilled the bottles, and broke down the tarp to keep climbing. They were actually amazed that we would dump the scotch - I told them - hey - your willing to trade it for water - you know now how important water is - we don't KNOW when we get water next - I'd rather have water than scotch too

I assume they got down OK - once they had their fill of water (they were NOT drunk) and hiking light, it was maybe 1 hour down, and another "there goes stupid hikers" story was born. Got to the top of the mountain - there were plenty of depressions in the rocks where they could have gotten some watter from the rain if they used their brains - picked about 1qt of wild blueberries, and continued on to the spot where we wanted to camp - yep, the spring was running - next AM - we had fresh blueberry pancakes (yep - we brought the makings)

Ah - to be young, crazy, and a LOT lighter again - 2 weeks out backpacking - eating like pigs and still lost 20 lbs over the 2 weeks - Mom and Dad came and met us the middle weekend - The 3 of us ate like 12 LBS of lazangina (sp) for lunch - and were looking for a snack after... Learned why MREs have so many calories that trip - hike hills with 50-70lbs on your back, all day, every day - you BURN calories