[pct-l] Scott Williamson's Worksops

[Pea Hicks]

Jon Danniken wrote:

> Depriving people of the learning experience itself, the sense of 
> accomplishment gained only through years of devotion to backpacking and 
> outdoor pursuits, is a very selfish thing, and furthermore to fill the trail 
> with such people is disengenuous to those of us who have devoted ourselves 
> to the experiences of backpacking far off in the woods away from the crowded 
> masses that inhabit our currently overcrowded world.

hi jon-

i think i may be one of these deprived hikers you speak of. while i've
been a dayhiker for about 20 years, i only started backpacking about 3
years ago. my first serious backpacking trip was a section hike on the
pct, section A, in 2003. it was very difficult, and i had a lot of
questions by the time i got to warner springs. anyway, i didn't really
know anything about the pct community at that time, and i didn't think i
could (or even wanted) to thru-hike the pct. but the people i met that
week, and subsequently the online journals i read after returning home,
made me realize that all sorts of ordinary folks tackle this trail. so
why not me?

over the next couple of years i delved into yogi's guide, trailjournals,
the pct-l, and any other informational source i could find. i went to
see different people give talks on hiking the pct, and on lightweight
backpacking. i learned alot from these sources. i attended adzpctko
every year (i live in san diego, so it's easy for me to go every year)
and i bought gear from some of the small vendors that participate in
adzpctko. and i took progressively longer hikes- the jmt in 04, a pct
thru-hike false start in 05, and finally a successful thru-hike this
year, from from campo to manning.

i THOUGHT i learned alot about myself and about nature along the way,
and i THOUGHT i had a right to be on the trail, and i THOUGHT i met a
ton of great people who seemed to enjoy my presence as much as i enjoyed
theirs. but now, reading your post, i'm not so sure. maybe i didn't
learn ENOUGH about myself and nature? maybe i didn't have ENOUGH of a
right to be on the trail? and maybe all those people i met were, in
fact, just as "deprived" as me? i'm very confused.

so, if you could please review my journal, and let me know if i do, in
fact, fall into this "deprived" category you mentioned, i'd appreciate
it. i suspect i might, but i'd like to know for sure from an expert.
here's my journal:

http://www.trailjournals.com/gs06/

please take special note of all the bitching and moaning about heat,
cold, rain, steep trail, rocky trail, etc etc.

anyway, if it does look like i'm the sort of hiker you're talking about,
please let me *and the list* know- i'm quite happy to be pointed out as
a specific, concrete example. hopefully my example will be useful in
some way. for one thing, i'd like to deflect some of the blame away from
the "trail whores" you mentioned, and place it more appropriately on my
own shoulders, because i'm the one that decided to do business with the
trail whores, and i'm the one that decided to put myself on the trail.
as i understand it, it's not really the trail whores themselves that
you're concerned about (since you obviously don't physically frequent
anyplace that they offer their wares), but rather people like me being
on the trail. so let's place the blame accordingly.

oh, and if i AM one of these deprived hikers, please send along a
picture of yourself so that if i ever see you on the trail, i can
quickly duck behind a bush, rock or tree (or maybe ditch into a motel
room), so as not to spoil your wilderness experience.

and please accept my apologies in advance.

cheers!
girlscout
pct06

(ps- i'm hoping to hike the cdt in a couple years. gotta get yogi's
guide first. anyway, in case i AM one of those "deprived" hikers, i'll
try to give you a heads-up on when i'm hitting the cdt, so you can
decide whether or not that would be a good year for you to hike.)