[pct-l] Hey

[marmot marmot]

Hey Shroomer
I’m so glad that it’s not like that yet on the PCT. It was a bit discouraging on the AT. Of course there is a concentration of hikers in shelters on the AT so that sort of behavior gets noticed. I can’t tell you how many people had no idea where they were. Maybe they were stoned? Maybe they just did not understand where they were in relation to the last shelter or water source and the next one. I learned not to ask any southbounders if the “unreliable “water sources had water  They just did not see them. 
Listening to conversations in shelter was bizarre—hikers comparing eatables and strains of dope to be able to hike further and faster. I learned what crack smelled like from running into it being smoked on trail. Two hikers( retired sheriffs) saw people cooking meth on trail. Hikers had to find a lost hiker in the middle of the night( she left her tent to go to the bathroom in the Smokies) because she was crying in the woods too stoned to figure out how to find her tent again. This is not just a “trail”story. I know the people involved ( the stoner and the rescuers)and know it to be true. 
I gave up staying in hostels in ‘18 ,unless there was no choice,because I didn’t want to breathe dope all night as people went outside to get stoned and then came back into a bunk room. Same at shelters. Oh well!
One hiker who was newly sober told me she had to leave group after group and hike alone because it was the only way to get away from the drugs. Since I only use shelters as a easy place to eat lunch and almost never sleep near/in one I don’t know what it is like at night. But at mid day it became an issue. Having to have the conversation “ No,you cannot smoke cigarettes or dope in the shelter” I don’t want to breathe it” got old. Sometimes people would ask permission Often they would not. I thought I had just gotten into a bad/odd/unusual bubble. But it happened again and again. I guess in their normal life they spend so much time stoned that they don’t even question the behavior. When I went back to the trail to finish as the ATC opened it up in ‘21 I was hoping it had changed ( silly I know). But it seems, being stoned and  out of it is the norm. 
But what I learned is that even on the AT,I could hike for hours, even 1/2 a day and never see another hiker. It does not matter if there are a lot of people on the trail. They camp in little tent cities at the shelters  and bunch up in hostels and towns. They sleep late. I always found a place to camp alone and sometimes had most of the day to be on the trail without the crowds. Even when the story on trail was that there was no water and all sources were dried up,I found that not to be true. What I considered a water source was different  Green algae water filters just fine.   Water is anything I can scoop out off the ground. Puddles in rocks work fine. 
I met some lovely people and had great conversations on the tops of mountains about trees and flowers and “why in the world can’t they figure out how to make a switch back on the east coast?” 
Yes, everyone it’s just as they say. Physically the AT is the hardest of TC. But maybe that’s just because I was injured in some way each hunk of it I was working on. For me doing a thruhike is so much easier than doing a piece of the MYTH and going back to work and then having to get back into trail shape. I had planned to split the trail into two years but it ended up being four. 
I’m going to miss having an in person Gathering this year.   But maybe next year. 
Marmot


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