[pct-l] Fwd: Off Trail

[Maxine Weyant]

Mark, 

My heart goes out to you.  And writing that was an act of bravery.  I recommend you read some of the posts from last year where several people wrote about some of their own emotional meltdowns on the trail, or why they left the trail.  

Seriously, you should consider that if you've already arranged the time off for this hike, just rest a bit, reconnect with family/friends, and go do some more of the trail without having to thru-hike it.  Do the best of the Sierras when the weather is decent, like the John Muir Trail in late July or August, or WA in August.   If you go back and try a thru-hike another year, the Sierras will look very different in snow so it won't seem like a repeat. (and you might have fewer navigational challenges in the snow if you've already been there once.)  

Being out in the mountains day after day in these stunning places is one of the most exhilarating and spiritually-uplifting things you can be doing.  If you remove the pressure this year of a thru-hike, you can see more, notice more, and take an interest in the ecology, geology, or history of an area. It will allow you to feel a more positive type of humility, along with a sense of gratitude.  And if you thru-hike it in the future, you can buzz on by with a lighter pack and a lighter heart, and with the privilege of revisiting an "old friend."           

A big lesson here is our tendency to feel like a failure because others are achieving more than us.  This is fostered partly by all the attention paid to the yo-yo hikers, Triple Crowners, Ultra-Runners, and the stories that sell in Outside Magazine or on TV.  On the trail, enough people start bragging about doing 35 miles/day or more that it starts to seem like that's the norm.  There will always be so many people more fit than you, who can hike faster, bag more peaks, tolerate altitudes better, inhale more pancakes.  Your negative self-appraisal and the sense of pressure you felt to keep up, to the point of not eating well and not listening to your body, caused you to reach the limits of your physical and emotional reserves.   Sometimes all-or-none thinking and other disordered beliefs can lead to our undoing.

But the good news is that you can now take stock, re-evaluate your gear, your strategies--like when you get up, what food you bring, how often you eat, if you need to hike in the evening on hot days, should you take a short day and chill out by a lake, etc.  And you can try to learn more about your own coping strategies and patterns, what triggers the negative thoughts that lead to negative feelings, how you can recognize when that's happening and choose a different way to respond.  If you find you can't stop feeling bad about how much faster everyone else can hike, don't hike with the herd or simply do some sections in the opposite direction.  

For those planning a thru-hike in the future, if you haven't done any long-distance backpacking, I highly recommend trying a 2-6 week section hike, solo if possible.  Figuring out footwear, gear and food choices, blisters,  is a lot easier on a test run.  Getting to "Know thyself" is an important part of the journey.  

Cheers,
Dys-feng shui-nal