Physical Danger?

When we gave our presentation to the Prime Time group at Santa Fe College, we were asked by someone in the audience whether we had ever felt in physical danger when walking through France and Spain.

Both of us scratched our heads, not having experienced anything we could relate to the question. We finally agreed that what we feared the most when hiking was the problem of getting dehydrated and collapsing as a result.





The listener's question came to mind again when we were on a training hike in the San Felasco Hammock State Preserve. We don't particularly worry about bears, feral pigs, rabid raccoons, or venomous snakes, all of which we might encounter. What really scares us are the trees. We have many times walked under the those pictured here and many more.

The one shown on the left is huge, burned mostly through, and scarier than it looks in the photo. And, as the photo on the lower right indicates, some fallen trees are more inconveniences than hazards.