| DIRTY OLD MEN - "Trekking with Women" |
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Sarankot To Whom It May Concern: More than eight years have passed since I resumed traveling abroad again, and it has been six years since I first joined a Mountain Travel trek. In that interval I have participated in a half-dozen Mountain Travel-organized treks and asked it to book a couple of other tours for me. Some of the strengths I observed on the first trek still obtain: the American-speaking leaders are men (no women in my case) of great accomplishment, not only in terms of their leadership and outdoor experience, but also in poise, sensitivity, and intellectual attainment (including knowledge of local languages, culture, and customs). The local leaders, whether sirdar or assistant guide, have been men (again no women, sorry) of amazing ability and achievement. And finally, the various staff members-cooks, porters, drivers, and sherpas-have been marvelous people: capable, reliable, and friendly. The shared responsibility between group leader and sirdar, to cite the Nepalese trek as an example, sometimes leads to neither executing authority for specific decisions, and this problem has worsened in my experience. On a recent trip in Chile, we trekkers often wasted hours in the morning while our three leaders, exceptional men all, tended to routine post-cooking and packing chores; surely one could have taken us down the trail while the other two finished that work. The central office operation has often vexed my travel agent and me, and since our previous complaints have elicited neither response nor evident change, it is likely pointless to mention them again. But, if only to make this narrative complete, allow me to suggest that the Bay office staff (1) needs to know what is going on in the field, and I mean really going on; (2) must have several people who know about each trip; and (3) each must know about related trips so that multiple bookings are not only possible but easy. The big change I see in these six years, however, is in an area that you can't control: the client. In the early years I met men with whom I still correspond and women with whom I fancied myself in love-well, at least one of each. Then there was always a spirit of sharing resources and assisting those who were weak or ill, but more recently this has not been the case. Some individuals are already dividing up seconds at dinner before others have even been served; there is continuous rancor over tent sites; and inevitably some people are unhappy unless menus and schedules match their expectations at home: can you believe there was an absolute insistence on napkins at every meal during a recent trek in Nepal? But the basic problem, and I hate to bring this up since I enjoyed thirty-five years of friendship and marriage with a divine member of the other gender, is the intrinsic nature of women. Unlike men they can't tolerate dirt, not even for a few minutes. They insist on daily showers or swims, shampoos, manicures, and time to wash and dry their own clothes, and at meals they talk mainly about their success or failure in achieving these ends. They often add to the pleasures of dining by commenting on how much harder it is for women than men to perform natural functions while in the field, or, for variety, on how many times they got up to pee last night! The ultimate insult from these females that has caused me to give up organized trekking, though, is their ubiquitous and omnipresent laundry. For twenty-four consecutive mornings and evenings on a recent trek around the Annapurna massif, my tent was attached to clotheslines, usually on both sides, so I could neither walk around it-men pee at night too-nor quickly and easily view a nearby mountain unobstructed by worn and faded female lingerie. Of course no man of any sense would dare try to deny women their right to these niceties, but by the same token should not a man have the right to trek with others who enjoy sweat and grime, dirty clothes, unobstructed views, and mealtimes free of hygienic chatter? I never again will trek with people I don't already know, so I may well be saying farewell to Mountain Travel. Oh, should there be time during my Peace Corps tour in Tanzania to arrange something personal, or if I have the resources afterward to share a trip or two with trusted friends, I will definitely consider utilizing the strong features of this organization that were identified above. And of course, I'll be very interested should you ever organize tours exclusively for us "good old boys." I would probably even join the inevitable discussion of women at mealtimes! Cordially, W. Vance Johnson "And Without Them" My seventh trek, just completed, was as fortuitous for me as its number suggests. I had no complaint at all about my fellow trekkers, because there were none, and my guide was an American gray beard slightly more aged even than I! Only once during our ten days of walking did any laundry appear, and that was a single (Mountain Travel) tee shirt, washed by the staff, that was hung out to dry on a fence rail quite remote from my tent. On two other occasions I recall hanging our towels on out-of-the-way tree limbs for a little airing and drying. And at mealtimes we discussed the food, and what we were experiencing, and all manner of subjects concerning Nepal. Those mundane topics evidently so vital to the life feminine just never occurred to us. I must insist there is still a place in the world for dirty-I mean dusty, sweaty, and unwashed-old men! Note Added in Kathmandu 07 May 92 |