The President's Corner

As part of our March Monthly Meeting, Eoin Colleran gave us an excellent presentation on the benefits of hiking and training as seen through the lens of a physical therapist. Eoin offered lots of good advice to our group of weekend and weekday warriors who, for many if not most of us, have one main goal in mind...to keep on trucking. It doesn’t take long on a hike to understand and recognize that our club is full of inspirational individuals. Whether it is folks rehabbing a physical ailment or coming off of treatments for serious illnesses, the examples of folks working to do everything they can to keep moving forward are everywhere within the club. Or maybe you find inspiration (I know I do) in the fact that you are unlikely to ever catch up with that octogenarian or septuagenarian in front of you on the trail. It is a club full of awesome individuals with diverse life experiences—just start a conversation on the trail to find out some of their interesting stories, and, by all means necessary, keep on trucking.

Many thanks to the efforts of our May-June outings coordinator, Ruth Moss. Thanks as well to our hike and outing leader volunteers for the next two months. The result is that you have a wonderful collection of outings to choose from. Please don’t forget to sign up for the club social function, the Spring Fling, scheduled for Sunday May 25, at Bur-Mil Park. One can only hope that we will once again see Ken “Fireball” Yates behind the grill under the constant tutelage of coaches Weatherman, Alsup, and Maxwell. Please mark your calendar for the June Monthly Meeting (June 9) when we will hear from Dr. Heather Colleran, a nutritionist, who will discuss nutrition before, during, and after hiking and exercise. Additionally, for all club paddlers (or, more specifically, folks wanting to become paddlers), please note Joel’s outing scheduled for June 7 on the Dan River to cover the basics and to encourage all to participate in some of the paddling outings.

I was going to veer off at this point in this write-up and discuss a subject that has been constantly in the news. I’m talking about artificial intelligence, or AI. I was specifically going to talk about its potential application in hiking as well as in writing Outing Club missives such as this one. I’ll hold that discussion for another day. I’ll end this note by utilizing past Trailmarkers. When I look back through the Trailmarker archives, I note a lot of really good written material. To close this note, I’ve selected words from past president and current treasurer Vance Barron (aka The Oracle of Sunset Hills) who in 2021 ended his column echoing a Prairie Home Companion: “Well, that’s the news from the PHOC, where all the women are strong, all the men think they are good looking, and all the conversations are above average.” A succinct message that sums it all up quite nicely.

Happy Trails,

George Crouse
PHOC President
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