[pct-l] The Desert

[gwschenk at socal.rr.com]

---- jason moores <jmmoores at hotmail.com> wrote: 
> 
> O.K., I think you'll agree that I've gone on long enough. Please feel free to add to or detract from anything I've said.
> 

If you want to enjoy your hike, hike and backpack more. Reading journals and books, it is amazing how many people who tackle thruhiking the PCT are neither hikers nor backpackers.

I am one of the luckiest people to have ever lived on this planet. I have a job and a location that allows me to hike and backpack year round. It makes a difference.

After 25 years of backpacking and peakbagging in California, last spring my girlfriend and I did our first section hike. It was a little intimidating, we had never done 20 mile days, day after day.

It was a piece of cake. The trail in Southern California is well made, and gentle to the extreme. We cruised and enjoyed ourselves immensely, and met a lot of great people. And saw places we normally would never have gone.

The people we met who had experience were the ones enjoying the trail the most. They, too, were cruising. Those with little to no experience were spending nights in pit toilets and fighting horrible blisters.

And what is REALLY cool, is the rookies who make it all the way to Canada. Hats off!

Gary