[pct-l] [John Muir Trail] 17 year old solo female on the PCT!

[Ned Tibbits]

I did! 

I was 17 in 1974 when I thru-hiked the PCT and I’m still out there every year helping others learn the values of wilderness and how to Play Safe & Stay Found! There is incredible personal benefit to spending time in wilderness. It can bring tremendous healing to those who can spend more time in it. 

Thus, the long-distance folks who are out there for more than a week begin to change on the inside without even knowing it (at least the first time) to the point where, after at least 3 weeks on-trail, they go through varied degrees of “Re-Entry” difficulty when they hit civilization and find themselves going home again. These difficulties for some people may be: having a hard time with the noise levels, the speed of life, the many multi-directional stimuli requiring attention and decision, sleeping on a bed, sitting in a chair and at a table, and maybe even talking on a phone. 

Whether you experience any of these after your long trip (in excess of 3 weeks) seems to be related to how often you go into town during that trip. PCT thru hikers, today, go into town often to resupply to maintain low pack weights. “Early” PCT hikers carried enough food for weeks at a time and learned (and loved) to live in the wilderness. Going to town was not really desired back then. If our packs were heavy, we got used to them and motored on. The idea was to go for a long hike away from civilization, to experience the mountain life for all it had to offer and teach us. 

Today, it seems for many (not all) that it is about shared connectivity and hiking is far more social (probably due to all the people in the “herd”). So, unless you want to be “alone with nature,” I fear that time spent in the wilderness along the major thoroughfare-trails may not be as internally rewarding as it used to be. Of course, it all depends on where you go, when, with whom, and why you’re going at all. 

Yes, I didn’t have a consistent “trail” to follow. They were still thinking about making it. 

However, these were the trails I followed: 

SoCal:    Dirt and asphalt roads and the California Riding & Hiking Trail (don’t know if it is still around),
Sierra:    John Muir Trail and Tahoe-Yosemite Trail,
NorCal:  Dirt and asphalt roads and whatever route took me in the right direction,
Oregon:  Oregon Skyline Trail
Wash:     Cascade Crest Trail


Ned Tibbits, Director
Mountain Education, Inc.
www.mountaineducation.org 
ned at mountaineducation.org 


Mission:
"To minimize wilderness accidents, injury, and illness in order to maximize wilderness enjoyment, safety, and personal growth, all through experiential education and risk awareness training."

From: mailto:johnmuirtrail at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 7:54 PM
To: johnmuirtrail at yahoogroups.com 
Subject: Re: [John Muir Trail] 17 year old solo female on the PCT!

  
 

Hey every PCTer is just a JMTer without a  of proportion.  I wish I had done this at 17.

On Jul 24, 2014, at 7:45 PM, jimrollins90 wrote:

  
Forgive me for posting about a PCTer on the JMT forum 







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