Yesterday my walking group tackled the mountain Scott and I had missed on Monday’s aborted Hash. It proved to be a challenging hike, with two moderately difficult ups and one very steep descent. It took nearly two hours to do a 4K trail on the mountain which gives some indication of the tough terrain. Or maybe I was just slower than normal. One of those.

So the Hare, I’m A Fucking Cupcake, got quite a bit of negative feedback for his efforts in setting this trail. In my opinion, most of it was unfair. Given that so many people had gotten lost on the mountain I assumed it was because the trail had been poorly marked. That proved not to be the case. The problem was likely with the method he used to mark the trail. Most Hares use powder and chalk. Cupcake did most of his marks like this:

Yes, there were some places where the markings were ambiguous and it would have been better to use more powder and chalk along the way, but I didn’t have any real difficulty following the trail. Some of the guys said that’s because I move so fucking slow I have more time to see shit. Maybe so.

Now, Cupcake does warrant some legitimate criticism. For one thing, the purported 9K trail was closer to 11K. I was so happy I didn’t attempt to walk the entire trail on Monday. Especially with the hard climbing coming during the last portion of the hike. The other complaint I had was with there being two confusing checkpoints on the trail. I’m not a fan of these anyway, but if a Hare is going to insist on using them, it needs to be done right.

Dan (Bum Burgler) is pictured above and it was at this checkpoint that he and several others wound up taking the wrong trail. Why would an experienced Hasher not notice there were no marks and turn around? Well, because there were marks–from a trail used a few weeks previously. At a minimum, the Hare should have made sure there was only one trail marked. What I’m going to suggest for the future is that Hares use the “false trail” mark (three horizontal lines) within 50 yards or so for all options other than the true trail. Or just don’t do the fucking checkpoint at all.

Anyway, other than that it was quite enjoyable. Props to Cupcake for finding new paths. Even Scott, who has been Hashing here for 15 years, hadn’t seen parts of where we hiked previously. That’s quite the accomplishment. Being a Hare is can be a thankless job, it takes a lot of time and effort to lay the trail, and it is impossible to please everyone. I’ll be Hareing again along with Scott and Jim on February 1st and I’m already thinking about how to pull off a good experience for the Hashers.

Here are the photos from yesterday’s adventure (credit to Scott for most of these):

Took a jeepney back to Barretto and got dropped off at Cheap Charlies for some lunch and beers. And lo and behold, guess who was sitting outside:

And that was my day. A third place in the darts tourney last night and a singles league match on tap for this afternoon. What a life, huh?