[pct-l] Fragmenting the PCT information sources

Sat May 23 10:15:59 CDT 2009

This sounds a lot like the "when I was young I had to walk 5 miles to school, barefoot" syndrome. Change is the only constant, and it is those that can flow with it and not get all judgmental that, I think, live a happier life. 

My impression is not that the newbies ruin the list, but the ol' timer's who waste time and energy with their clique inside jokes and waaaaay too much personal information and what they think is funny (but is not funny, to me anyway) 

I have been very impressed with the young people I have seen on the trail this year. They restore my faith in the future. I had a great conversation with Dan and Anna (who were on the trail early this year) at the kick-off. They are in their 20's, they seem very well prepared, and they wanted to hike to prepare themselves to work with inner city youth in the outdoors, hoping to bring some of the benefits of an outdoor life to the difficult situations of these young people. How many of you that are critizising the "newbies" put your trail time to work in such a manner? 

As someone who has been supporting a hiker and meeting lots of hikers, I can say the group is like any other - a wonderful mix of folks with different amounts of experience and motivations. Some I connect with and some I don't. I think I am the only person around though who actually likes their job - I was unwilling to quit it to hike the trail. I feel great doing what I do (I run an animal shelter - check it out at www.wchs4pets.org). My impression has been that a lot, but certainly not all, hikers seem to lack direction in their lives, and I feel very blessed to have that in mine. 

SG 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: edfaubert at yahoo.com 
To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:10:52 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Fragmenting the PCT information sources 

Meadow ed here...... 
Moving to a better place may seem like the answer to the ills of PCT-l but in a year or two the new site will be the same way....... i think the real problem lies in the new crop of hikers doing the trail and posting on PCT-l . 
I say this not to find fault with the last couple of years of hikers cause for the most part they are still the wonderful folks they have always been. No, i think it the fault of the times we live in and perhaps to a degree its the Gimme Generation who's younger and more ruthless then the old standard kind of hiker we are used to here. Many of the new folks come on line and seem to push the button of the older folks who have been using PCT-l for years and get upset with some of whats here. Just remember we may have created this new breed of hikers...... 
Well if that's the case your welcome to leave and start a new site. Many folks go to more then one place for info anyway like the gear place on TJs so having 2/3 places to look for the info your looking for is not a bad thing. 
The newbies, as we call then will go to 4/5 places if they have to to find the answer they are looking for. On one hand, one would think with all the info available out there with guidebooks, videos etc folks would find all the info they need but we see year after year that's not the case. After all, with most of the negative posts about where oh where has the good old PCT-l gone most of these folks still want to help the new hiker get answers. So if your desire is still to help out with answers these folks will always ask then perhaps you need to just "suck it up". Perhaps the changes one sees in the type of info here is not to your liking and i understand that. 
For me personally i do see the change in the attitudes of the new hikers but i still put my time and money in helping them out with food and water etc etc as does Donna and Jeff, Joe and Terry, Firefox, Jo-Ann and Andrea and countless others who help. Its easy to sit home and complain about things not to your liking, that's your right. Perhaps you should channel your angry to helping out hikers on any trail your close too or go do some trail work someplace..... 
Be part of the program here folks and stop bitching and pitch in............... 

--- On Fri, 5/22/09, Pea Hicks <phix at optigan.com> wrote: 

From: Pea Hicks <phix at optigan.com> 
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Fragmenting the PCT information sources 
To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Date: Friday, May 22, 2009, 7:06 PM 

Rod Belshee wrote: 
> As you find better ones, please post the references here so we can 
> migrate the function of connecting new and experienced to a different forum 
> and let this one go wherever it is going. 

http://www.adventureonthepct.com/ 

girlscout 

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