Hiking in the mountains is no escape from the distractions of electronic gadgets. It used to be that you could throw some gear in the back of your truck, roll out into the hills, and completely break out of the buzzing and bleeping grasp of the telephone and the TV for a few days. That was long enough to let the ringing in your head silence out and to get a few coherent thoughts through. Of course for that we would have to go back quite a few years to truly be without portable electronics. For a long time we have had things like radios, video games and now even cell phones that can work way out in the boonies. Now we have GPS, XM radio and satellite phones to keep us wired into the rest of the world from no matter where. For many of us that leaves less willpower to force ourselves to break away from the chatter of the world. You would have to go to great lengths and personal restraint to distance yourself from all the temptations of checking in on your office emails and to hear innovative doublespeak vocabulary terms from our clever political leadership.

I myself did not last very long on my recent month long camping trip to stay away from my gadgets. I brought a GameBoy with me in case I needed to unwind from the stress of listening to birds and talking about potatoes with Pema. I admit I fell into my normal pattern of playing just one game, and then another, and so on. I got wise at one point because Richard was getting really upset about the games. He was frustrated that he had schlepped us across the globe to an exotic location to give us amazing new experiences, and we were still crawling back into our other world. I thought I should pack it away for a while because he has the reputation of smashing GameBoys. But that was no escape from digital diversions. Even the standard wristwatch has taken on a new life with the functionality of an air traffic control center. The standard high adventure outdoor watch has a heart rate monitor, GPS, compass, digital voice memo, MP3 player, and barometric altimeter. These functions are very practical given the highly advanced technical specifications of trees and mountain streams in today’s modern wilderness.