[pct-l] The seductive power of the long hike

[Tom Bache]

I ran across the following quote from Francis Parkman -- the great 19th
century historian of the "American wilderness" (his words) and its
settling by our cultural ancestors.

³To him who has once tasted the reckless independence, the haughty
self-reliance, the sense of irresponsible freedom, which the forest life
engenders, civilization thenceforth seems flat and stale. Its pleasures are
insipid, its pursuits wearisome, its conventionalities, duties, and mutual
dependences alike tedious and disgustingŠ.The wilderness ‹ rough, harsh,
inexorable ‹ has charms more potent in their seductive influence than all
the lures of luxury and sloth. And often he on whom it has cast its magic
finds no heart to dissolve the spell, and remains a wanderer and an
Ishmaelite to the hour of his death.²


Tom Bache
San Diego