Haring Tips

Instructions for Hares setting Trail

To hare is the most sacred responsibility that can be entrusted to any hasher. It takes planning, insight, creativity, and yes, some panache to lay a demanding, yet exciting trail.

Austin Hash Markings for Trail

Here are just a few trail markings the Austin H3 uses. We encourage everyone within our group to be consistent and use our markings. This prevents confusion to the group.

X = check: trail can go in any direction from here EXCEPT where you just came from

F = false trail: go back to check and try a different direction

A circle around an X = back check: head back toward check and look for another trail along the way usually off a hash mark

–> = true trail arrow: trail goes in this direction

BN = beer near LESS than 1/4 mile

VC or VX = standard view check. Hares should definitely remind the pack if these have been used, as they are rare.

(.)(.) overlapping = titty check – for harriettes only. Male hashers must wait for a hariette to arrive and check it out. Good way of regrouping except when Spread Em is on trail.

Blow job: trail runs out before the designated (usually 4) number of blobs have been reached – go back to check.

Where to Lay Your Hash

Location: About any place you find that looks cool to you is fine. Everyone likes something different, so if it’s your hash you get to choose the terrain. However, if this awesome place you want to lay a trail is on private property get permission first. There are several parks that are Alcohol friendly to end at. Aways check to be sure first when picking a park for a ending. Here’s a link for more information on parks: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/parkpolice/pkalcohol.htm

Turnout:In general, the further from town you lay a hash, the fewer hashers will show up

Location Must-Haves: Okay you’ve found this really cool area to lay a hash in. Great! Here’s what you gotta find before you start laying flour:

Starting Place: There should be enough parking for everyone you expect to show up. Make sure that it’s okay to park there. Hashers seem to get pissed off when they get back from the circle up and find that their cars have been towed. Try to find a spot that’s easy to give good directions to. If it’s a brand new area the roads may not be on the map yet. If you’re laying a middle of summer hash, it’s nice if there’s some shade around. Some good locations are Mall/Shopping Center parking lots. If someone gets lost finding the start they can always get directions to some mall or a Walmart.

Beer Check: This should be a place where the hashers can slam a beer without getting harassed. They’ll only be there about 15 minutes, so this is fairly easy to find. If you plan on having the beer truck drive there it should be easy to find and accessible by a 2-wheel drive vehicle. If you want to stash the beer, in a cooler or whatever, you can have the beer-check almost anywhere. If you do this leave a trash bag for empties. Put a gallon jug of water in the cooler especially if it’s really hot.

On-In: This is usually the toughest place to find because we’ll be there at least an hour and it’s better if we’re not bothered by police or whoever. If its cold, try to find a place out of the wind. If we can build a bonfire without getting into trouble that’s real cool! In it’s hot, try to find some shade … if possible. If it’s a live lay, you’d better use a place we’ve never been before or someone might guess where you’re going and beat you there. The beer truck and others have to be able to get in and out of there and you have to be able to give directions how to get there. If the On-In is near water and the weather is warm, scout the place out about sundown. If you see a fire-ant mound every 10 feet – probably not a good place for an On-In. If it’s a particularly nasty/shiggy hash, it’s nice to have a water hose or creek around to wash off. If the On-In is at a bar, you’d better bring a fist full of cash … we always drink more than planned. If it’s within walking distance of the start then it’s less trouble hauling people back to the cars. In general, find some place secluded where no one will notice or hear us.

On-On-On: MUST SELL OR ALLOW BEER! Usually a dive bar, but doesn’t have to be. They need to have food, or allow food. (example, allow us to order Domino’s). Should be fairly cheap, like most of the hashers. It’s really great if you find a cool place we’ve never used before. Probably the best place to have this is at a hasher’s home because we don’t have to worry about DUI’s. Hot tubs and/or pools are encouraged.
Laying the Trail

First of all if you’ve never hared before, get a co-hare! Many of us know almost as much about laying a successful hash as we think we do. Scout your trail beforehand (if you can scout it from your car – try another trail.). Plan all your shiggy, streets, cool-overlooks, beer-checks, and On-In carefully. Good lay’s don’t just happen, it takes some planning. Don’t skimp on the flour! I start out with at least 50 lbs. of flour (under $10). Be creative. You’re not catering to any special interest group, especially the competitive runners. Don’t try and make the trail hard to follow! It’s far better to lay a trail that’s easy to find and a son of a bitch to traverse, than vice-versa. Try to keep the pack together. By doing so everyone sees when someone screws up, and generally has more fun. There’s several ways to do this:

Checks: at least one every quarter-mile on the streets, more often in the shiggy. Consider creative checks:

  1. Song check – sing song(s) after most of pack gets there
  2. Women’s check – a harriette must solve the check. Variation: Little dick check – similar to women’s check but…
  3. Back check with a number in it – hounds count dollops backwards on trail, trail changes direction at the appropriate mark
  4. Backward clothing check – turn clothes inside out or backwards before looking for trail
  5. FRB beer check – FRBs have to stay and drink the single beer on the check
  6. Turtle Checks – hounds wait till last hound arrives. Variation: add a number, hounds wait till there are the number listed present before searching for trail. Problem with these is that not everyone stops at them. They’re useful for a scenic spot though.

Falses: (some hashes call’em blowjobs) Long falses are great for messing with the FRB’s, if they don’t zen well. Well used falses makes the pack want to work together. I try to lay more falses than checks, but that’s just me. One last thing about falses, they don’t need to be incredibly long. Be creative with these, the idea is to screw the FRB’s.

