[pct-l] Hiking and the real world

[Melanie Clarke]

Dear Sasha,

Earning a living, raising a family will impact the things you really want to
do but you just have to make it work.  You can get a job with the
classification of "Safety and Security" and retire at 50 years of age with a
nice PERs pension.  You will receive vacation time along the way but work is
a fact of life.  When you are 50, you are still young enough to enjoy a life
on the trail.  A lot of jobs fall under this category; Park Rangers
(Federal, State, County), Police, Probation, Correction.  Most of these jobs
require at least an undergraduate degree and pay accordingly.  That being
said, teaching still seems more conducive to life as a long distance hiker.
Good luck, young Jedi, 3 of my 5 children are in college right now (UCs, one
going for her Doctorate on the East coast) $$$$ whew, talk about "making
things work"!  Another one is "off the payroll" working with an
undergraduate degree and I still have one in High School.

Melanie

On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes <
diane at santabarbarahikes.com> wrote:

> There's no one singular answer. You have to find your own path.
>
> I simply quit my job to hike. I got a temporary job in between the
> two summers I did my PCT hike. I think if I was younger and single
> and male I would find a way to live a life of temporary jobs and
> maybe some RV or van living to make my living expenses really low.
> Then spend my off time hiking long trails. Or get a fungible, in-
> person job, like waitressing or drain cleaning or something where you
> can just get another job real quick without too much career ladder
> stuff to worry about.
>
> In my more ordinary life, my hope had been to quit, hike, then find
> another job right away. In the high tech field where I work it was
> somewhat common to quit, take a long vacation, then go get another
> job. Outsourcing and the downturn in the economy put a stop to that.
>
> Teaching is another way to have time for distance hiking.
>
> Not many working people make a career of long distance hiking. You
> could find jobs that are outdoors, but that's not quite the same as
> being like Billy Goat or whoever. I've thought about campground
> hosting when I'm old so I can live close to nature.
>
> It's possible I may never hike long distance again. This makes me
> sad. But all I can see ahead of me are endless days of working with
> weekends over in a blink of an eye and only day hikes here and there
> to tide me over until long holiday weekends give me time for multi-
> day trips. I saw my chance and went for it. Now I'm like you and
> wondering how can I do it again.
>
>
> On Oct 17, 2010, at 12:26 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I'm a college student who, in the past few years, has gotten very
> > interested
> > in long distance backpacking. I've been on the list for a while and
> > have
> > heard from a lot of very experienced backpackers. Reading their
> > posts, I was
> > wondering, how you have implemented the backpacking world into
> > "real life".
> > Is it more common for people to take the Yogi path and sort of
> > haphazardly
> > get into backpacking while maintaining an unrelated job back at
> > home or do
> > most take the Ned path and get into backpacking by falling in love
> > with it
> > through their job? Working for my school's outdoor organization,
> > I've guided
> > a number of backpacking trips. As man of our school's guides graduate
> > though, they move on to careers in different areas. How can long
> > distance
> > backpacking be sustainable as a career path? What ways do people
> > mix their
> > passion with profession?
> >
> > --
> > Sasha Leidman
> > sleidman at gmail.com
>
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