[pct-l] Hiker age

[Jeffrey Olson]

One of my first posts to this forum back in the mid-90s shared hiking 
over Bishop Pass to resupply at Parchers Camp. I was hiking the JMT.  I 
think Brick used it on one of his early websites.

  Just below the final set of switchbacks on the east side I met a woman 
who was easily in her 80s.  She talked with diction and word use that 
spoke of wealth and privilege.  She had a daypack with a couple water 
bottles, an old style wooden walking stick, and an incredible, 
other-worldly sense about her.

I stopped, and she did too, gratefully, breathing deeply.  She shared 
that she and her husband who had died not long ago had hiked into Dusy 
Basin on their honeymoon back in the 1930s.  If I remember correctly, 
this was the first time she'd returned to this spot since he'd died.  It 
felt to me she had her foot in another world - that maybe she was not 
only saying goodbye to a deeply meaningful place, but her memories, and 
maybe was taking a step towards her own passing.

While I don't remember the conversation as well as I might, I have a 
visceral memory of what it felt like to be with her for that 10 
minutes.  I was so high and strong and my youthful vital energy was met 
with her overarching feeling of being-at-peace.  I felt seen and 
appreciated and she opened up another perspective - one that now at 61 I 
am more familiar with.

Many indigenous cultures - most actually, have no sense of linear time.  
All is now.  This woman shared what I would eventually experience, and I 
remember the feeling, the vision, what I felt/saw.  I could feel the 
chordal patterns of meaning gently stretching through her experience.  
Just an amazing experience for which I'll ever be grateful.

Jeffrey Olson
Rapid City, SD