I discovered an intriguing term that I don't find in the dictionary, but it's starting to show up on the 'Net here and there where outdoorsy fun happens. There's not much available about it, so what is "winehiking," anyway?

Edited by winehiker on 04/17/2006 19:57:54 MDT.

I will assume that it is a trendy outdoor activity that you hope to profit from.

To bugbomb, I've actually been curious to know more about the term only because I've called myself winehiker and subsequently discovered that there's a term called winehiking. Thought a forum like this might lend further insight.

No idea. Never heard the term. Two possibilities come to mind - NOT sure that either is even close:

1) it's really spelled "whine-hiking" - you know the type - "it's too hot", "it's too cold", "are we there yet", "there's too many bugs", "i have a pebble in my shoe", "you mean i have to take a dump where and wipe with what???!!!", "are we there yet", "are there any animals in these woods", "are we there yet", etc. we've all run into these - perhaps, more often than we'd care to.

[Notes:
a) in case anyone is wondering, this did NOT describe my family, and...
b) any resemblence to any person, whether living, dead, one-foot-in-the-grave, over-the-hill, yet to be born, real, or imagined is unintentional and purely coincidental and no libel, slander, name calling, bad mouthing, malfeasance, or any other clever sounding word that i also don't the meaning of is intended by the above description.]

2) maybe it's someone who has to have all of the latest "gadgets and gizmos aplenty (to quote Ariel the Little Mermaid). You know the type - battery operated fan in their pith helmet plus 4 or 5 different electronic communication devices (including a mini-wrist LCD TV to keep up with the latest Soaps or Sports, or whatever they keep up with on those things). Hey they might even have a full-blown winecellar in their backpack so the proper wine can be served depending upon whether it's a chicken or a beef dish being "boiled in the bag". You know the type, designer labelled backpacks ("Hey, I didn't know Gucci made backpacks?!!", "Have you seen the latest Armani summit pack? It's sooo Giorgio!!")

I don't know. Just some thoughts (or maybe, more accurately - the lack of thoughts).

Can't wait to see the REAL clever ones in our midst take this "ball" and run with it. Go ahead, I dare you, brighten up my day.

Edited by pj on 04/18/2006 11:50:28 MDT.

My serious answer, then - I bet it's guided hikes through wine country, puncutated by wine-tasting stops.

Ben

This takes me back to a trip in the early 90's.

Sitting around camp as the stars came out, up on a huge flat boulder with two large boxes of two-buck chuck. We were having a long and sometimes informed discussion on what technology had most revolutionized backpacking.

The logical conclusion when we were well into the second box was wine-in-a-box.

Benjamin, You could be right. Good thinking. Much better than anything I could come up with.

Benjamin is right. Check out :

http://emediawire.com/releases/2006/3/emw353827.htm

pj, you just described, perfectly and in great detail, the backpacking trip I let my wife and her girlfriend talk me into taking them on. Actually, you described BOTH of my wife's backpacking trips: first and last. Thanks for the chuckle.

I've never heard of 'wine-hiking' but the French have already established 'wine-running' with the Médoc Marathon in Bordeaux. You get wine and cheese at rest stops!

http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/runners-high-%7C-running-the-bordeaux-marathon

My somewhat acerbic first post may not make sense now that the original poster edited his message. He actually gave the clues in the first post. This made it seem to me that he was marketing this idea. Ralph, hopefully no offense was taken since you are not in fact selling the idea...

sheepishly,
Ben

Edited by bugbomb on 04/18/2006 16:07:43 MDT.

Had a girlfriend who invited an old college friend to visit from New York. At the time we were living on the end of a long point in the very southern end of Puget Sound. I would call the area suburban-- there were 5 acre "stump farm" lots with long driveways that wound off the 2-lane country road that went to the end of the point.

Our 24'x16' cabin sat on the edge of an 85' bluff over Totten Inlet and we looked out to see the foothills of the Olympics and the Black Hills. So my girfriend brings her New Yorker buddy to the cabin and she is scared to death because it was getting dark, she couldn't see any houses from the road and was certian they would be lost forever.

We were to take her hiking in the Olympics that weekend. She heard one mention of bears and headed for a motel in Olympia and never even made it to the park boundary. I'm sad, because there would a book, a movie and at least three sitcom episodes from it if she had spent a night in the woods.

i think i was either with David and didn't know it or had a parallel conversation around a fire drinking the 2 buck chunk and coming to the same conclusion.

who needs a water filter when you have a box-o-wine? i miss college.

-Steve