When you guys are hiking with 2 or more do you prefer the lead or to follow?

I kinda like the view from up front but a lot of places I prefer to have my wife take the lead. She should have been a game guide as she has an incredible talent for spotting critters. She is uncanny. Example, we were walking a ridge line and while I am staring at my feet or enjoying the general scenery she is hiking right along and then, bam, complete stop and pointing to a little black spots in a tiny green opening seemingly miles away. I mean I can hardly pick out what she is looking at let alone make game out of it. On further inspection with binoculars the pinpoint turn out to be a cow moose. We always do a little mental checklist of critters we want to see and darned if that wasn't our last day hiking that trip and until then we were skunked on moose sightings.

Even in the truck going along at 40mph in our neck of the woods she will shout out "hey I think I saw ..." So I check the rear view and pull to the side not really expecting to see a darn thing. A short walk back along the side of the road and, boom, a momma moose and her calf in some fairly thick cover.

She is awesome. I cant tell you how many time this happens.

Only bummer taking second seat is that I sometimes miss the fleeting critters. The other day she jumped 2 deer and caught the tail end of a black bear headed into the thick and I wasn't able to get a look at any of them. Well honestly I prefer it that way as she has many more times helped me to spot critters that I would NEVER have seen. So better I take the back seat.



jimmyb