[pct-l] PCT-L - Most Common Causes of Thru-Dropout

[Shian Sung]

Jeff,

As with almost everyone else who's going to chime in, this is purely
anecdotal and based only on my own perception and experiences, so take these
as another drop in the brimming-to-full cup that is the thru-hiking
community's varied opinions. To me, there are only really two main reasons
people get off the trail:


1) By far, the biggest reason people get off the trail is they just don't
want to be there anymore. As i'm running through the list in my head of
people I knew that got off the trail last year, i'd have to guess at least
75% of them did so because they just got tired of it. These people who did
quit ran the absolute gamut - total newbies, former AT Thru-Hikers, former
PCT Thru-Hikers, mountaineering guides, couples, single people, people who
liked to do the social thing, people who mostly hiked alone and forewent the
trail towns. That same range of people also finished the trail. The
overriding difference is that the desire to stay on the trail (which was
always there) just became less than the desire to get off the trail. They
were almost all extremely sad to stop thru-hiking. They were also almost all
incredibly relieved to get off the trail.

There are a lot of factors that tie into it, including money, loneliness,
missing family/significant others, it's all very personal as to why you get
tired of being on the trail, but in the end, there is little you can do to
prepare yourself for being out on the trail away for that long. Thru-hiking
is full of wonder and beauty and adventure, but it also has some of the
other things in life - disappointment, drudgery, exhaustion, and pain. It is
about the journey but in a thru-hike, it's very much about the goal as well
and for some, the goal makes everything else worth it, and for others, it's
not quite enough. It's hard to know if you'll really want to be out there
for half a year until you get out there for a couple months.

One quick note since you mentioned money - this is as much a function of
will/desire as anything else. Last year two guys were determined to hike it
on $2,000, and they did. They had to skip a lot of the things that many
thru-hikers would be hard-pressed to finish without... rooms, showers, big
restaurant meals, etc. But they were driven to do it, and they did it. One
of them ended up spending $1,800. I spent twice that and don't regret a
single dollar since it contributed so much to my physical well-being and my
mental well-being.


2) Repetitive stress injuries. Almost anyone can thru-hike which is what
makes it so appealing. Doing something for four to six months, you can take
the time to slowly build yourself into a hiking machine. In almost
everyone's case, they will rush whatever pace they actually needed to do it
completely healthy. Bigfoot gave a great talk at Kick-Off this year about it
(built in bias, I hiked a lot with Bigfoot and we constantly geeked out over
our biomechanics) but the long and the short of it is it requires prior
strengthening to avoid them or discipline and will to heal from them and
prevent them from reoccurring while on the trail. This could involve taking
off a couple days and getting separated from your "trail family", it could
involve forcing yourself to hike smaller, slower days, it could involve
modifying your gait to avoid the biomechanical error that is stressing out
the target body part and causing continued pain and an increasing barrier to
having an enjoyable hiking day.

However, it IS avoidable. Most of the injuries that i've seen knock people
off the trail are usually tendon/fascia issues. Knees. Ankles. Hips. The
other big one is foot pain that is usually caused by hiking lots of miles
with a pack. There are ways to lessen your pack weight and walk so that you
are placing less stress on your foot. Some people's bodies are built
stronger than others, and everyone has a different tolerance for pain and
discomfort. It's all very personal, but people CAN find something that works
for them that will enable them to hike the whole trail. Not everyone can
find it while hiking the trail.

Check out Bigfoot's youtube video on it which mirrors the presentation he
gave at kick-off:
http://www.youtube.com/tomholz7#p/u/3/plAcndao3qU

He makes the point that you can geek out about your body (gait, form,
alignment, etc) like you geek out about your gear. Worth the watch.

-Shian/Barrel Roll

PS that was a lot of words to basically say, "What Timothy Nye said".