[pct-l] 80 lbs

[CHUCK CHELIN]

Good morning, Reinhold,

I disagree.  Ultra-lite hikers are tacitly criticized by some through
inference that a lack of gear is dangerous and irresponsible. Since I’ve
been hiking the mountain west since the Eisenhower administration -- and I
haven’t perished yet -- I don’t much give a rip what they say about me,
however I do object to their advising new PCT hikers that bizarre levels
extra/emergency gear is necessary to stave off disaster.



Without some proportion of skill and experience no amount of gear can assure
a hiker will be successful in a difficult situation.  Similarly, given and
skill and experience, a hiker with minimal gear can easily prevail under the
same circumstances.



Enjoy,



Steel-Eye

Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye

http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09


On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Reinhold Metzger
<reinholdmetzger at cox.net>wrote:

> Yes Diane,
> Light is good, there is no question about it.
> But, did you notice they were not criticizing or ridiculing your lightness
> like you have a tendency to criticize and ridicule, Ned, Yoshi and "Heavy
> Truckers" in general?
>
> JMT Reinhold
> ----------------------------
> Diane wrote:
> This summer I hiked a few days on the JMT. At a creek crossing I knew
> I would have to get my feet wet so I just walked right through to the
> other side and kept going. On the other side, I heard someone holler
> out to me, "That didn't slow you down one bit!" I turned to look at
> the person and there were a couple of guys putting their shoes back
> on after crossing the creek. I went over to say hi. They started
> making comments about my small pack. They were genuinely curious. One
> of the guys wanted to give me his card so I could go see his trip
> report and pictures when he was finished. I never once made a
> suggestion or anything to them about gear, but I did answer a few
> questions.
>
> Later, I was sitting near a small stream treating some water and
> having a snack. I was admiring the views when two women carrying
> enormous loads rest-stepped up the trail. The first lady saw me and
> the first thing she said was, "We're just taking it slow, trying to
> savor the experience." I didn't even say hi yet to her. Anyway, I
> asked her if she was hiking the whole JMT. I was feeling lonely and
> wishing I could meet some friendly hiker trash who would want to talk
> about their adventures. She said they were hiking the JMT and then
> she started making excuses for not going light. I didn't care about
> any of that, I just wanted to hear about her adventure.
>
> On and on it went for 4 days. It was always like that. I never really
> met anyone. I never really got to talk about adventure and the
> wonders of being there with anyone. Every conversation was steered --
> not by me -- toward pack weight and how heavy their packs were and
> how slowly they were going and excuses and apologies. I never said a
> word. It's not my place. I just hiked along and people made these
> comments to me out of nowhere. It was really frustrating.
>
> Diane
>
>
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