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

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

All well and good, but I know one person who has never gone further  
than about Lone Pine on the trail. He believes it's all or nothing  
and has started over several times but his knees bring him to a halt  
each time. I know someone else who beats themselves up for not having  
completed the entire trail in one go, who starts over each time as  
well, but feels like a failure despite having had the good fortune to  
be able to spend so much time hiking this beautiful trail.

Every year lots of people hike 500, 800, 1000, 2200 miles and they  
leave the trail in tears over their failure and then flog themselves  
emotionally over it for years. Is what they've done really a failure?

At the same time, there are many people who decide happily that 500,  
800, 1000 miles is quite enough but they get lumped into a pile with  
all the "failed thru-hikes" that others like to repeat in their  
statistics. Is it really a failure if you go out, hike an astounding  
distance few will ever complete, enjoy yourself and go home?

Then there are many people who hike the entire distance in one go,  
who spent the final months gritting their teeth, who never took a  
side trail to see a view or soak in a hot spring, who know deep down  
that a thru-hike is not necessarily the best way to take in this  
magnificent trail but "success" is bestowed on what they've done.

Finally, even if you do finish all in one go and even if you loved  
every minute of it, you are never finished. It's likely you will  
return to hike the trail in smaller pieces and you will know then  
that it doesn't define success or failure either way, because the  
most important thing is that you keep hiking.

On Sep 22, 2011, at 7:21 PM, Charles Doersch wrote:
>
> 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.