Being mindful of the unlimited possibilities which walking affords for renewing youth the first task is found in the revolution of habits of living and the adjustment of the daily routine to include say two hours a day in road tramping. If persisted in a remarkable change will result--a notable clearness of mental power, keenness of appetite and a zest for life’s work. It won’t be long until one automatically increases the range and endurance.
Tramping may be arbitrarily divided into (A) Road Tramping and (B) Forest Cruising.
ROAD TRAMPING or real pedestrianism comprehends short walks as a training for physical well being which, as one becomes experienced, may be lengthened to include an occasional all day country tour as a wise utilization of holidays, or, one who becomes an adept may even plan to spend his annual two weeks’ vacation period in a lengthy walking trip upon some of the better known highways in any civilized section of our country or in our National Parks or as a tourist in foreign lands. Road tramping is for those to whom walking appeals yet who do not care to bother with the details incidental to camping. The trip should be so planned that the day’s journey assures a comfortable bed and warm meals at hotels, inns or at ranch homes. This broadens one’s walking opportunities up to the point where civilization and wild nature touch.
Such a trip is good recreation and a splendid sport and in no other way can one better familiarize himself with the country’s topography and the characteristics of its people. On the longer trips a very simple kit suffices his needs--he wears suitable walking clothes, and carries a notebook, some few toilet articles, a change of underwear and hose and a rain-proof over garment--all packed in a rucksack of some sort.
The daily local walks taken by the pedestrian to secure health with the longer weekly jaunt, indulged in perhaps as a member of some walking club, afford an admirable preliminary preparation for more arduous outings such as a week’s FOREST CRUISE, carrying in a back pack the shelter, bed and food and thus equipped one may break entirely away from civilization and eat and sleep independent of hotels or ranches.
Those who feel the vim of outdoor life, those interested in any phase of Nature study, those wanting to get away from the city’s humdrum existence, in short, all who want to recreate can plan no more repaying or zestful days than those spent with a back pack outfit touring the unknown wilderness near home. It may be for any one of a variety of purposes--camping, hunting, fishing or trapping, it matters not what, the main thing is that one gets near to Nature in her primitive state. Amateur exploration has the interesting element of mystery which leads one into all sorts of country right around home and which one never dreamed to be in existence. There are still greater opportunities if one gets off the beaten tracks and steers his course far into the back country.