Part 7

“In the meantime, before a consummation of their more ambitious plans can be hoped for, much less realized, it were well if a federation of all the walking clubs in New York was perfected, with a common headquarters, where maps and data of much value might be made available to all hikers, and where frequent gatherings might be held for the interchange of ideas and experiences. And to the attainment of this object the Walkers’ Association may well address itself.”

WANDERLUST

“Wanderlust” is the appellative under which Saturday afternoon walks in the vicinity of Philadelphia are organized. They have been conducted for now ten years. Schedules of walks are published quarterly in advance, and the leaflets bear this advertisement:

“These walks are arranged for the general public. There are no fees, dues nor other requirements. Everyone is welcome, on one walk or all. All that is necessary is to be at the starting place at the time appointed. The only cost is that of carfare. The walks are all about five miles, and often include some points of interest, although no special effort is made by the leaders toward that aim. No fast walking is done, as new people come each week, and might not be able to keep up. The whole aim of the walks is to get people out into the open, to learn how even a simple exercise like walking can mean strength and health for those who seek it, and pleasure for all.… Copies [of this announcement] will be mailed only to those who send a stamped, addressed envelope to any active member of the Committee, or to the Secretary.”

The secretary (address 351 East Chelton Avenue, Germantown, Pa.) writes (June 13, 1919):

“The Wanderlust goes on about the same as it has done since 1910, though our numbers have been much smaller during and since the war. So many of our followers were engaged in war work, or working overtime, that we noticed their absence very much. For many years our average was about fifty, but for the past two years it has been around thirty.

“We have two classes of walkers, the regulars, many of whom have been along from the start, and the irregulars, who come from one to a dozen times, and seem to drop away for no reason we can learn. Many people come once and never again, probably disappointed to find the walkers a happy lot, who apparently need little to satisfy them. That conclusion we arrived at after hearing their remarks on many occasions. But the critics were not ‘hikers’ and did not have the spirit.

“About the permanence of such an undertaking, I can only say that I feel sure we have lasted so long because we avoided any form or attempt at organization, and kept it a free-for-all-come-once-or-always outing party.

“We profited by the mistakes of some other cities, where they organized, with the usual factional rivalry, and breaking-up of the club, and in another case, the growth of an exclusive club, shutting out many who could not afford to continue. So we have fought all attempts (on the part of a few) to organize in any way. Of course that means that someone must head the committee and volunteer to be the secretary or chairman. Being an assistant to the Director of Physical Education, I was asked to take charge of the Wanderlust about eight years ago and am still a willing secretary, and believe that by keeping the hike under the Department we are keeping it from breaking up or changing into a less desirable form. Our aim is to give an opportunity to grown people to get some of the physical training and efficiency that the school children get in our schools, and at the same time to encourage outdoor ‘play’ for young and old.

“Unfortunately this year our Board felt unable to bear the small expense necessary, so we are charging a small sum for the announcements and so far have been able to be self-supporting. But it is not in keeping with our ‘free’ policy, and we hope soon to do away with the charges, small as they are.”

THE PITTSBURGH HEALTH CLUB

This organization, now fifteen years old, conducts weekly walks. The secretary’s address is 249 Martsolf Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa.

THE PRAIRIE CLUB

The Prairie Club, of Chicago, was organized in 1908 by a committee of the Playground Association of Chicago as “Saturday Afternoon Walks.” It was incorporated in 1911 as “The Prairie Club.” The objects of the club are: “The promotion of outdoor recreation in the form of walks and outings, camping, and canoeing; the encouragement of the love of nature and the dissemination of knowledge of the attractions of the country adjacent to the city of Chicago and of the Central West; and the preservation of those regions in which such outdoor recreation may be pursued.” There are three kinds of memberships: active, associate, and honorary. The initiation fee for active membership is $2.00, and the annual dues are $2.00. The club maintains a Beach House and Camp, situated in the heart of the Indiana dunes, on the south shore of Lake Michigan, 47 miles from Chicago, the privileges of which are available to active members of the club and their guests. The club also publishes an attractive monthly bulletin. During the year 1918 the club conducted 42 Saturday afternoon walks, 8 all-day walks, 4 week-end outings, and 1 extended outing. Up to March, 1919, the club reported 645 active members.

THE SIERRA CLUB

The Sierra Club, of San Francisco, California, is the largest of American pedestrian clubs, with a membership of more than 2,000. It was founded in 1892, and was further distinguished in having as its president, until his death (in 1914), John Muir. Its purposes are defined in these words:

“To explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast; to publish authentic information concerning them; to enlist the support and cooperation of the people and the Government in preserving the forests and other natural features of the Sierra Nevada.”

