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

Mon Oct 15 01:04:57 CDT 2012

Jeffrey:

Well said. I anticipate your poetic words will inspire more personal replies. So let me start with a very few of mine. What I found worthwhile about long distance hiking is the awareness and release from social concerns that comes with just providing for daily survival needs on the trail. When they are so easily satisfied by hiking on the PCT, the time left is wonderfully enriched by what you see and hear.  In that cathedral of the trail with a prayer to survive a soul can flourish. 

It may sound juvenile or irresponsible to some but I think it is essential for a meaningful life to take the time and find the places to reflect on what is important to simple survival - starting with providing for some basic needs and then getting the freedom to select enriching places and relationships. For some this could be just a week-end at the Mariott with a good book and room service.  For others it is a solo thru-hike on the PCT or sailing around the world in a boat you built yourself. What is important is to make the time taken as precious and uncluttered as posssible and make it selfishly your journey. Emerson got it right. So did Joshua Slocum. 

Spider legs

________________________________
From: "aslive at charter.net" <aslive at charter.net>
To: Jeffrey Olson <jolson at olc.edu> 
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 8:20 AM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Tethers to the other world...

Jeff

What a wonderful way of putting it, that feeling of freedom on the 
trail.  Perhaps we should change your trail name to "Tetherless".  I 
have long said that cell phones, etc., are nothing more than electronic 
leashes and I want to run free.  After all isn't that what the trail is 
all about?

Shepherd

On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Jeffrey Olson wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
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