The incredibly numerous pack met this last time at Dublin pub (remember: starting Aug. 29 it will be at Stalker). Hares Ainash and Aida took us to Sayran, beautiful in this time of year. Sucker Fish commented he had never seen the reservoir with so much water in it, and it does make a huge difference, now it resembles a lake with beaches around it.

We first had to walk downhill (nice improvement since last week... Note to hares: if you started at the beginning, the trail would be longer!) to the starting circle, then runners and walkers went their separate way. Only the trail very cleverly managed to allow all hashers to cross paths from time to time, thanks to the marvelous technique of an On-Back for runners. There was some shortcutting at some point, for which the hares were given a down-down later: is it not obvious that we cannot walk on water?

After the first checkpoint, where everything went well, the walkers had a little trouble finding the correct path, and trust in our hare became almost inexistent when we actually had to walk away from a checkpoint! We decided it was meant for us to be creative. Pedfac, her pedagogical skills acute as ever, seized the occasion to remind our brave hare of a few tricks to remember when setting a trail.

All in all, the trail seemed a bit on the short side (although we may have missed part of it due to creative marking) but it was a good workout to start the running season after the summertime. The circle convened, Sucker Fish lead the run-and-walk discussion, infractions were duly punished, returners were duly greeted, and announcements were made. Once more, pictures were taken but you will have to wait a little before they are published on our website because I do not have a digital camera (this will change once Temir Dick comes back in September).

Then the pack went to Cafe Lyudmila, on Tole Bi, for some delicious and very cheap shashlik. Next week, the trail is to be set by Sucker Fish and Blow Fish.
On-On!