The annual dues of the Club are $3 (for the first year, $5). The club headquarters are at 402 Mills Building, San Francisco. A Southern California Section of the Club exists, and advice concerning it may be had of its chairman, address 315 West Third Street, Los Angeles.

THE MOUNTAINEERS

The following note has been furnished by the secretary of the organization:

“To explore and study the mountains, forests, and water courses of the Northwest; to gather into permanent form the history and traditions of this region; to preserve, by protective legislation or otherwise, the natural beauty of north-western America; to make expeditions into these regions in fulfilment of the above purposes; to encourage a spirit of good-fellowship among all lovers of outdoor life--these were the avowed purposes for which a group of nature lovers met in Seattle in January, 1907, and organized The Mountaineers. Since then, the membership has expanded to over half a thousand, and knows no geographical bounds. Nearly a hundred men and women contributed themselves in the recent war, while those at home rendered active service in collecting sphagnum moss, making surgical dressings, and otherwise trying to do their part. Branches have been organized, property acquired, permanent funds established, and the Club has now become one of the worthwhile organizations of the Pacific Northwest.

“Summer outings and the snowshoe trip to Mt. Rainier with which the Club welcomes in each new year are the most striking of its activities. For three weeks each summer a hobnailed, khaki-clad party of from fifty to one hundred men and women enjoy a well planned hike into some mountainous region, and usually climb some famous peak. Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. Olympus, Glacier Peak, Mt. Stewart, Mt. St. Helens, and many others have been climbed once or more. Glacier National Park, as well as our own Monte Cristo region, has also been visited.

“With pack trains, hired packers, and professional cooks along, little of the unpleasant work of camping falls on the members, yet, with each individual’s dunnage limited to thirty-five pounds, and with frequent shifting of camps and plenty of snow and rock work, genuine outing experience is afforded. The leadership is wholly by members, and every precaution is taken for the safety of the party.

“The snowshoe trip to Mt. Rainier in midwinter must be taken to be comprehended. Paradise Valley in summer is brilliant with its mountain flowers, but in winter it is enchantingly somber with its deep-laid snow, through which emerge the conical trees with their symmetry of drooping branches peculiar to the snow-laden conifers. Snowshoeing, skiing, tobogganing, and climbing afford ample exercise, while the hotel (usually approached through a snow tunnel) with its comfortable beds and provisions brought up in summer time, relieves the party of the usual hardships of winter trips. In the evenings, before the big fireplaces, vaudeville performances, circuses, and other entertainments rival similar affairs held in the evenings of the summer outings.

“Winter and summer trips are taken to Snoqualmie Lodge, a large log structure built by the Club near the backbone of the Cascade Range, but easily accessible both to railroad and highway, as well as to rugged mountains like Chair Peak and Silver Tip.

“A wholly different region may be enjoyed at the Club’s Rhododendron Park, a large area across Puget Sound, brilliant each May with a profusion of the white and pink of the state flower. The Club is planning the construction of a cabin in the mountains near Everett, and also one near Tacoma.

“Lecturers are procured for monthly meetings, a collection of slides maintained of the mountains visited by the Club, botany and other sciences pursued, and the results of each year’s activities summarized in an annual publication. A bulletin is also published forecasting each month’s activities.

“Beneficial as the foregoing may be, the greatest service to the greatest number is afforded by what are prosaically known as ‘local walks.’ On each of two or three Sundays of the month a committee in charge has carefully planned a hike of from eight to twenty miles by road, trail, or beach. As many as two hundred persons have sometimes gone on one of these trips. Stenographers, teachers, clerks, professors, nurses, lawyers, doctors, men and women, are taken from the cramped atmosphere of offices, schoolrooms, and hospitals out into the freedom of the wild, to breathe the fresh sea air, and to acquire that physical health and hearty mien which are such stimulants to the growth of character.”

The secretary’s address is 402 Burke Building, Seattle, Washington.

Other western mountaineering clubs are the Mazamas, of Oregon, headquarters, Suite 213-214 Northwestern Bank Building, Portland; and the Colorado Mountain Club.

ASSOCIATED MOUNTAINEERING CLUBS OF NORTH AMERICA

The Associated Mountaineering Clubs of North America, an organization effected in 1916, characterizes itself as a _Bureau_. It has brought into association thirty-one clubs and societies, having an aggregate membership of 62,000. A list of these follows:

American Alpine Club, Philadelphia and New York.

American Forestry Association, Washington.

American Game Protective Association, New York.

American Museum of Natural History, New York.

Adirondack Camp and Trail Club, Lake Placid Club, N. Y.

Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston and New York.

Boone and Crockett Club, New York.

British Columbia Mountaineering Club, Vancouver.

