[pct-l] Off to hike the treelines....

[Ronald Moak <ronm@fallingwater.com>]

Well in a couple of days I'll be off for a few months - God willing - doing
the PCT. During my absence, I'll be maintaining a mailing list for people
interested in tracking my journey. I won't bore everyone here with constant
updates, but if you're interested, you're welcome to drop by my website and
sign up. Below is the first installment of my newsletter.  

Having helped to pioneer online trail journal's some five years ago with our
AT '77 journals, I'm hoping to make this one somewhat different. Of course
time and the nature of the trail will dictate the amount of energy I'll have
to devote to the subject of writing.

For those of you engaged in pursuit of more normal goals this summer, I hope
your summer is an enjoyable and memorable one.

Sincerely,
Ron

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A Long Summers Walk 
- A Millennium Journey along the Pacific Crest Trail 

Ron "Fallingwater" Moak
Volume #1					Date: 4/24/2000
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The End of the Beginning

Just a couple of short days until I walk out the front door for the last
time for months, leaving behind, my wife Linda and son Brandon. They will
meet me at the start of the Sierra Mountains, and from there Brandon will
travel with me to the Oregon-Washington border. From there I'll proceed
onward to Canada.  I'll venture forth into a world that will seem at times
as alien as a different planet and at others, as comfortable as pair of well
worn slippers. 

But this adventure isn't be just beginning. This year long odyssey began
some seven months ago, on a night in October on the flanks of Mt. Hood in
Oregon. Surrounded by a room filled with other fanatics of long distance
hiking, inspired by their tales of adventure and feeling the need to fill a
void in my soul, I made a commitment then and there to tread the long
trails. 

The intervening months have found me busy planning, building and preparing
for the hike. In the course of time, I've constructed three backpacks, two
tents, a sleeping quilt, a dozen stuff sacks and numerous stoves. I've
assembled some 175 dinners and numerous  breakfasts and lunches. I've
assembled websites, spreadsheets with countless plans, read the journals of
others, written essays on the equipment I've planned to use and why. 

I've spent hours weighing, reviewing each piece of gear, adding items to the
list, and removing them, only to re-add them later when they were viewed
from a different perspective. Each item was evaluated on it's own merit and
it's ability to work in concert with all my other gear. 

Just why was all this done? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Clearly one
could easily trot on out to the nearest outfitter and pick up gear of
sufficient quality to get the job done. Perhaps it's just the need to form a
connection with the trail on those long winter nights. 

There's a certain comfort in designing and making your own equipment. To sit
with a clean sheet of paper and sketch out a vision. To place a hot knife on
a virgin bolt of cloth and burn out individual scraps of material. To
assemble them step by step, piece by piece like a jig saw puzzle into a form
that lives only with the deep recesses of your mind. To lay among them,
close your eyes and let them carry you off to distant trails un-trod, or
vistas unseen. 

The sewing machines is put away, the dehydrator's fans are quite now, the
Dremel no longer screams through the house with the sound of grinding metal.
All the threads, cloth scraps, metal shavings have been retired to the waste
bin. The carpet in the den and the kitchen table are only slightly worse for
the wear. Along the dining room wall, waiting for their trip to the Post
Office and beyond, four and a half's months worth of food rest in rows neat
number boxes. The tents are neatly rolled and stowed, the stuff sacks filled
with their assorted necessities. The packs, still bright clean and new,
await the final moments.  

Just a couple more days, mere hours. Then I'm gone, vanished in a
flash......

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http://www.fallingwater.com/pct2000



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