Jim: What value in comparing yourself with people you've never met and don't know at all?

Personally I often find the most difficult thing about backpacking is tolerating the boredom and monotony. In some ways, the more experience, the harder it gets.

Ronin: Well put stuff.

Years ago when I used to frequent Mt. Washington (NH) during the winters, we could always count on encountering some total stranger or other hanging about the lodge, yaking rather presumptiously about how we'd probably all die, and we just didn't know this and that & etc.

It was amazingly predictable and unhelpful.