[pct-l] Contributing to Common Ground

[Barry Teschlog]

I'm not trying to slam the writer of:

The PCT is also an interesting place to study human physiology and even
psychology. Where else are people engaged in cardiovascular exercise, under
a variety of weather conditions and altitudes while carrying a load, in
unfamiliar terrain, for several months continuously?
Just to educate.  


The answer is an infantryman in combat - they also get the stress of being shot at.  I hear those guys in the First Infantry Division who landed at Omaha on the coast of France had to hump all the way to central Germany (with a few spots where they had to retrace their steps when the Krauts got a little uppity).  A few years later, I recall something about the Marines marching from Inchon to near the NK border with China and back a ways to a boat to move them further south, then marching back north again from way in the south, then having to march back south, then north a bit again as well - I don't remember all the details.  Perhaps some one ought to look it up.  I hear the weather at Bastogne or the Chosin Reservoir in winter time is a bit more chilly that what one encounters on the PCT.  I also hear they were all heavy truckers back then - no sil nylon, and their hats were all made of hardened steel as well.


The nutrition needs of a soldier is probably a good place to start for what a thru hiker needs.  That's what I did pre-hike.  There's plenty out there on what the Army feeds the infantry in combat zones.  It does the Army no good to have a soldier fall ill or breakdown due to malnutrition - they're just as useless as if they'd been wounded in combat.