[pct-l] your experiences with fear on the trail

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

On Dec 29, 2011, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> Would you share with us where and how you felt fear on the trail?
> As a newbie I'm very appreciative of this forum. Thank you so much.
> Paul
I felt a lot of fear because there is something derisively called  
"The Vortex of Fear." One source is this PCT-L list. The other spoke  
on the wheel of terror is town stops and gossip. People spin  
themselves into a frenzie over whatever is coming up next and if you  
listen to it too much you can go nuts. Same goes for the Wilderness  
Press Guides, but most people don't use them anymore so maybe not as  
much fear-mongering comes from there as a few years ago. There's a  
really good article about this on Backpacking Light. It was free but  
now is not. There is a companion thread you can read.
http://tinyurl.com/ck2273a

To my mind, over-hyped fears included:
The 'desert' (it's mostly not desert at all)
Apache Peak (that was it? 10 steps and you're done?)
Fuller Ridge (I wore sandals, twice!)
Section E and crossing the Aqueduct (yawn)
Forester Pass (not scary to me at all)
Snow in general (You walk on it, which can be a pain, but otherwise  
it was not a huge issue)
All the glacial melt creeks in Oregon and Washington (cold but not  
life-threatening)
Suiattle log (there's a bridge now, but the log was easy-peasy)

Under-hyped fears (--to me. Remember, I'm a weenie)
The Sierra Passes (surprised me they weren't low places in the  
mountains, but gigantic high mountains you had to climb. The altitude  
and solitude messed with my mind.)
Creeks in Section I (too much swimming for my comfort zone)

Hyped fears I caved in on:
Scary creeks between Le Conte Canyon and Red's Meadow (I came back a  
following late summer and did that part then)
Muir Pass (I couldn't figure out how to walk on snow so got tired of  
the scariness of high snowy passes and anxiety-producing lunar  
landscapes, which I also did not enjoy. Freaked me out, actually.)