Mike and I have been spending Friday afternoons with the Hash club. They are "the drinking club with a running problem," the Hash House Harriers are a worldwide loosely organized collection of individual clubs. They get together for social purposes and exercise in the middle.

Mike and I became officially initiated when we set the Hash.

The premise is simple, a couple of harriers (the Hares) lay a trail of flour for the runners, lentils for the walkers over a course (the Trail) they choose. The other harriers (the hounds) try to find and follow the trail. It stops a few times in the next 45 to 75 minutes at regroup stops (the Checkpoints) to allow back markers to catch up. And finally returns to the starting point.

They have everyone sign "OUT' before the Hash and sign "IN" upon return to make sure we have left no bodies, er evidence, out in the desert.

This is a photo of Darren the GM (Grand Master) explaining the set of markers we used to set the trail. A T means false trail, turn around, and look for the true trail. A circle with an X means wait for everyone to catchup. A circle means look for the trail and BC means back check a certain amount of blobs of lentils and then look for the trail again. People tend to get spread out on the walking trails and the hares goal is to keep them together as much as possible. How you set the trail determines how closely they stay together.


This is the introduction of the new people to the Hash. This would be their first (possibly only) Hash.

And we are off. They are following the little blobs of orange lentils that Mike, Rebecca and I laid earlier that morning.


They are Lemmings falling off a cliff!
Mike and I brought up the rear and I decided to take some photos of the pretty red and grey colored rocks.



We had plenty of time to wait as people tried to scramble up a hill,
and walk along edges,
and old quarry roads,
and look for seashells as this once was the ocean floor.
Then we have the Circle. This is where the social and social drinking phases of the Hash formally start. We have funny?, tongue-in-cheek ceremonies and singing to make the brew go down easy.
Always something odd happening in the circle.
We were applauded for the setting of the Hash and were relieved that no one got lost or hurt.

Ok so we receive our Hash names by giving a blurb about our likes, jobs, nationalities, quirks, etc... based on that people throw out names. Some of the names for me were Technoholic, TechnoPaddy, and Malibu Rum but Rebecca who set the Hash with us named me... She said that seeing how I worked in Technology and that I am always coming to her room to help her or taking over her computer to fix things that she was proposing the name Always Coming to the Rescue it got the most cheers which is how they vote and so I was named, "ALways COming to the Rescue".

By the sands of the Sahara and the water from the river Nile they christened me with sand and beer. Very adult I know.

Here is Mike getting his suggestions for names Bean Counter, and some odd ones I cannot remember but due to his career of Accountant he was christened with "Numb Nuts Cruncher", much prefered to Bean Counter.

So after it is all said and done we leave the circle to go back to our lives. The Hash is a great way to meet people, get some exercise, and let loose.

We look forward to joining the Denver Hash when we move.