The fact that you can do THAT at 70 makes you my new hero!! Have enough trouble at 65 with my 15' w/c.
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Happy National Zipper Day (pat. 1913)! 🤐
Poll: How Old Are You?
- Thread starter Glenn MacGrady
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Worst than losing strength is how the ground we sleep on seems to get harder and harder as the decades roll by, specially if you're a skinny old geezer like me.
I'll be moving on up into a new decade in a few weeks. 50's has been good to me, we'll see what 60's have to offer.
I just finished the book Freshwater Saga by Eric W Morse. He was the author of Canoe Routes Of The Voyageurs, a brief and excellent read for anyone interested in early explorations of Canada. In Freshwater Saga Morse gives an overview of his life spent canoeing, retracing routes of explorers and voyageurs from Quebec to British Columbia. It's remarkable that he was travelling these routes with his wife and a changing group of friends when he and most of them were in their 50's...and aging every year. Yet they pushed farther and deeper into the backcountry with every passing year. He'll be no hero of mine, rising regularly at 3 am, portaging 100 pound canoes, refusing to dawdle at beauty spots unless windbound; but he reinforces the notion that we needn't give up without even trying. I'll try to enjoy my next decade without giving up. Perhaps I'll retrace an historic paddle route, but it'll be on my own daydreamy terms. Sleep in till 7 am and then linger over coffee. Portage only what I can easily carry. Take the time to dawdle at each and every beauty spot.
Happy birthday everyone, whatever age you've reached this year. Try not to list the limitations, but do explore the possibilities.
I just finished the book Freshwater Saga by Eric W Morse. He was the author of Canoe Routes Of The Voyageurs, a brief and excellent read for anyone interested in early explorations of Canada. In Freshwater Saga Morse gives an overview of his life spent canoeing, retracing routes of explorers and voyageurs from Quebec to British Columbia. It's remarkable that he was travelling these routes with his wife and a changing group of friends when he and most of them were in their 50's...and aging every year. Yet they pushed farther and deeper into the backcountry with every passing year. He'll be no hero of mine, rising regularly at 3 am, portaging 100 pound canoes, refusing to dawdle at beauty spots unless windbound; but he reinforces the notion that we needn't give up without even trying. I'll try to enjoy my next decade without giving up. Perhaps I'll retrace an historic paddle route, but it'll be on my own daydreamy terms. Sleep in till 7 am and then linger over coffee. Portage only what I can easily carry. Take the time to dawdle at each and every beauty spot.
Happy birthday everyone, whatever age you've reached this year. Try not to list the limitations, but do explore the possibilities.
I'll be 60 soon but I'm counting on the fact that most of my canoeing partners are in their 30's to make sure I can keep tripping even when I can't carry much.
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Turned 69 this past Tuesday (18th). Until this past August I tripped without any major problems, just packed a little lighter, paddled a little slower, and didn't hustle accross portages. Looks like I will need surgery (cervical discs) around Thanksgiving so probably won't be doing much skiing this winter
. Hopefully, I'll be able to do a scheduled trip to Algonquin in Aug with my sons and grandsons.
. Hopefully, I'll be able to do a scheduled trip to Algonquin in Aug with my sons and grandsons.59 years young. My doctor says this analogy is not perfect, but close enough. If one spins a nut onto a bolt and leave it in the backyard to weather, in two years it will be seized with rust. If, however, you go out there every day and spin the nut off and back on the boot, then in two years, there will be rust, and the nut won't spin like new, but it will turn. Joints are nt that different.
The lone 20 something... well, what's the explanation for why there aren't more young people posting here. Why? I have no explanation except that maybe staring into a screen is easier than paddling. These young whippersnappers these days, they have it way too easy. Why when I was that age, I had to walk 9 feet through shag carpet to get to the TV.... times were tough back then, let me tell you, real tough.
<... jest kidding...>
<... jest kidding...>
Hey I have an alibi..! Plus the winds are way up for the third day in the row.. 45 mph..Is that a dig on the 20 year-olds who are missing from this website or a dig on us, who are currently staring into a screen instead of paddling?
Alan
G
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One of my kids just came out to the shop office to see what I was laughing about. dang that was good.
Alan,
I guess we all dig screen time and paddling time both... speaking of time, it took almost a week before someone under thirty (well, almost under thirty) posted here so I could tell that joke. Almost an entire week... if there's anything I've learned becoming a crotchety old geezer, it's patience.
OK no more jokes. Let us resume the ongoing discussion on age here with rigor, sharp focus and grim intensity.
Is that a dig on the 20 year-olds who are missing from this website or a dig on us, who are currently staring into a screen instead of paddling?