Colorado Mountain Club, Denver.

Dominion Parks Branch, Department of the Interior, Ottawa.

Field and Forest Club, Boston.

Forest Service, U. S. Dept. Agriculture, Washington.

Fresh Air Club, New York.

Geographic Society of Chicago.

Geographical Society of Philadelphia.

Green Mountain Club, Rutland, Vermont.

Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club, Honolulu.

Klahhane Club, Port Angeles, Washington.

Mazamas, Portland, Oregon.

Mountaineers, Seattle and Tacoma.

National Association of Audubon Societies, New York.

National Parks Association, Washington.

National Park Service, U. S. Dept. Interior, Washington, D. C.

New York Zoological Society, New York.

Prairie Club, Chicago.

Rocky Mountain Climbers Club, Boulder, Colorado.

Sagebrush and Pine Club, Yakima, Washington.

Sierra Club, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Tramp and Trail Club, New York.

Travel Club of America, New York.

Wild Flower Preservation Society of America, New York.

The Bulletin of the Bureau, published in May, 1919, states:

“Associated by common aims these clubs and societies are standing for the protection and development of scenic regions, and for the preservation of tree, flower, bird, and animal life. We encourage the creation, development, and protection of National Parks, Monuments, and Forest Reserves, and our members are being educated by literature and lectures to a deeper appreciation of our natural wonders and resources.

“During the past year the Bureau has continued to send to its members many books on mountaineering and outdoor subjects. The collection of mountain literature and photographs in the New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Avenue, has been increased. The Library has published a selected Bibliography of Mountaineering Literature, which was compiled by the librarian of the American Alpine Club, and expects to issue a similar list of the literature of Wild-life Protection.… The secretary has written and has published a series of articles on little-known scenic regions of North America, and he is lecturing before leading clubs and societies on The National Wonders of the United States and Canada.…

“Lantern slides may be borrowed by members of the Association on application.”

Note is made in the Bulletin of the International Congress of Alpinists, which is to be held at Monaco, May 10 to 16, 1920. Relationships with the several organizations which have to do with the care of and development of the national parks are explained. A directory of the constituent organizations is given.

The secretary is Mr. LeRoy Jeffers, 476 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF WALKING CLUBS

OVERFLOW

Hush! With sudden gush As from a fountain, sings in yonder bush The Hermit Thrush.

Hark! Did ever Lark With swifter scintillations fling the spark That fires the dark?

Again, Like April rain Of mist and sunshine mingled, moves the strain O’er hill and plain.

Strong As love, O Song, In flame or torrent sweep through Life along, O’er grief and wrong.

John Banister Tabb.

V

ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF WALKING CLUBS

Those who live reasonably near the home or field of existing clubs are urged to relate themselves to them. Don’t organize hastily. Be sure, first, of two things: that a fair-sized continuing membership is to be expected, to be advantaged by a club; and, second, that, in the multiplicity of already existing societies, there is place for another. Remember that the persons who will be interested and whose interest and support are desired, will in large part be persons already giving much time to altruistic activity. Think this matter through, taking advice of persons of experience and judgment. It may be better, in a given case, to widen the activities of some existing organization--canoe club, perhaps, or Audubon Society--than to form a new one. Pedestrianism may well have place in the program of school, Y. M. C. A., or Boy Scout Troop. But of this something will be said in the sequel. In a city, however, a walking club may well stand on its own feet; and, in such a favored region as the Green Mountains, for example, to organize a walking club comes near to being a public duty.

THE ACTIVITIES OF A WALKING CLUB

Before opening a discussion of the formalities of organization, it will be well to consider what the normal activities of a walking club are; for to the end in view the machinery of organization, simple or complex, should be adapted. The activities of a club may be regarded as of two sorts, and, in lieu of better terms, may be designated as primary and secondary. Primary activities concern the actual business of walking: development of the pedestrian resources of some particular region, trail making, map making, publishing of data, maintaining a bureau, conducting hikes, affording instruction, and contributing seriously to the growing literature of pedestrianism. Secondary activities consist in conducting dinners and other social entertainment, in providing illustrated lectures on travel, popular science, and kindred subjects. There is need of care, to keep such activities in their proper secondary place. The primary activities require further consideration.

