Less Than 14 Miles

During my undergraduate school tenure, I developed an immense love and appreciation for the outdoors. I became an avid backpacker and took every opportunity to hit the trail. I was trained by the best. My mentor was a man named Alfred Ballinger. In addition to being my teacher, he became a close friend.

Alfred conducted numerous classes on various outdoor topics. His most popular class was the backpacking class that culminated in a three-day and two-night venture into the wild. I tagged along on many of these trips as the "Bear Watch". The Bear Watch was the last member of the party and pulled, pushed, and encouraged the stragglers. These trips honed my outdoor skills and still remain with me today.

On the second day of the trip, the students are required to climb a steep mountain named Heart Attack Hill. A majority of the students stop between the halfway and three-quarter mark and always ask "How much further is it?" Alfred's standard answer was "less than 14 miles!" Some of the students didn't like this answer, but it was the only one they ever received. They would push on and eventually collapse in camp. Later that night, they would laugh and reminisce about the climb.

Several years later I discovered why he responded that way. He was using psychology. To give the students exact distance and time would often result in moral decline, which led to more whining and complaining, which eventually converted itself into actual physical weakness. The purpose of the these trips was to encourage folks to press the boundaries of things they didn't think they were capable of achieving. Almost all the students come away from the trip with a true sense of accomplishment. To this day, if somebody asks how far it is, we smile and say "less than 14 miles".