Words to hike by

just do it – the swoosh

"Left foot, right foot, breathe."

Pat Summitt

Hers is such a fitting surname.

Party On,

Newton

The highest form of trail wisdom is knowing when to listen to your body, and when to tell it to shut the hell up.

The best commercial motto in this vien is the old Jansport, "Get out, while you can."

Regardless of what you might think of the company, I think Nike had some of the best magazine advertising ever. Here's two of my all time favorites (and more here: http://www.katiekleinman.com/nike/nike.php) (and especially love the last two lines of the second one):

Beatrice Brophy, 72, and Barbara Anderson, 74
canoeists and guides in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota

YOU ARE OLDER, IT SEEMS, THAN SOME PEOPLE,
AND SO THEY CALL YOU OLD.
OLD, OLD, OLD. YOU HAVE WRINKLES YOU DO NOT COVER
AND YOUR HAIR IS GRAY AND YOU HAVE LIVED
FOR SOMETHING LIKE SEVENTY-FOUR YEARS ON THIS EARTH.
WITHOUT MUCH COMPLAINT.
there is nothing much to complain about.
BUT SOME PEOPLE LOOK AT YOU AND THINK YOU SHOULD
STOP NOW, REST NOW, GROW OLD NOW, GRACEFULLY.
BUT YOU LIVE GRACEFULLY ENOUGH YOU DON'T HAVE TIME
TO GROW OLD.
YOU HAVE A CANOE.
AND THAT CANOE HAS A RIVER.
AND THAT RIVER DOES NOT END.
and you watch the river flow and watch it flow
AND WATCH THE LEAVES CHANGE COLOR
AND WATCH YOUR HANDS TURN EIGHTY YEARS OLD
IN THE MIDDLE OF A RIVER BEND.
YOU HIKE THIRTEEN MILES AT THE END OF THE DAY
AND THIS IS HOW YOU REST, THAT IS HOW YOU REST.
SO LET THE YOUNG ONES SLEEP. LET THE WHOLE WORLD SLEEP.
YOU WILL SLEEP WHEN YOU HAVE TO.
YOU ARE CROSSING THE WATER, CROSSING THE WATER,
AND THERE IS SO MUCH WATER LEFT TO BE CROSSED.

and

94-year-old swimmers.
89-year-old weightlifters.
99-year-old marathoners.
The back of SI is full of them.
People who forgot to retire.
And never got old.
People who realized:
It's easier to keep going
If you never stop.
JUST DO IT.
Get up. Get out.
Build up the muscle.
Get rid of the flab.
Go back to school.
Sell the TV.
JUST DO IT.
Master the curveball.
Pound the bag.
Rebuild an engine.
Jump-start a career.
JUST DO IT.
Bench press four big plates.
Dig for fossils.
Bicycle across Canada.
Save an endangered species – yourself.
JUST DO IT.
The only one who can tell you you can't, is you.
And you don't have to listen.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
– I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

"That…. was not a fart." Spc. Anderson, Pakistan circa 1997.

Edit: and if I had to be serious….

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Colin Powell

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.

Best of all, you can sing it while you're hiking up impossible slopes…

It's a brave man who farts in Asia.

One of the last stanzas from "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved heaven and earth; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

The whole poem is well worth reading IMO.

"The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten."

-Hunter S. Thompson

_______________________________

-K. Vonnegut

"Why, Grumpy, you do care."

Snow White

The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like those of a deer, and he will make me to walk on high places. – Habakkuk

Ryan

"It's a brave man who farts in Asia."

Then Asia is truly the land of the brave, if not the free.

"It is better to travel well, than to arrive sausage."

What?

"Rats of unusual size? I don't think they exist…."

"Shut Up Legs!" -Jens

We used this one in our wedding:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;

traditional gaelic blessing

But there are those who think that Frost was speaking sarcastically…

I like: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure that it is worth watching.

I used to manage a Yahoo group for the local outdoor group I was active with. In every mailing, there would be an suitable quote for the outdoors, travel or adventure.

Here's the compiled list. I occasionally added to it over the years:
http://www.pmags.com/colorado-hiking-and-outdoor-society-quotes

I like the one from "the worlds most interesting man":

"Its never to early to start beefing up your obituary"

Can't believe no one has yet said,

"Not all who wander are lost."

Humans will not be free until the last king is strangled by the entrails of the last priest.

-Denis Didoret

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

-Mahatma Gandhi

The last word in ignorance is the person who says of an animal or plant: "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts. To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

-Aldo Leopold

As man proceeds toward his announced goal of the conquest of nature, he has written a depressing record of destruction directed not only against the earth he inhabits but against the life that shares it with him.

-Rachel Carson

You must be on the path, before you can turn and walk into the wild.

-Gary Snyder