Bloggered
Blogger ate my post. I do not feel like rewriting my post. So a short version of why Chef is an extreme athlete. Lions, ticks, and bears! OH MY! Seriously thru-hiking is an extreme sport. Think about some of the things we have to do on the Pacific Crest Trail. You start out at the Mexico U.S. border. Watch out for the "aliens "a border patrolman said. So you start in a desert Dodging illegal aliens and then you have to deal with rain, sleet, snow, hail, fog, rain, wind(don't laugh, It is hard to stand in 60 mph winds), cliffs, high snow covered pass(as high as 13,199 ft), glaciers, deserts, fording rivers full of spring runoff, spiders, ticks, scorpians, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and bears.

Extreme Athlete
Am I an extreme athlete? I have been jokingly asking myself that question. In Twin Lakes Resort a man walked up to me and said "I'm an extreme athlete too." Now I thought that was pretty funy, but I needed a ride. I remember a couple of days later argueing with Eagle whether or not we were indeed extreme athletes. It was pretty houmorous if I recall correctly. A couple of chuby kids dreaming about ESPN's Extreme Games.

Here is my arguement that I am an extreme athlete. I participate in the sport of backpacking or hiking. Todays top two headlines.

No charges in wilderness survival-school death
California hiker mauled by mountain lion leaves hospital

How many sports have their participants Mauled by Lions? It is not even hiking season and we have death and a lion attack. I walk through places like this. I know some one that was attacked by a bear, was only a few miles away when it happened. Rattlesnakes, deserts, glaciers, snow covered passes, cliffs, fording rivers, lions, bears, scorpions, ticks, snow, sleet, rain, fog, hail, spiders, giardia, high altitude pulmenary edema, are some of the things that you have to deal with on a Pacific Crest Trail thru hike. Some pretty extreme stuff.