I\u2019ve been thinking about the three basic trail configurations available to hares: A-to-A,\u00a0A-to-A+, and A-to-B.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a hasher you know what all that means.\u00a0 In case you aren\u2019t, here are some short definitions:<\/p>\n
My first ten years of hashing, in Honolulu and Okinawa,\u00a0involved A-to-A and A-to-A+ trails.\u00a0 Honolulu HHH trails always returned to\u00a0the start; Okinawa HHH trails always ended within a quarter of a mile of the start.<\/p>\n
For hares, the advantage of laying an A-to-A or A-to-A+ trail is logistical: you don\u2019t have to transport beer, snacks, and hash bags\u00a0from one place to another, and you don\u2019t have to worry about getting hashers back to the start after the circle.\u00a0 For the pack, the advantage of this type of trail is that it\u2019s hard to get lost.\u00a0 On an A-to-A trail, you know exactly where you\u2019re going (and you can cut back at any time if you\u2019re lazy); on an A-to-A+ trail, even if you manage to get lost you can\u00a0still find the end without too much trouble.\u00a0 Oh, and all your stuff . . . your warm clothes, your dry shoes, your car . . . is at or very near the end.<\/p>\n
As a hare, the disadvantage of\u00a0laying an out-and-back trail is the possibility of getting caught by shortcutters.\u00a0 You can run away from the start and stay ahead of the pack, but at some point you have to start circling back, and that\u2019s where they\u2019ll\u00a0nab you.\u00a0 There are really only two ways to lay an out-and-back course without getting caught: 1) be lucky; 2) cheat.<\/p>\n
Luck involves setting a circular trail\u00a0so wide in diameter that shortcutters would have to be able to predict which direction your circle will take, then divine exactly where you\u2019ll be on the return leg.\u00a0 The trouble with luck?\u00a0 Shortcutters get lucky too.<\/p>\n
Cheating involves pre-laying portions of your trail.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, hashers, there\u2019s just no way to say that politely.\u00a0 If you really really don\u2019t want to get caught, and you want to lay any sort of out-and-back trail, you\u2019re going to have to pre-lay part of it.\u00a0 Usually, hares pre-lay the far side of the circle.\u00a0 This allows them to live-lay the start and the end, cutting out the section they already marked.<\/p>\n
Hashers who come from groups with a\u00a0live-hare tradition generally don\u2019t approve of hares pre-laying.\u00a0 Hashers who come from groups with a strong shortcutting tradition absolutely hate pre-laying.\u00a0 They want to catch hares; that\u2019s why they short-cut!\u00a0 Not that this means much to hares, who almost universally\u00a0pre-lay, with varying degrees of stealth and secrecy.<\/p>\n
A few\u00a0hares, though, are hard core.\u00a0 They are the hares who, when they\u2019re not haring, are shortcutters\u00a0who live to catch hares.\u00a0 When these harriers and harriettes lay trail, they lay it live with\u00a0no pre-laying.\u00a0 They are the hares who gave us the A-to-B trail.\u00a0Good runners, their survival technique is to take off and go, blitzing straight ahead for for five to seven miles.\u00a0 Then they stop.\u00a0 And where they stop, that\u2019s the end.<\/p>\n
As far as hares are concerned, the advantage of A-to-B trails is not getting caught.\u00a0 Who can shortcut a straight line?\u00a0 As for the pack, the advantage is the unpredictability of the trail, not knowing where you\u2019re going until you get there.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t sound like much, but for some hashers that\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n
The disadvantage of A-to-B trails, for hares, is figuring out how to transport everything the hash needs for the circle . . . beer, snacks, and bags . . . from the start to the end, and doing it while the pack\u2019s still on trail so that it\u2019s all there waiting for them, then getting all that stuff . . . plus the hashers themselves, often 30 or more people . . . back to the start when the circle\u2019s over, so that hashers can retrieve their cars and drive to on-afters.\u00a0 And that ain\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n
The disadvantage of A-to-B trails, for the pack, is almost the same: how do you\u00a0get back to your car if\u00a0you need to leave the circle early? \u00a0Do\u00a0you walk or run?\u00a0 Even if the hares have a car at the end (they usually do), they can only take a few hashers back for cars, so you might have to wait until the first (or even second) carload returns with more cars before there\u2019s room for you . . . and then you get hashers who take the first ride back to the start but don\u2019t come back to transport other hashers, the selfish bastards, and there\u2019s always a few of those, but\u2019s that\u2019s the subject of a future rant.<\/p>\n
Worldwide, hashes are divided about fifty-fifty in terms of whether their hares lay trail live or dead.\u00a0 Dead-hare hashes almost always set A-to-A or A-to-A+ trails.\u00a0 Live-hare hashes\u00a0set all types of trail: mostly A-to-A\u00a0and A-to-A+,\u00a0occasionally A-to-B.<\/p>\n
On the whole, as a hare and\u00a0as a member of the pack, I prefer A-to-A and A-to-A+ trails.\u00a0 So do most hashers, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been thinking about the three basic trail configurations available to hares: A-to-A,\u00a0A-to-A+, and A-to-B.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a hasher you know what all that means.\u00a0 In case you aren\u2019t, here are some short definitions: A-to-A: a\u00a0trail that starts and ends at the same place. A-to-A+: a trail that ends near the start. A-to-B: a point-to-point […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hash-house-harriers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25539,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25538\/revisions\/25539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}