[pct-l] Andrea on tips vs. donations and back-country behavior in general....

[Georgi Heitman]

  O.K., list....this is long.  If being a Pain in the A-- on the trail or 'tips' vs.donations, is of no interest to you, you might hit that delete button....., but here goes.
  Andrea:  Don't you worry about what you wrote in pct-l.  It needed to be said, I think...for you and Jerry as well as for all the other Trail Angels along the way.  If we hadn't been very lucky this last summer, we'd have gone a couple of thousand dollars in the hole, and to us anyway, that's a lot of cash.  Like you, and probably Pooh, we're on a fixed income, and it 'ain't' that great.  This last summer we lucked out with some very substantial (for a wide spot and a bump-type area) donations.  A pizza parlor owner, who delivered ready to cook pizzas to us every Friday night, as many as seven or eight at a time, all comped, refused to let us even pay for the gas it took to transport the food to us from Burney(60 miles,round-trip).  Another friend had a bull that broke it's leg and needed to be put down.  She had all that beef turned into some of the best hamburger I've ever tasted, and frozen in one pound packages.  She donated a lot of that 'frozen Bull' to us all summer long.  It was a huge savings to us.  I'm trying to ask several ranchers in the Hat Ck. Valley to think of us and our hikers should they be unfortunate enough to lose a beef this coming season.  We also had a couple of members of a previous class that guessed I could maybe use some help dealing with the bunches of hikers that were coming every day.and showed up to do whatever they could.  They were both tremendous help, we had more fun....  We also had a couple of very generous shopping trips for me to Redding (130 miles round trip) where the shopper refused to allow me to reimburse her for what she'd spent on groceries.  Those two trips combined were probably worth roughly 7 to 800 dollars based on my tabs at Safeway in Burney.  With donations left in a jug that I normally left on our butcher block island in the kitchen (the girls who came to help moved it to one of the picnic tables on the deck, saying not enough people found their way into the kitchen), we came out within about $400.00 or so of breaking even, excluding electricity, propane, gas for the driving we do, which can include getting a hiker to Redding and the bus/train/ plane they need to catch, and garbage (I recycled a lot more this last season, stuff that the recycler up here won't handle, and that I took to the Oakland B.A. to turn in there).  Summer of ' 05, we went over $1400.00 in the hole, and that doesn't include gas,  the extra garbage pickups, the increased electric and phone bills (even with calling cards) or having to have our propane tank filled two months early because it was down to 15%.  (Shouldn't go below 30%, the propane people holler for some reason).  You need to know that tho we began angeling in 1999, when young friend of ours and her new husband walked California on their honeymoon and stayed with us, we never had more than maybe a half dozen any one year until 2004, so it was very natural to feed them and there was no way we would accept a donation.  2004 brought us almost 40, it was a shock, to us and to our pocketbook, at least a little...but still no thought of a donation jug.  In 2005 (160+), when the Highlander asked where our money pot was, we said we didn't have one, we never have had one and that we couldn't ask anyone for money. He found a canning jar, put $20.00 in it, put it on the chopping block and said that with the numbers he knew were planning to pass through our place, we'd be glad for every penny.  He was right, of course, but to tell the truth, I'll still point out the jar if anyone asks concerning the existence of a donation jug, but I just can't bring myself to actually ask for, or leave a sign regarding, donations.
  Dennie once mentioned the possible necessity of charging maybe a $2.00 or $3.00 fee per meal, but that would require that we become a 'hostel' and subject to all the rules, permits and governmental B.S. that places that serve food for a fee have to go through here in CA.  I think we'd just stop serving meals if our costs become too high, and certainly we can't expect all our summers to be as gentle on us donation-wise as this last one.  I don't consider a donation which helps us continue to provide the kind of services we do now a 'tip'.  I'd hope that hikers would see that when possible, leaving something in our jar is a way to show that they realize what the things we do must cost us and that they want to help a bit or maybe even say 'thank you", not that we don't get many verbal thanks, we do...but welcome as they are, they don't pay the bills.
As to rude hikers...we've never had any and we didn't run into any this year, and it sounds as tho we were among the lucky ones.  We did find a couple of big whiskey bottles among amongst? our recyclable glass.  Once our deck empties out in the evening and folks head to our back woods and the tents we've pitched for them, I have to admit, we haven't a clue what goes on, but it's usually well after 9:00 when people begin to leave the area around the house.   If there are still people using or waiting for the computer in the house, it's later still for them.  We have nice neighbors across the creek from our 'campground', they've not complained and we've asked them to please let us know if our guests are noisy.  I'll have to ask them again.  I suppose there could be a heck of a party going on back there, but since I have a hearing loss, I'd never be aware of it.  We've never, as far as I can tell, had anyone show up for breakfast looking hung over either.  At the same time, I'm not sure everyone who has spent the night makes it to breakfast. But I'm thinking we won't tolerate rudeness, and those who are rude will be escorted from the property and requested to not return.  Their names will be emailed to Trail Angels both as far north and south of us as we can go, as well as the reason they're not welcome here.  