[pct-l] Hiker Trash Lifestyle VS Job Security

[ned at mountaineducation.org]

...and so many bright, shinny faces, each year's hoard of aspiring thru 
hikers, still have no idea how much the long trail will dramatically change 
the way they see life and themselves, for the better!

But you have to be able, talented, experienced, or skilled enough to stay 
out a sufficient length of time to let the wilderness open up your hearing 
so you can understand what it speaks to you, ministering to your heart and 
spirit while strengthening your body by walking day in and day out, sun up 
to sun down, absorbing the simple, daily rhythm that becomes the thru 
hiker's lifestyle.

The dramatic confrontation every thru feels when re-entering civilization, 
whether for a short period in a trail town or for a long period at the end 
of their multi-month hike, is a testimony to the depth of this inner change 
and something that has to be dealt with if he or she still wants to "fit in" 
to the modern-society life they once had pre-thru hike.

Indeed, more happens inside the man or woman during the course of a thru 
hike than most will talk about while on the hike, yet must after it!



Ned Tibbits, Director
Mountain Education
www.mountaineducation.org
-----Original Message----- 
From: Iceaxehikes
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 8:32 PM
To: pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] Hiker Trash Lifestyle VS Job Security

Should you desire to leave this world of secondary aims behind to EMBRACE a 
primary existance...
Be prepared to clean dogsh#t out of carpets for a living.. for over a year 
before you get your old job back.

I did it three times.

Left a plumbing job twice to go a-hiking (a viking..? google it)
And the third time my boss demanded a "pound of flesh" by denying me a 
return, at least for a year.

I can't blame him.

The need to demonstrate my "sanity" to family keeps me working for seconary 
aims these days.

Personally I have no problem living with goats.

Uh..

Truthfully, it is only a matter of time until I retake my true form and 
become an upstanding dirty piece of hiker trash again.

This crap happening now.. this saving during my "best years" towards "bliss" 
in retirement is crap.

I live in The Peoples Republik of Kawlifornia.
In the most expensive place in my state, which rates right behind Manhatten 
in New York.

Yea, I pull down good money as a plumber.
Yea, every dam thing here costs 10 times more than Wyoming, for example.

I will never be able to afford a home here.
My parents live in Santa Clara.
A neigbors home sold two weeks ago: A 1500 sq ft house on an 1/8 acre lot 
for $800,000.

My chances of owning anything in Cali are zero.

My life's ambition is to own my land.
I want to breathe my last breath and collapse in a place like Stehekin WA, 
or Pie Town NM, or Damascus VA...

(Don't get spooked by my words.
While being 44 now I expect to live as long as Billy Goat.)

Doesn't matter where, really.
Just, my own land, even if its 10 acres of dust.

Hiking did that to me.
Giving up everything made me see how much of that stuff is unimportant to my 
life's mission.


It will have been 3 full years this spring that I have pretended to want a 
home, new truck, 1.6 children, and a new television (actually haven't had tv 
for 9 years).

Anyhow, I hear all of you.

Give me trail or give me death.

You can make more money but you can't make (or buy)  more time

-Matthew Edwards who was once upon a time in another world called "iceaxe" 
by the kindest people I have ever met.

For your amusement:

The Three Rules of Plumbing:

1. Sh#t flows downhill
2. Payday is on Friday
3. DON'T chew your fingernails

Hey, at least two of those rules apply to hiking as well!


Sent from my Samsung smartphone on AT&T
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