Blowjobs: (an unmarked false, trail just runs out) Everyone loves blowjobs. Big blow-jobs, small blow-jobs, ones that cross big rocks, wet blow-jobs, dry blow-jobs, even ones that last 3 blocks, oh blow-jobs, I love blow jobs… (sorry, I got carried away for a minute there!) Good trails never need Blowjobs. They just piss off hashers so they’ll never run your trails again. And, if a couple of your hash marks get removed (by rain, cars, or whatever) the hashers may think it’s Blowjob and get really lost.

Circle Jerks: I’m not a real fan of these, but if you do lay one make it obvious that it’s a circle jerk once the FRB’s have run to the end of it.

Lay trail creatively:

  1. Lay a big loop around the start so that it takes 10 minutes or so to get out of sight of the cars. If someone shows up a little late they’ll see the pack and join them.
  2. Zig-zag the trail. Sometimes you can find a way to make the FRB’s run a crooked path while allowing the walkers to go in a straight line.
  3. Use the terrain to your advantage. Anything that can slow the FRB’s down or allow the back of the pack to catch up is good.
  4. Turkey/Eagle splits. Eagle trail is often longer/more difficult terrain, Turkey trail is shorter/easier to follow, though egos often at stake here.

Ideally, the DFL’s should reach the beer-check and On-In within 5 minutes of the FRB’s. If the slower hashers say the hash was a cake-walk while the FRB’s ran their ass off, ya done good. Try and tailor the number/difficulty of checks to the size of your hash. Bigger hashes get more spread out so they need more/tougher checks but if a dozen hashers have to work through 25 checks it’s going to take them a long time. This is a tough one to nail because you never know what your turnout will be or how many of the really good/fast FRB’s will show up.

I know we’re all big boys and girls, but the less busy street crossings the better.

Arrows are useful if, for some reason, you have a stretch of the trail where you can’t lay flour. Arrows should always be true. They’re also a great help if you somehow start running trail backwards.

Don’t try to keep civilians from sweeping up your flour by hiding your flour! Just lay more flour. If you hide it we won’t be able to find it either. If you lay trail well you can’t lay too much flour

If you’re going to do something out of the ordinary that requires something special of the hounds, you have to make accommodations. For example if there’s a tunnel, make sure everyone has a flashlight. If there’s a swim required either make sure everyone can swim or has a way around. Note: It’s okay to lie to at the start of the hash by telling everyone that they have to swim when there’s no water, but it ain’t cool the other way around.

If the trail is not dog-friendly, you’d better get that on the hot-line before the hash.

If you expect it to rain: lay your dollops in big piles, and not in the gutters where they’ll be sure to get washed away. Try and find places to lay it where it won’t get wet, if possible. Flour will stay around better if you lay it in clumps rather than just throwing it on the ground. If you squeeze the clump and set it down it will hold together better. In rain, flour sticks to wood (trees, fences) better than grass, smooth surfaces or sidewalks. You really need to use a lot of flour on a wet hash because some your dollops are going to get washed away no matter how good of job you do laying it. Be extra careful when laying critical marks (checks, falses, back checks, etc) because we’ll have a hell of a time figuring out what to do if they’re not there. If you use chalk, use a bright color and make the marks well. If it rains after you’ve laid your hash you must recheck it or be prepared to lay live trail.

If you’re going through a field of high grass you can use toilet-paper. In high grass flour can be a bitch to follow, even if you’ve laid a lot of it.

If different hares are laying different parts of the trail, make damn sure the trails connect! If one hare’s trail ends a half-mile from where another trail starts we’ll never find it.

If you insist on laying the trail by car or bike, at least run the trail once yourself so it makes sense to us on foot and isn’t too long. “I didn’t realize that my trail was that long.” is a B.S. excuse!

If we’re driving to the hash and see flour on the side of the road, we’re going to shortcut your trail. So don’t lay it on the road to your hash.

Don’t lay flour on fire-ant mounds. The son’s of bitches will eat it in 10 minutes.

Try finding interesting (but fairly safe) obstacles or sights. Cross old bridges or old railroad trussles, use a knotted rope to climb steep hills, have an Dark Side/Fool Moon On-In overlooking city skyline, use several swings to cross creeks (make sure it is deep enough and safe). Keep it interesting by not doing the same thing too long, i.e., don’t run down the RR tracks or run a long straight street for over a mile, or wallow in a creek for 30 minutes (unless it is a great creek or the middle of summer creek). Hashers only have half a mind so they get bored quickly. Some try to get a little street in at the beginning so some people “get a little running in” before dumping them into lots of shiggy – – bad the other way around because the pack gets tired.

Better a short interesting trail and fun long circle than visa-versa (hashers are too tired to join in.) You will not magically convert us all into marathoners by laying a really long street hash.

Night Hashes: These should be laid at night. It’s hard to tell in the daytime what will be lit up at night and what won’t. You might lay a mark that you want to make sure everyone sees under a street lamp, only to find out that the light not working when we run your hash at night. Try not to need or use flashlights. The flour will glow in the moonlight and you can develop good night vision. And don’t try to hide flour on these, it’s hard enough to follow it at night as it is. Keep the trail to less than 2 miles or 30-45 minutes. Most important requirement: Some people need to get home at a decent hour, read older married folks with jobs. NO BEER CHECK, keeps the time on trail shorter and helps the Hare with the amount of beer he supplies. Keep the circle-up short too, so there is still time to go to the ON-ON-ON!

Other: You need to get the info for the hash to the Joint Masters as early as possible. This means good directions along with any special info for the hash.

Finally … a map showing the end of the run should be left on a car windowshield or on the ground marking the way to the end for the late cummers or auto wankers.