I got unreasonably irritated watching streamers play PEAK.
They’ll have one teammate that’s hungry, injured, and has 8 diseases, and still be running/leaping ahead to the next obstacle with all ears/eyes turned firmly away from their friend. Their sum concern is to get midway up and spout “Where is Mike? OH NO I’LL SAVE YOU! Oh no, they’re dead, well I will get them at the revival statue! (and then immediately forget them again)”
When hiking you always go at the slowest hikers pace.
Nah, you go your own pace and then stop at every fork, intersection, and overlook, and let everybody catch up before moving on.
Pet peeve of mine. Almost everyone who does this is like “oh hey you finally caught up!” and then immediately starts walking again. Leading to a situation where the people who are in good shape are constantly taking breaks, and the people who are out of shape never get a break and get more and more tired and slow all day
I get this and you are 100% right.
But I’m also one of the people that’s often bolting ahead, so let me provide my context:
I’m not fit (by any means), but I do have long strides. I go to nature to find peace and tranquillity, but normally I’m wound-up pretty tight.
I’m like a beagle, bouncing around - I need to burn off that energy. So, at the beginning I’ll bolt on a head and wait, bolt off again, etc. Eventually, I’ll “tucker myself out”, I’ll have found the peace and tranquillity that brought me to nature and then I can walk with the group.
If I don’t “bolt off” and stay with the group, I’m either clipping the back of their heels (not fun for anyone) or I’m tripping over my feet. And if I’m in front, well I’m going to eventually bolt-off. Either way, it’s not peaceful or fun for anyone.
That said, I am not one of those “oh hey, you finally caught up” type people. In fact, I make it a habit of waiting until the group is ready to go. I understand, they probably feel more pressure to take a shorter break (cause I’ve had an addition 10 minutes), but I can’t control this.
For me it’s also that it’s far more exhausting to walk outside of my “natural” pace. I quickly feel like shit and tire out if I have to hold back and walk slower.
Then continue walking back and forth between the fork and the group. Its not that hard.
I get you. It was so frustrating being the less in shape one when I hiked a giant cliff face. I’m pretty stubborn and ‘strong-willed’ or whatever, and even so it was a definite struggle to demand (because the little happy bouncers don’t get any subtle suggestions) to take a break when I made it to the meeting point… and then they get frustrated because their break is now “too long.”
They can rest at the next overlook
Then you are keeping to their pace.
Ah, I see. We’re normalizing it over the course of time spent hiking. I was thinking too simplistically, in an atomized moment-by-moment sort of way
You had it correct the first time. Keeping pace means moving at the same speed, not taking the same total time.
Then they’re out of breath when they catch you and you’ve rested up
but yes I do this too
So pop a squat and let them breathe for a moment. That’s what overlooks are for. Snack time.
For me it’s shade. I’ll slink from shadow to shadow, adds fun extra challenge.
Pro tip: try not to hike with assholes if you can help it
Or just hike with naturalists and then you’ll always be the fastest
lol. My sister is a botanist. She tells the story of a team that went out on a study hike. At noon they stopped and one of them gasped, “Oh, no. I left my lunch in the car.” They turned around and laughed when they saw they were only 100 meters away.
Yes.
Sure but every time you stop they’re going to have a new berry, leaf, or bit of bark for you to taste. (It’s me, I’m the one handing you forest treats)
uh, we use that word with a slightly different meaning out here. naturalist enclave is synonymous with nudist colony is synonymous with active adult community
Usually that’s “naturist”
I’m the fast one in great shape, I’m always at the end of the line of the people I take hiking because they’ll set the pace rather than me so that I can’t accidentally let them fall behind.
I also have a rule that if anyone on the trip says that we’re done and need to turn back, we do.
It is the way.
This is the way. If you decided to hike with someone less fit then you better be waiting for them. Getting separated is how people got lost on the trail.
Smells like alpine divorce.
