[pct-l] Tethers to the other world...

[Jeffrey Olson]

17 years ago when the listserv started there was no discussion about how 
to communicate with the "other world" while on the trail.

The trail has its own reality.  It now takes me just a couple weeks to 
shift from being social to being single.  That's what it is for me.  
Suddenly, in the first hour, I'm alone, and I can project forward and 
know I'm going to be alone for three weeks, six weeks, a couple months 
or five months...   Five or six hikes of 10 days to seven weeks - I know 
this in the first moments.

There is a couple minutes of elation being away from the car and walking 
away from it all.  Then there's the first glance into space across the 
canyon to the granite spires beyond.

Increasingly the larger spaces come to be THE environment.  You can hide 
in a copse of trees or make sure you camp at 8000'.  Naps in the 
afternoon shade chase the bigness away.

Day after day you open up on big spaces.  Increasingly these big spaces 
are internal.  When you cross the head of a drainage and cross the 
springs that eventually become the Colorado or Green or San Joaquin, you 
check in.  The long gaze down the basin across the flattening forest is 
there every time you look.  The "tether" to the "other world" is thinning.

You feel an increasing sense of competence, and this competence is based 
in choices you make moment to moment as you walk along the trail.  Week 
after week you find yourself tested and your choices bear good outcomes.

You abandon gear or trade for or buy more minimalist gear.  Your body 
hardens and while you can walk 25 miles a day, you can no longer jump 
vertically more than a couple inches.  If you don't watch it, that lasts 
a long time.

Each moment of each day surrounds us as we walk.  The presence of one 
foot in front of the other opens up new vistas in the big spaces.  
Emotions tarnish and churl.  Not enough water, or food, or sleep - all 
are part of the blossoming, unfolding, magnetic call of what's ahead.

If you can let go of the tethers - others needs to feel you're safe - 
and just leave - just head out!!!  Sure you love you Mom and girlfriend 
or boyfriend, and maybe your dad...

Just head out.  If you die - well, you die.  That's part of untying the 
knots that are other's worlds wanting to control our own!  You learn to 
trust yourself, your ability to make good decisions in the moment, 
whether from ethics, or evaluation of personal safety.

I think we're in an historical era that doesn't want us to carve our own 
lives.  The opportunities that exist for us in the world of work are 
pretty dull and mundane and predictable.  Whether straight or gay - 
marriage is important to others.  The tethers hold us back, are visible 
in the emotions - in the fear of stepping away from the comfortable and 
known.

Can you imagine just hitching to Campo, or Horseshoe Meadows, or Hwy 50 
or White Pass and heading out - feeling, but not knowing you'll not only 
survive but thrive?

Hiking a long trail enables one to step out of one life into another 
over the course of a day or two.  Suddenly, you're on the trail.

No one knows when you're going to be anywhere when.  You told them you 
would contact them at your convenience, and their worry was no business 
of yours.  You are stepping into a new reality, from one, into another, 
from the past into a future you've crafted in your planning.  The 
pleadings of loved ones that they'll worry about you distance themselves 
into echos that slowly diminish and disappear. You're on the trail!!!

You fully understand the risks involved and trust in your ability to 
learn quickly enough how to make good decisions, to use experience to 
deepen wisdom.  You can say this to your folks or loved ones, and to 
yourself.  All feel a bit, or a lot, of uncertainty.  Especially Moms...

The bottom line is a person literally steps from one life into another.  
There just aren't many opportunities like this in modern living.  You 
can maintain contact with the "other world" if you want, but why would 
you???

Jeffrey Olson
Rapid City, SD