[Philmont]: RE: Hiking Pace

The advice to our Patriots' Path contingent crews is the slowest hiker ALWAYS sets the pace, with the navigator and crew leader immediately behind.

The slowest hiker will change day by day, by terrain (uphill or downhill), by time of day, physical problems, etc. As soon a gap opens in the line of hikers (because someone has slowed down from the pace being set), the hiker at the back of the gap moves to the front and then sets the new pace.

An exception I run into is where the slowest hiker has absolutely no sense of pace, and slows down further simply because he has no one in front of him to guage off of. In that case, a hiker with a good sense of pace goes in the front with the slowest, no sense of pace, hiker second, and the first given instructions to make sure that a gap does not open up between them.

If the slowest hiker is an adult, we also put him second, on the theroy that an adult should never be at the head of the line of hikers.

-- Al Thomson, Troop 236,
Schooley's Mountain, NJ
Treks 1999, 2001, 2003
Autumn Adventures 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006

-------------------------------------------------------
Scouting E-mail Discussion Lists @ usscouts.org
Subscribe/Unsubscribe at http://usscouts.org/lists/
Listserv Commands at http://usscouts.org/lists/lc.asp
-------------------------------------------------------
Send listserv commands to: listserv@troop47.com
Send postings to: philmont@troop47.com
List FAQ found at: http://usscouts.org/lists/faq.asp
List Administrator: philmont_owner@troop47.com
-------------------------------------------------------
As you gather around this virtual campfire with fellow
Scouts and Scouters, do your best to be trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,
cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
-------------------------------------------------------

 
Received on Thu Jan 12 15:12:36 2006