So I was biking on the Colorado trail down near Durango and of course stopped several times to wait for friends. Three groups of other bicyclist road by and asked 'You all set' or 'everything OK?' I've biked, hiked, skied, fished, hunted, and done everything under the sun in the CO rocky mountains and have never been asked this question before. These riders were all late 20's. Do they think the mountains are that dangerous? I don't get it.

Maybe your just getting to the age that the young 'uns are worried about the old guy.

Not that old. Only 42.

No harm done. I'd rather people be concerned.

Age has nothing to do with it ! I'm sure your friends had an "eye-popping" good time ..

They were probably just thinking in the realm of flat tires and broken chains and the likes. I usually do the same when I come by a lone rider who doesn't appear to be taking a break.

A partner and I were skiing into climb Ptarmagin Ridge on Mt Rainier one winter. We had parked at the turnoff to Crystal Mt and began skiing up the closed HWY 410 when we ran into a couple of slack country skiers who asked us 'how is your safety'? I began explaining the long term avalanche forecast, pointed out we both had beacons, shovels, and probes. The two young dudes looked at each other like I was from mars until my partner explained to me what a 'saftey break' was.

It's happened lots of time to me.

One place where I think I often get asked that it around Rabbit Ears Pass when snowshoeing around say Walton Peak or the Elmo BM. Since it's a popular snowmobliling area, people seem to assume that anyone walking on foot must have a broken down sled.

Often when I've been hiking with a kid and we're out in the wilds, I get asked the same thing.

I don't really mind it, in fact sometimes it's an advantage.

For example when I was out in a remote part of the Atacama Desert with my five year old kid, The Peruvian Army came by and wanted to know what I was doing standing out in the middle of the desert with my kid. They gave us a ride saving us a very long and dusty road walk to the Colca River. In fact, they even gave Kessler all their candy rations.

Ever since I've been biking (15 years or so) this has been a standard question to anyone who looks like they are stopped and not just resting. Local iteration: "Need anything?" It's just a courtesy.

I got it constantly, sometimes from people twice my age, just because of how bad I sound hiking with asthma. Now I'm hiking with a still half crippled leg and am looking for a polypro T-shirt that says, "No, I don't need help, thanks."

Another time I went up to Snoqualmie Pass early spring for a quick BC ski tour by myself. An older couple stopped me and said my group was not too far ahead and if I skiied fast enough I could catch them. I told them I was not with that group (a guided group) but by myself. Alarmed and somewhat incredulous they asked if I at least had a radio. I said I had something much better, an IPod.

Scott wrote:It's happened lots of time to me.

One place where I think I often get asked that it around Rabbit Ears Pass when snowshoeing around say Walton Peak or the Elmo BM. Since it's a popular snowmobliling area, people seem to assume that anyone walking on foot must have a broken down sled.

Often when I've been hiking with a kid and we're out in the wilds, I get asked the same thing.

I don't really mind it, in fact sometimes it's an advantage.

For example when I was out in a remote part of the Atacama Desert with my five year old kid, The Peruvian Army came by and wanted to know what I was doing standing out in the middle of the desert with my kid. They gave us a ride saving us a very long and dusty road walk to the Colca River. In fact, they even gave Kessler all their candy rations.

Reminds me of when my daughter was young we had climbed a gentle peak in the Goat Rocks wilderness, near Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. On our hike out we met a gentleman with a horse and my daughter sweet talked him into letting her ride it so she didn't have to walk.

Once I was sitting on a rock on Katahdin, eating an apple, admiring the mist over the lakes. Another solo hiker appeared and said, "Hey man...are you OK?" He was wearing camo pants and a suede jacket with those fringes on it, and he had a real crazy look in his eyes. I said that yeah, um, I was fine. And he said, "Yeah, but are you OK?" And I was like, ummmm, yes, I am OK. I'm just eating this apple. He then handed me a pamphlet about becoming a born-again Christian entitled "THE PROMISE OF HEAVEN", and said, "A little light trail reading." I think I still have the pamphlet.

Like I said I've logged many an hour on the trails in CO, and else where, including mt biking from the beginning of mt. biking, when we biked from Aspen to CB in the 70's. And never
before been asked ' everything OK'. To you twenty something transplants, when you see someone in their 40's 50's or whatever, and they've got a twenty year old mt. bike, or don't have
the latest 'elf shoe' skis, or wearing a North Face fleece from 1986, you might take time to think. Think that perhaps that 'geezer' has done about 1000 times more in life than you.
Just because you just finished your Avi one course last spring, or just finished your WFR course doesn't mean you don't have a lot to learn. So take time to really look at that 'older dude' because you might learn something.

Couple weeks ago I was in Montenegro, returned to the trailhead after dark, my car was the last there. 2 blokes in a 4x4 drove by and asked if everything's ok, we chatted a bit and drove each in our own direction. Half an hour later, lower down the road I saw a light by the roadside, it was a bunch of cyclists, also asked if they're ok, they were just resting. So I think in most cases it's nice to ask or be asked.