[pct-l] Pct-L Digest, Vol 112, Issue 7

[marmot marmot]

Every time this is talked about people miss the point. No one is dismissing any hike. Each year there are challenges. Sometimes a particular year is so difficult that some hikers have to return and hike the parts that were closed. Once again --that is part of what we do. It is so sad and disappointing when you cannot do the hike you imagined. But it can sometimes be reality. I remember in Cindy Ross' book (87?) PCT---she called it finishing her thru-hike. She did it over two years. That's why the phase MYTH exists. I can't imagine anyone ranking or being disrespectful of the choices people make out there. It's just not a finished hike (continuous footpath) unless it is. It has alway included reasonable alternatives. 
The TC states that. 
Marmot

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 22, 2018, at 5:58 PM, Randy Forsland <randy_forsland at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Well said...that was my main beef. Listening to some of last year's hikers bash others was hard to hear. That was the reason that I was hoping that the PCTA had officially defined a thru-hike as the entire trail that was open to hiking that particular year...I was a thru-hiker in 2003, but could not finish due to injuries..I did go back over the next 5 years to complete my hike before filing for a certificate. None of my fellow 2003 classmates ever thought any less of me....I would hope that the bond and comraderie of thruhikers doesn't devolve into a ranking system...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Pct-L <pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net> on behalf of Rachel Egger <egger888 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2018 1:36 PM
> To: pct-l at backcountry.net
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Pct-L Digest, Vol 112, Issue 7
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Long-time lurker on the list, and a member of PCT classes 2016 and 2017. I
> have not completed the trail, but I was a thru-hiker in 2017; let me
> explain.
> 
> I completely agree that no one who hasn't finished the trail should be
> accepting completion awards, but much of the rest of this issue is just
> semantics between hikers. There was an aggressive attitude on the trail in
> 2017 that anyone who skipped any part of the Sierra, (whether they intended
> to flip or come back in a more favorable year was irrelevant), was not
> thru-hiking. In my book, anyone who sets out intending to walk the distance
> between borders is a thru-hiker, and finishes their hike when they decide
> they can no longer continue that season, for any reason. In most cases,
> that "finish" is not actually trail completion, but that shouldn't negate
> the experience of a long-distance thru-hike or belonging to the hiking
> community. Self-proclaimed "purists" who refuse to accept reasonable
> alternates (which are part of ALDHA-West's definition for the triple
> crown), or who shame other hikers who made choices to skip sections for
> personal safety, are part of the problem. The phrase "continuous footpath"
> on trail is often invoked to justify walking through wildfire closures, or
> trespassing on private land to walk around closures.
> 
> I think we're all on the same page really, i.e. just be honest about what
> you did or did not do. But we don't have 6 words for the variety of
> thru-hike any one person completed, and I think the backlash against
> perceived non-traditional thru hikes has frustrated a lot of folks who were
> victims of circumstance. This causes them to decide to just round up in the
> face of a lot of trash-talk about the personal choices they made. I don't
> mean to excuse that behavior, only to add a little context for folks who
> weren't on the PCT in 2017. It's disappointing not to hit 100%, and people
> need to learn to cope with that, but the community at-large could also do a
> better job of accepting hikers who missed the mark. (Is that a problem
> created by the young people like myself who happened to come to trail
> post-Wild? Meh, maybe.)
> 
> Anywho, thanks for listening. I appreciate that pct-l still exists in a
> world where the Facebook group is often too noisy.
> 
> -Do-Over, PCT '17
> (For the record: 2200 miles done and a few more to go. I skipped the
> sections in fire closures and flip-flopped back for half the Sierra in the
> fall to avoid 2017's lethal peak-melt.)
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