Intro

That ferret-legging is a sport says much about what we’re willing to consider sport. Practiced for centuries, the legging of ferrets had something of a heyday in the 1970s, thanks to its embrace by British coal miners in Yorkshire. To refresh your recollection of the rules, a ferret-legging competitor stuffs two live ferrets down his or her trousers. No underwear is worn, allowing the ferrets free reign to move from leg to leg, and the pants are tied at the ankles and belted snug at the waist, so the critters can’t escape. Competitive ferret-legging ferrets have been described as having “claws like hypodermic needles and teeth like number sixteen carpet tacks,” and former world champion Reg Mellor was known for wearing trademark white pants, the better to show the blood. The winner is whoever lasts longest.

I think about ferret-legging often when I’m bushwhacking, and I bushwhack a lot. A decade or so ago, I learned of the Sierra Club Hundred Peaks Section,