WALKERS AND OTHERS

I went out on the K and P trail this week with my boy, Josh, and more or less had the trail to myself. There were two occasions where I came across fellow travellers and it brought home to me the difference between walkers and other travellers. This is hardly a scientific analysis, but interesting nonetheless, to see the distinction so clearly.
The first to come along was a couple on what is known around here as “a side-by side”, meaning an ATV where the driver and the main passenger sit beside each other, as opposed to one in front of the other, as they might on a motorcycle. They crept up on me, a very respectful and reasonable pace, and passed me in the way that I appreciate, not inconveniencing Josh or I as we each went off in our separate directions. As I usually notice with riders, they chug along making considerable noise, breezing the copious amounts of gasoline fumes, and restricting their interaction with the trail and its periphery to what one can see through the hole in the helmet, cruising at 25 mph. There is scarcely any physical effort required for their trip, and I’ve been told by riders that such riding can have a negative effect on one’s body.
Shortly after that, the next traveller was a young man on a bicycle. He did not have any helmet, shame on him, and had is personal music device plugged into both ears. Unlike the ATV riders, he barely noticed me, and whisked by with barely an acknowledgement. I can only hope that the landscape made more of an impression on him then did my presence. I paused to speculate on what he might remember from his trip once he arrived home.
As others have written, walking is the most immediate means of crossing the landscape, be that urban or rural. The Walker can only have an immediate, intimate and fully physical relationship with what surrounds him/her. These different kinds of riders seem to reduce the landscape to background noise or incidental scenery, rather than the immediate setting of one’s travel.

Yours , on the journey,                           
Ray
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet
Thich Nhat Hahn