I'd like to know who your rude guests were, especially sobos.  As you have stated so well, we do this because we love doing it and love meeting really wonderful folks from all over the world and all walks of life.  BUT, we could take that same money and have a nice vacation for two instead.  Why would we continue to volunteer our homes and our hearts when a few thoughtless and self-centered people can ruin your whole summer and fall?  We've never felt the need to greet anyone and at the same time wondered if this will be the one to burst our bubble, the thought of that happening is so sad.  I guess is such a thing begins to happen up here, we'd probably decide to quit our 'job', much as we love doing it, before we got too bad a taste in our mouths.  I mean, we provide two AYCE meals a day, lunch makings, pick ups from the Post Office of packages and mail at hiker's request, showers, laundry, hot tub, DSL, phone with a calling card, hiker boxes with food, clothing and misc other stuff available, games, full-sized tents and/or a tree house for sleeping, trips to Burney and Redding, practically unlimited parking for cars and bikes, practically unlimited stay while getting well, awaiting the receipt of packages, etc. here, pick-ups and drop-offs to other exotic places (Chester, Beldon and the hinterlands of HYWY 89 to the north of us, searching for forlorn, wet and exhausted hikers all come to mind, this year alone), some resources available for equestrians, including one or maybe more corrals and possibly short distance trailering, the maintenance of a small water cache at the top of the Rim where it meets HYWY 44 (the south end of the hot Hat Creek Rim, and last, but I think, not least, the firm refusal to allow anyone, (but especially any nobo who comes in here sick,) to leave here until we think they are healthy enough to spend two days on the aforementioned H.C. Rim or one day in hot, dry Lassen Natl. Park (sobos) safely.  This seems like a lot...we don't want nor should we have to deal with any lip from even one or two hikers who think it isn't enough, or that we somehow 'owe' any of the things we do, to them.  And, frankly, I do think there should be a certain amount of 'policing' of their own by other hikers.  Perhaps this is too much of a risk for the single 'policer' if the bad guy is of a vindictive nature, but if several hikers were to tap me on the shoulder and suggest that my behavior at some location, be it P.O., store, restaurant, motel or Trail Angel, was inappropriate, I'd want to find myself a hole to crawl into and stay forever.  Granted, it becomes a harder issue to tackle if there's a group, all acting like animals, but word can still be passed ahead, and those people can be refused assistance in other places. 
So, there we are, Andrea, you go, girl!!  My take, and a long one it was, too. 
I invite comment.... 
Georgi of Old Station
Oh, and I pick up hitchhikers I recognize as PCT'ers all the time and no one better offer me money...not even if I go way out of my way for them, and I will do that whenever I can.  But, that's just a part of being an angel...run of the mill drivers might feel differently, especially if they 1, keep glancing at their gas gage;  2, are driving a heap that may not make it around the next curve safely; or 3, whose set of wheels is making such a terrible noise that it's downright scary to consider that they continue to drive w/o some TLC to what they're driving....
Oh, again...Jon, etc...I'd consider myself very foolish to venture into the back-country for the first time with an attitude of 'if I don't already know it, it isn't worth knowing unless I can learn it for myself on the trail, by screwing up, even if it's a fatal screw-up'.  I'd also consider the parents of perhaps 300 or 400 Girl Scouts and maybe 200 to 300 Boy Scouts and Explorers who at one time or another were in my care, foolish in the extreme, to allow their offspring w/in a mile of me if they weren't aware of the trainings I'd taken and of the documentation I could produce to prove I was qualified to be where I intended to go.  And, while I've never suggested that I knew everything there was to know about trekking, I've done my best to be sure my fellow hikers could pretty much fill in the gaps.  I still can sit and listen for hours to the people who come through here, I've never stopped learning or asking questions...hope I never become so arrogant that I think no one has anything more they can teach me.  Scott has always, to my almost certain knowledge, (based on all the accounts passed on to me by folks who have crossed his path on any of, what, 7? trips, many of them yoyo attempts), been very willing to stop and talk, sometimes for an hour or so, with any hiker who wants or feels the need, to talk with him.  If the trail and I were still travel companions, I'd be thrilled at the possibility of taking a class taught by this very PCT-savvy guy.  You don't have to read very many issues back in any Pacific N.W. newspaper to get a feel for what can happen when people venture beyond what common sense would dictate.  And I'm not suggesting that anyone wasn't well trained or equipped for what they set out to do.  The common sense issue revolves around choosing to separate instead of staying together, to help one another and keep one another warm and thinking straight.This is something that every beginning hiker should have drummed into their head from the get-go, even if they never took one other piece of information home from any back-country training course they ever attended.
Thank you, 
G.  





  Andrea said:

  OH yea....... Hope I didn't stick my foot in my mouth. You'll have to read the last couple of days. I started out asking a question about the Tahquitz Inn and ended up ... about some rude hikers that came through here. You'll have to read what followed. Under Whores and the TI and about tipping. The whore lead was started by someone else and ended up with my topic included. 

  Keep up with the FYIs. The more we can get the word out (about Mt. Tripper) the sooner we will track him down.

  Hugs,

  Andrea