_Development of the Pedestrian Resources of Some Particular Region_

This should be an aim of every walking club. The region to be developed will in many--in most cases, indeed--be the region about home. Clubs in large cities, however, and clubs situated in regions not suitable for walking, may well turn attention, wholly or in part, to regions far from home. The mountainous parts of a continent are the natural recreation grounds for the whole people, and those who live far away may still have their proper share in making these parts more readily available. In the Alps, the pedestrian is pleased to find the lodges where he stops at night called by the names of distant cities, whose citizens maintain them--_Breslauerhütte_, for example, or _Dusseldorferhütte_. In this country, too, the Green Mountain Club (see page 84) has its New York Section; and to the New York Section it has allotted a certain portion of the Long Trail (a length of fifty miles). The New York club, accordingly, while not neglectful of pedestrianism at home, opens, develops, and maintains its part of the route in Vermont, and conducts annually a hike in that region.

The development of a region involves observation and putting into communicable form the results of observation, and it may and ordinarily does involve further a greater or less amount of physical preparation. First of all, the region must be traversed, and that again and again, under varying conditions of season and climate, and thus thoroughly known. Maps, if available, must be carefully studied, and particular attention must be given to distances, steepness of roads, and to the nature of the footing--whether the way be rough or smooth, hard or soft, wet or dry. Note should be made of obstructions, such as briars, fallen trees, and unbridged streams. The possibility of using railways and trolley lines to widen the available area should not be forgotten. Hotels should be noted, and restaurants, and farmhouses, where rest and refreshment may be had; and, in the wilderness, camp sites should be selected.

Observation should next be directed to such natural resources as may engage the attention and interest of the pedestrian: scenery, of course, hilltops, waterfalls, and such matters; then to plant and animal life, and that with the interests of sportsmen and lovers of natural science particularly in mind. Attention should be given to geology and to mineral deposits. Then the history of the region should be studied, its traditions learned, and its monuments considered--distinctive and characteristic matters touching the life of the people, industries, factories, public works, and buildings.

All of these matters should be taken into account, with a view to making the results of observation and study generally available.

_Trail Making_

“Of trail making there are three stages. There is dreaming the trail, there is prospecting the trail, there is making the trail. Of the first one can say nothing--dreams are fragile, intangible. Prospecting the trail--there lies perhaps the greatest of the joys of trail work. It has a suggestion of the thrill of exploration. No one of us but loves still to play explorer. And here there is just a bit of the real thing to keep the play going. Picking the trail route over forested ridges calls for every bit of the skill gained in our years of tramping. There is never time to go it slow, to explore every possibility. Usually there is one hasty day to lay out the line for a week’s work. For a basis there is the look of the region, from some distant point, from a summit climbed last year, perhaps. For a help, there is the compass, but in our hill country we use it little. Partly we go by imperfect glimpses from trees climbed, from blow-down edges, from small cliffs--but chiefly we feel the run of the land, its lift and slope and direction. The string from the grocer’s cone unwinds behind--an easy way of marking and readily obliterated when we go wrong. We pay little heed to small difficulties, those are for the trail makers to solve. Only a wide blow-down, a bad ledge, a mistake in general direction, cause us to double back a bit and start afresh.…

“Making trail is the more plodding work; yet has reliefs and pleasures of its own. Each day, as the gang works along the string line, problems of detail arise. Ours is no gang of uninterested hirelings. If the line makes a suspicious bend, the prospectors have to explain or correct.… Decision made, the gang scatters along the line, each to a rod or two, for we find working together is not efficient.[4]”

As has already been said, a club ordinarily will find occasion to do some work of physical preparation of its pedestrian routes. Highways are ordinarily beyond control, but byways are not. The opening of trails, cutting away of briars and windfalls, making the footing sure for a man under a pack, the building of footways and handrails in dangerous places, the cleaning of springs and providing water basins and troughs, the marking of trails--all these matters are such as manifestly should engage a club’s energies.

Trail making is by no means a simple matter. The successful trail-maker (and trails should be successfully made) must be expert in woodcraft; he must understand topography--the “lay of the land”; he must know from what side to approach a summit, how best to pass a valley--whether to go around or through it. With knowledge of these matters, his occupation is a most interesting one. Irresponsible and unauthorized trail making should be discouraged.

A word of caution is, “Do, but don’t overdo.” Particularly is this word of caution to be carried in mind in the matter of blazing trails. Let the marks be sufficient, and no more; let them be as inconspicuous as is consistent with their purpose. In marking trails, don’t blaze trees, nor deface objects of interest and beauty. The best trail mark is a colored arrow, affixed to tree trunk or fence post, or painted on a rock face. Such an arrow may, by color, position, and legends displayed upon it, afford as much information as may be desired, about route, distance, elevation, detours, springs, and other matters.

Resting places may be built; pavilions, perhaps, in the woods, where walkers may have lunch under protection from rain. Or, when conditions justify, houses may be built and equipped, to afford food and lodging. In this connection, the _alpenhütten_ elsewhere mentioned (page 106) will come to mind. In other places, tents may be erected for the summer, and caretakers employed.