Re: [Philmont]: Caterpillaring

Pete Johnson:
I'm unfamiliar with the "sprint and drift technique", and so cannot say what
the difference is - could you explain it?
Or how's this: I'll explain caterpillar, and you explain sprint and drift,
and then eveyone will know the difference.
We may discover that they are the same thing, by two differernt names....

To caterpillar: the lead person, after having had the lead for a while,
stops, takes a step off of the trail, and lets everyone else pass by. They
then fall in at the end of the line. The new lead person does the same:
after having the lead for a while, they stop, let everyone pass, and drop
back to the end. There is always someone stopped waiting for the rest of
the crew to pass, and the lead person continually changes.
One key to good caterpillaring is deciding how long each person is to have
the lead. We tried time, and distance, but found that those were too hard to
measure, and we finally decided the best way to measure how long you have
the lead was by counting steps. We let the Crew leader decide how many
steps you would go as lead before stopping: 100 was good for flat stretches,
uphill would become as few as 50, 75 was our norm. Another key to
caterpillaring is to teach everyone that the lead *must* stop when their
time as lead is up - its not a matter of how tired you are, but how tired
your crewmate is - s/he doesn't get their break until after you have taken
yours. And another: when you are stopped, be sure to count bodies going by
before falling in to be sure you really are at the end - the tail end
charlie may be a way farther back.

Advantages to caterpillaring: It keeps the crew together. Everyone
periodically gets a short break. Everyone gets a turn at being lead, thus
not having to see the back of someone else's backpack and also, being able
to go as fast as they want (for 75 steps) - this can be important - the
speedy ones do get a chance to go fast. It keeps the crew together.
Everyone (esp Crew Leader and Advisors) get two times to see everyone else
and how they're doing (one time is when you are stopped and everyone else
hikes past, the other time is when someone else is stopped and you hike past
them). And, did I mention? - it keeps the crew together.

Dave Martin
'63,'91,'00,'04
----- Original Message -----
From: <ps-johnson@comcast.net>
To: "Multiple recipients of list philmont" <c>
Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2005 2:25 AM
Subject: [Philmont]: Catapillaring

>I have heard about this technique (catapillaring), but am completely
>unfamiliar with it. How
> does it differ from the sprint and drift technique?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pete
>
> Trek 21 '99
> ???? ?? '05
>

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Received on Mon May 2 01:11:06 2005