My ex did this to me. I got heat stroke and she left me behind on the mountain. Wanted to get back to the truck for cell service cuz addicted to phone and didn’t want to wait for me.
I spent hours sitting by an alpine stream filtering and drinking water and I ended up hiking out in the dark while occasionally projectile vomiting. It’s the first time and only time I thought about pressing my garmin SOS button.
And the only reason I got sick was because I was on new medication that killed my heat tolerance I was pushing myself too hard to keep up to her to fend off the incoming conflict. Was being called “out of shape” and “unhealthy” the entire ascent. If I was alone I would have taken it slow and never ended up in this situation.
There was a crazy case of this in Austria last year.
Yup. In the Wiki:
In 2026, Thomas Plamberger, a climber in Austria, was convicted of manslaughter after he left his girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner, near the summit of the Grossglockner, where she died from hypothermia.
Bitch I’m the one out front AND I got the car keys AND the only charged phone, better keep up.
It doesn’t seem like you want company, I’ll go with someone else.
What I want is to get to the top of this next hill and nothing, not even my creaking knees, is gonna stop me. I’ll see you huffing and puffing up 15 minutes later and let you rest for 5 before continuing the relentless pursuit of a mind numbed by pain and motion.
This is also fanfiction written by a puma.
Dude, just solo hike.
Bruddah is a joke. I know how to slow down when other people are around.
I just secretly resent them for being so slow.
The unacknowledged competition so many people express when walking with other people. I fucking hate that. If you want to walk with me walk with me and don’t be a dick when I’m a bit slower. You can control your speed, you just don’t want to, or don’t respect me enough to do so. Fine, go on ahead, and I’ll go home.
Is this so they don’t leave you behind or so if they turn out to be predators you can make car-key brass knuckles?
Yes.
I really don’t get this. I’ve never been on a hiking trip where someone thinks they are participating in Tour de France or some shit.
some people are faster than others, it’s as simple as that. people have wildly different levels of fitness and experience.
and it sucks being forced to go slower/faster than you want.
which is precisely why i never group hike or group bike anymore… i am sick of being forced to go at someone else’s pace and it makes the experience miserable either way, esp when they start whining at you or insulting you.
That’s totally fair, and it’s a balance.
There are tons of similar examples to this, and it depends on what you want to get out of it.I used to play badminton with some friends, and they were really bad at it, compared to me, so I either had to match their level and it would be kinda boring to me, or I could ignore their level and it would be kinda boring to them. I decided on matching their level and focused on the social part of it, and then I joined a badminton club, where everyone was better than me.
Yeah, for many people it’s being social is the point. the activity is an excuse to socialize.
for me the activity is the point and the socialization takes away from the activity 9/10 times. and I make folks who are there to be social angry because we’re totally at odds.
if I am hiking, i am focused on the hiking. if i wanted to be social, I’d go to a bar and drink.
i won’t do popular trails anymore because they are too crowded with casual folks who get all angry when you pass them, who are towing alone ill behaved dogs or children, or are totall ill prepared. plenty of low-traffic trails thankfully where you don’t have to deal with anyone other than more serious hikers.
there is a massive problem lately with gen z people trying to hike advanced trails in sandals and t-shirts dying regularly now, and it’s a huge burden on emergency services who are not equipped to being rescuing folks who are deliberate unfit and ill prepared because they saw someone climb a 5,000 ft winter peak on tiktok like it was ‘so easy’.
In the summer, we go running in the woods but my brother is faster than me and I don’t want to deprive him from a full run so we just set a time back at the car and I turn halftime. We end up slow jogging the last few hundred meters together.
Depending on the context of the hike you can split in 2 groups and do something similar.
I don’t have to run faster than the bear. I only have to run faster than you.
nah, i carry the big purse. they’d be lost without me
And better bring bear spray
„Ah shit, I thought you said beer spray”
If they leave me alone in the woods, I become more terrifying than a bear.
