[pct-l] Choices and Completion Rates

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

On Sep 3, 2010, at 11:12 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> There's been a lot of talk about equipment, injuries, and getting  
> prepared physically.
>
> How do you prepare yourself mentally for the challenge?

I did not prepare myself mentally for the challenge (I didn't quite  
know it would be so mental) and I was not an athlete.

What kept me going were the following:
1) Having quit before, I refused to do so again. The likelihood of  
ever driving all the way to northern Washington was pretty slim. It  
almost was a shortcut to walk. I didn't want to end up not knowing  
what it would be like to finish the trail.
2) My BF back home told me the first time I quit the trail that I  
needed to get back on the trail and finish it because my "story" had  
no ending, and reading my journal and imagining me out there gave him  
a reason to put up with his job. Other people helped me, too like  
people following my journal. I hoped I was making the world better by  
hiking, something I didn't feel I did at my job.
3) At some point I imagined myself at the Canadian border and I knew  
what it would feel like. I would imagine that feeling from time-to- 
time and it would keep me going, make me feel good about what I was  
doing.
4) At some point in Oregon of all places, it suddenly hit me that I  
really was going to make it. I knew it for a fact. Since it was a  
fact, I had to keep walking.
5) Thoughts of living in the wild, being one with nature, not  
punching a clock and all that also carried me through. I would  
imagine a typical day at home and realize how much I really would  
rather be fighting snow-melt mosquitoes in Oregon.
6) It's really beautiful out there. Up until the very end something  
took my breath away almost every day.

At some point I realized that a thru-hike was neither meaningful, nor  
the best way to do it, nor more successful, more pure, more real or  
more anything. If I ever did it again, I would just hike for as long  
as I wanted, open-ended, no pressure, no herd, no concept of  
"dropping out."

Diane