[pct-l] John Muir's Birthplace

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

Thank you, Shroomer.

We had an article in our local Sierra Club newsletter that basically  
said that people who lead hikes aren't doing the dirty work of  
activism. They are just having fun. Of course, Trailhacker, being the  
Outings Chair, wrote a response that was quite good. His point being  
that leading Sierra Club hikes is not easy and we have as much a  
shortage of hike leaders as the political folks have of activists.  
Still, I agree it is way more fun leading outings than doing  
activism. I am simply not an activist. At the first sign of  
difficulty, rather than try to work for a compromise, I would cave in  
and run away in tears.

I wanted to write something about my PCT experience, about how it  
showed me in a visceral way things like access to clean drinking  
water were only intellectual exercises for me before. In regular life  
no matter how much they talk about pollution, clean water always  
comes out of the tap. When the tap is gone and your life depends on  
water that comes from a stream or lake instead, the horror at seeing  
green, fertilized lawns ringing a lake really sinks in. (And yet, how  
many Sierra Clubbers are out there putting fertilizer on their lawns  
every weekend?) But I never turned it in.

Hiking the PCT also gave me a lot of hope. There really are a lot of  
beautiful places still left in the world, nature isn't completely  
dead. Sometimes living in the regular world you get the feeling that  
there's nothing left of nature, that we already pretty much killed  
it. Spending 6 months out in it not only made nature a hopeful  
reality but it made it a welcome place I called home. If nature is  
still alive, and if people understood it was still alive, maybe they  
wouldn't be thinking in the back of their subconscious like I think I  
was thinking, that well it's pretty much gone, we lost, may as well  
just forget about it and wait for the end times.


On Jan 22, 2011, at 4:41 PM, Scott Williams wrote:

> That is such a right thing to do Diane.  Muir was consciously doing  
> the same
> thing with the early Sierra Club summer camping trips.  He was  
> motivated to
> get people into the High Country for just that reason.  He took  
> Emerson's
> ideas, and made them real, touchable, and personal by giving people  
> the
> experience of the wild.  When you take people up there, or anywhere
> beautiful in the woods, mtns or deserts, you make "converts," and  
> political
> allies.  Or you at least begin what for many becomes a lifelong  
> love of
> nature.
>
> What you are doing with folks has a long history and great  
> validity.  If we
> want these great places and trails preserved, we need more than a  
> few thru
> hikers to make it happen.  I lead weekly hikes in our area, and up Mt
> Diablo, partly because I'm hiking anyway, but also because I'm  
> really very
> missionary where it comes to getting people involved in Nature.   
> Your posts
> always come from that place, as do many of the old timers, and  
> young timers
> on this forum.  We just want others to experience it and love it as  
> we all
> do.  It is fun, and it isn't complicated, it's just wonderful.
>
> Shroomer