近距离内射合集

One of the best hiking sticks you will ever use might be growing in your yard.

The agave, often referred to as the century plant 鈥� because it takes a decade or more to actually bloom 鈥� typically dies after producing a beautiful, colorful, towering stalk of blossoms beloved by bees and orioles.

When it dies, don鈥檛 cut it down and trash it. There is probably a lot of life left in that stem.

Chip Rawlins, co-author of 鈥淭he Complete Walker IV鈥� spent his younger years hiking, skiing and monitoring streams for the U.S. Forest Service. He was greatly inspired by Colin Fletcher, who produced the first three volumes of the book and several other tomes about long-distance hiking (鈥淭he Man Who Walked Through Time鈥�).

Rawlins found the agave stem to be a superb hiking tool.

鈥淔or pure organic elegance, the agave staff with a pithy center and fibrous sheath, is hard to improve on,鈥� Rawlins wrote in 鈥淲alker IV.鈥� 鈥淎gave staves weigh next to nothing, and no one sells them, thank heaven.鈥�

It is human nature to take steps to improve on just about anything, so Rawlins varnishes suitable agave staves, wraps the bottom 16 inches with duct tape and adds a crutch tip. Fletcher himself is fond of bamboo staves, not just for support when walking, but also because of the memories they hold.

鈥淓very time I look at the stout bamboo I used on my 1958 walk up California 鈥� now worn down by a dozen years of grinding toil to a bare 3-feet, 9-inch length, wounds bandaged with rings of red ripstop tape 鈥� its weather-beaten surface and especially the brown patina at the second knot, where my hand usually gripped, still generates echoes of warm affection (or soggy sentimentality.)鈥�

Sticks can be as simple as broom handles or as modern as telescoping aluminum. One might receive them as gifts or borrow them from beaver dams. Those telltale gnawing marks, left by the large aquatic rodents, certainly add character.

It鈥檚 easy to fill hall closets with all the sticks regardless of their materials, just as it is easy to think of uses for them. Draining rainwater away from a sleeping bag, propping up a temporary shelter, and serving as a fishing pole are among the uses Fletcher described. Rawlins relates the utility of sticks (aka poles) to keep aged or damaged hikers and backpackers on the trail despite injuries and illustrates the point with legendary mountaineer Reinhold Messner鈥檚 statement about how 鈥減oles make it possible to walk on four legs like animals do.鈥� Messner lost seven toes to frostbite.

David Quammen, author of 鈥淢onster of God,鈥� carried walking sticks while hiking through Romania conducting research for a chapter on Ursus arctos, the brown bears that consume shepherds鈥� flocks with vigor. For protection, the Romanian shepherds have packs of dogs to keep the bears at bay. Quammen states his walking sticks were good defense against the dogs.

And let鈥檚 not overlook the adventure when Edward Abbey saved his own life by using his 鈥渙ld walking stick鈥� to escape from a treacherous s-curved chute in Havasu Canyon. He wrote about the ordeal in 鈥淒esert Solitaire.鈥�

Abbey was stuck in a smooth series of plunge pools on the face of the canyon. In one pool he created a pile of stones and propped his stick atop the pile for more height. Standing on his stick and extending his big toe, he was able to reach a section of the sandstone chute that had enough finger and toe holds to pull himself high enough to reach the next pool. His stick clattered down the chute behind, and despite his tears he found enough courage and strength to reach the rim.

Taking shelter in a cave, Abbey outlasted an all-night rainstorm, suffering through a wretched night of aches, hunger and nightmares. 鈥淚t was one of the happiest nights of my life,鈥� he wrote.

When I hiked through Havasu Canyon, I used a twisted piece of box elder I found in Cimarron Canyon, an old wildlife management area which also serves as a state park. I had to strip the bark away because the beavers had not offered any assistance as they have on other sticks in my collection.

Years after that Havasu hike, a pair of agave plants in my yard bloomed simultaneously. The blooms caught the attention of my neighbors. One, guitar player and artist Tommy Martinez, painted the pair of blossoms on sandstone and gave the painting to me. Another neighbor, Cris Sandoval, came up to the house one day and asked to take the dried stalks. At the time I did not realize he was going to make a pair of walking sticks for me.

One of the sticks is adorned with a forked deer antler, an idea he may have seen in a magazine he reads.

鈥淎fter you turn 85 you look for ways to keep yourself busy,鈥� says the native of Las Vegas, New Mexico.

The sticks he handed me were coated with a varnish-like epoxy after he drew a handhold and added a leather thong. Like Rawlins, he put a crutch tip on the stick, although he wasn鈥檛 sure it would ever be used for hiking. I carried the shorter of the sticks while hiking through the Gila National Forest, and it was a lightweight tool that survived a country covered with baseball-sized rocks that rolled beneath my boots regularly.

Sandoval thinks his creations are more conversation pieces than tools, and they certainly do keep him busy. He also created a samurai sword out of metal he never sharpened, and for the handle he used his own hip ball joint the doctors gave him after they replaced it with a new metal one.

Obviously, Sandoval has a vivid imagination, and he knows other people think of making these objects, but a sign he saw at a state fair artist booth pushes his creative ideas into reality.

The sign said, 鈥淚 know you can do it, but will you?鈥�

Sandoval鈥檚 agave walking sticks and hip-joint swords show he鈥檚 the guy who is willing to 鈥渄o it.鈥�

A different piece of agave stalk is attached to a fence in the backyard. It is used by carpenter bees, and occasionally ladder-backed woodpeckers attack the stalk in an effort to find them.

As I said, there is a lot of life left in those dried agave stalks, so think twice before you trash them.