If you are with the Hash House Harriers for a certain amount of time and rise up in the ranks so to speak, at some point in time it will be expected of you to make a run for the rest of the group. This is called "scouting" and is definitely the hardest part of being H3 member (H3 stands for Hash House Harriers by the way, in case that wasn't clear.)
Scouting a trail is also called being a Hare and it is often done in teams of two simply so you have someone to talk to and in other cases to help train other members how to do it properly. This is always going to take longer than when the people are actually doing the run, because you have to do your best to try and find a new path that hasn't been used a ton of times before.
Most of our runs take place at a certain number of spots that we have been to many times before and for seasoned veterans of their own home Hash, this can be a lot easier because they have been there a number of times before.
Many of our seasoned Hares are people that don't have jobs anymore because this is normally a process that takes multiple days. You can't wait until the last minute to set a trail because if you run out of time that means the people on the following day are not going to have a trail at all or even worse, they are going to have one that absolutely sucks. This can be forgiven if it happens once or twice, but there have been people that habitually set bad trails and well, this needs to be corrected.
Certain Hashes, such as the men's only Hash that takes place on Mondays, doesn't allow membership UNTIL someone has set a trail. The rules vary from place to place and honestly, there really aren't any rules, just "traditions."
Generally speaking, members (or those seeking to be members) will try to set as good of a trail as they possibly can and it needs to be concise and clearly marked since the people who set the trail (the Hares) are not allowed on the trail while it is taking place for the rest of the crew.
Things you will need in order to set trail with basically any HHH
- A reasonable knowledge of the area
- some chalk and / or paper to mark the trail for the eventual participants
- some sort of technology to assist you along the way (there are a number of GPS apps that are free or near free that can seriously make this job a lot easier.)
This can prove a bit more difficult here in Thailand for the expat community because almost none of our non-Thai members are fluent in the local language and a lot of the time (ok, almost all of the time) we are trespassing on land that is not our own. This has gotten us in trouble a couple of times but never arrested or chased by villagers with machetes. We did get chased by 120 lb security guards the we mistook for children once though.
The best bet is to "Co-hare" with someone at some point to learn the ropes so to speak and be willing to put a few days' worth of time into it. It helps the team and does a lot for your notoriety in the group, especially if you do it poorly.