I guess we all dig screen time and paddling time both... speaking of time, it took almost a week before someone under thirty (well, almost under thirty) posted here so I could tell that joke. Almost an entire week... if there's anything I've learned becoming a crotchety old geezer, it's patience.
OK no more jokes. Let us resume the ongoing discussion on age here with rigor, sharp focus and grim intensity.
What was the discssion again?
"...rigor, sharp focus and grim intensity."
Describes perfectly my midnight visits to the thunderbox.
Describes perfectly my midnight visits to the thunderbox.
frozentripper First off that shag carpet joke was a good one. If you look back the first 30 old responded 2 hrs before you did. I responded within 24 hrs.
Before everyone starts citing our poll as gospel representing the whole of canoeing, I'll present some demographic information for your reading pleasure.
http://www.americancanoe.org/resourc...search_201.pdf
The demographic here is not representative of the paddling community at large. I will not surmise on why that is.
Before everyone starts citing our poll as gospel representing the whole of canoeing, I'll present some demographic information for your reading pleasure.
http://www.americancanoe.org/resourc...search_201.pdf
The demographic here is not representative of the paddling community at large. I will not surmise on why that is.
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That poll tells me it's all downhill from here!
I don't think the demographic in the Coleman study is representative of what one might call the "serious paddling" community, and I'll say why.
To me, the age results in this thread are generally consistent with similar surveys on the former solotripping.com and paddling.net sites. It's also consistent with my eyeball tests of various (non-whitewater) paddling clubs I've paddled with over the past 15 years all over the country, and with paddling gatherings such as Raystown and canoeing symposia. What I see in all these sites and places are predominantly people in the 45+ age groups. I see virtually no children at all except as tag-alongs.
What I think is being measured is what I would call serious paddlers--people who have adopted paddling as their adult hobby, who have invested in the ownership of several canoes and kayaks or who build them themselves, who take multiple trips each year often to far away places, and who are serious about gathering together (if only electronically) to improve, share, learn and teach about the skills and techniques related to their hobby. As I said: serious paddlers.
I don't think the Coleman study measures the same thing at all, and I'm very skeptical about it's skewed sampling technique. Here's what it says about sampling:
"A total of 5,067 individual and 5,711 household surveys were completed. The total panel is maintained to be representative of the US population for people ages six and older. Over sampling of ethnic groups took place to boost response from typically under responding groups."
Maybe I misunderstand this disclaimer, but this means to me that if 20% of the people in the U.S. are ages 6-12, the survey was conducted to make sure that 20% of the interviewees were 6-12 years old. And what they were basically asked was "have you been in a canoe this year and how many times". The survey then calls this a "participation rate" for various age categories. It then concludes that the participation rate is 4% for 6-12 year-olds and 2% for 45+ year-olds. More absurdly, it concludes that 11% of the people who "participate" in canoeing in the U.S. are 6-12 years old, while 26% are 45+ years old. Non-white ethnic groups were deliberately oversampled. Why are the sampling groups and definitions defined the way they are? In my opinion, to boost the appearance of youth and ethnic inclusiveness for the outdoor gear companies who are paying for the survey.
In sum, my interpretation is that the informal surveys of paddling sites, clubs and groups measure the age of serious paddlers who are committed to the sport in terms of time, money and effort. The Coleman study was crafted to create artificially-sized age (and other demographic) buckets and then asks whether they've been in a canoe (kayak, raft, SUP) this year.
Different strokes for different folks with very different demographic pokes.
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In my defense, I was canoeing last weekend or I may have been posting soonerit took almost a week before someone under thirty (well, almost under thirty) posted here so I could tell that joke. Almost an entire week... if there's anything I've learned becoming a crotchety old geezer, it's patience.
OK no more jokes. Let us resume the ongoing discussion on age here with rigor, sharp focus and grim intensity.
Muskrat and Srobocop, my apologies if I was too hasty in concluding us old farts dominate here (the previous comment on the thunderbox made me say that).
I really have no clue who rules, the numbers in the PDF help. Reminds me of the old joke "There must be a lot of fish in this lake because nobody ever caught any".
Anyway, in the bigger picture here, it's birds of a feather, and all that. Rephrasing to return to a more sharply focussed discussion made of sterner stuff, with some grim intensity thrown in... members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate.
I really have no clue who rules, the numbers in the PDF help. Reminds me of the old joke "There must be a lot of fish in this lake because nobody ever caught any".
Anyway, in the bigger picture here, it's birds of a feather, and all that. Rephrasing to return to a more sharply focussed discussion made of sterner stuff, with some grim intensity thrown in... members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate.
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