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

[Charles Doersch]

I'm thinking of a quotation by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke: " If only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must
always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most
alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful."

In all the adventures I've had around the world over many years, I only
regret three. And in all three, I bailed on the experience when I really
didn't have to. That was years ago, and I now just don't allow myself to
bail. Yes, Diane is right, the trail is still there next year. But what I've
seen & heard from others -- and what I've experienced for myself -- when
what I have set out to do I do not accomplish for reasons of weakening
resolve or rationalization or excuses (etc.), I create a template for
quitting. And it gets that much easier to quit next time. Something within
me is deeply disappointed and suspects that when the going gets really
tough, I can't be relied on to hold strong. Something within me suspects
rightly. After all, the women and men I admire most in this world are the
ones who regularly accomplish the improbable by taking no lip from the
Whiner within.

One example: When we sailed a little 45-foot steel ketch 1500 miles from
Tahiti out to the Pitcairns to take part in the first scientific survey of
Henderson Island, I hated the experience of sailing. It was really bad --
awful weather, motor sailing against a headwind knocking us left & right,
didn't eat for two weeks, night watches at the wheel, seasickness,  -- and
when we stepped off that sailboat onto the island I vowed never to sail
again. "Not my thing! It's alien!!" Once our three months of work on the
island was finished, I tried hard to find any other way off the island -- I
tried to talk cargo ships into taking us on as passengers, I tried to get
the French Navy to take us back, etc. etc. No go. I had no choice but to
step back on a sailboat to return to Tahiti, and I was furious and
disgusted. And damned if I wasn't wrong, wrong, wrong about it! It turned
out I adored sailing. But I had to be forced by circumstance to "hold to the
difficult" until I broke through the other side of my considerable
resistance to find the fierce joy and the raucous love of it.

It was a terrible thing to learn that I could be so wrong about what would
make me deeply happy. Apparently I did know what would make me comfortable.

Now, we stick to the difficult.

Charles & the gang.



On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes <
diane at santabarbarahikes.com> wrote:

>
> On Sep 22, 2011, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> > tl;dr - In your experiences what are the most common injuries and
> > causes of hiker dropout?? What can we do to avoid these pitfalls??
> > Any particular training we should consider beyond hiking, hiking,
> > and more hiking?
> >
> > Any points for consideration will be greatly appreciated.
>
> It's quite often the repetitive stress injuries that lead people to
> quit due to injury early in the hike. Doing a lot of hiking will
> definitely help.
>
> As for the whole mental thing, I think it would help everyone if they
> stopped thinking of quitting a thru-hike as a failure. The trail is
> still there. You can always pick up where you left off, start over
> and give it another try, choose to section hike instead or whatever
> suits you. The all-or-nothing attitude of thru-hiking causes a lot
> more emotional pain to people than almost anything else about the
> experience in my opinion.
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