Nitro, Pacence, and the Tree People

My friend Nitro from the CDT was in town this weekend. We talked about future hiking plans, and it was really interesting to discuss the motivation for our hikes. We're both triple-crowners, but it seems for totally different reasons, as she has none of the misanthropy/Everett Ruess/Chris McCandless/kid from My Side of the Mountain/hermit/loner disease that I have. She apparently likes people. Weird.

Anyway, I showed her around town and we got a big kick out of the Berkeley tree-sitters. Here's Nitro striking a pose in front of their "Release the Pressure" sign.

Berkeley tree-sitters? Yes, Berkeley has a bunch of people living in some oak trees in order to, in my view, prevent Cal from having a really good football team. Here's a picture of their athletic facility construction blocking, Mother Earth loving home in the trees.
I do really like planet Earth and trees, but the University itself planted most of the trees, plus I really like football. Mostly I'm for football. Old growth and it'd be another story. Regardless, it's interesting to me how un-Radical the University seems compared with Berkeley's city government. Before moving here I assumed the students were the seat of it all, and maybe things were that way during the Free Speech Movement when students were occupying Sproul Hall and Mario Savio was around, or maybe that's just a dream of mine.

Anyway, my buddy from the AT, Pacence, was on PBS talking about the book he wrote. Here's the clip. You can see that some of his reasons for hiking and traveling are in line with mine, but definitely not the exact same.

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