[pct-l] CANYON RATS

[Reinhold Metzger]

I must confess........I have been unfaithful to my wife.......I have two
other true loves (mistresses).
One is blonde,  the other is brunette.
They are both breathtakingly beautiful and seductive and once bitten,
forever hooked.
They are so different yet so similar in so many ways.
The blonde's name is Sierra, aka John Muir Trail;  the brunette's name is
Grand Canyon.
I love Sierra, but I also love Grand Canyon.
It is our love for Brunette that Colin Fletcher and I have in common.  We
were both bitten by Brunette and became hopelessly addicted to her.

If there is any area that I have hiked more extensively than the Sierra's,
it would be the Grand Canyon.  In the Sierra, I am known as JMT Reinhold;
in the Grand Canyon, I am the canyon rat.
I have been hacking away at the Grand Canyon for 25+ years, crawling east &
west, north & south along every dedicated trail in the canyon, most of them
multiple times.
Like I said, once bitten, forever hooked.

I have a wooden plaque on my wall that, in my opinion, describes the Grand
Canyon best:

I  HIKED...dragged myself...complained...nearly passed out...and barely made
it out of THE CANYON.

One has to truly understand the Grand Canyon and its many challenges to
fully understand the magnitude of Colin Fletcher's accomplishment of
thru-hiking the Grand Canyon.
Colin in my mind will always be a Grand Canyon icon and a true canyon rat.
His book, "The Man Who Walked Through Time"  is truly a Grand Canyon
classic.

JMT Reinhold
The canyon rat