[pct-l] Colin Fletcher

[David Hough on pct-l]

What I remember most from Colin Fletcher was his first
rather unpretentious book, the Thousand Mile Summer.
It's a series of interesting vignettes along his 
rather unconventional route.

But the part that stuck most firmly in my mind since
the
early 1970's was the day he realized in his gut that
his hike was about to end - somewhere around Honey
Lake
in September he realized he'd be at the Oregon border
soon.      "As predictable as the next payday" were
his words, more or less.

The Thousand Mile Summer and the High Adventure of
Eric
Ryback got me interested in the PCT, and if I had been
bolder about ignoring my graduate school debts I could
have been part of the class of 1977.     But I wasn't
and so I have been knocking off sections on a ten 
year plan.     But I still think the most interesting
aspect of completing the PCT (or the Camino de
Santiago or any other long trail) is the sadness and
disappointment that seem so common among people who
have completed their goal.     The only cure seems to
be to go back again next year.      Hard to do that
in the marriage-mortgage-offspring stages of life.