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[pct-l] self preception, self deception, self knowlege



I know what I did in my thruhike of the PCT, and of my thruride from Mexico
to Canada NEAR and sometimes across the Continental Divide this year.

One of the most important things I own are my values, among which are
honesty.  Lying to others is lying to myself.  Only I know when I am lying.

My definition of a thruhike may differ from yours.(slackpacking, trail
under snow, alternates, single direction, etc, etc,), but if you start
bargaining with reality and your own definition of a thruhike, and say you
did something that you know you did not do, where does it end?

If you decide to skip a section because you had a sore toe, or another
because of the snow, or  you were trying to catch up with a somebody that
you wanted to hike with, what happens?  You start hedging and start feeling
dishonnest.  This dishonesty probably kills more thruhikes than health
reasons.  Most of all you do not find out what you are made of, and will
always wonder.  What I saw is that dishonesty is the first sign of a
thruhike that is disintegrating.

This said I believe that some expediency and flexibility is necessary in
viewing the definition.  We all have not traveled the same trail. Jardine
uses a 1% variation from the designated trail.  If one does not head into
storm and snow to cover the Sierra early season, but walks an alternate, I
feel that this is legitimate as long as the person has started out and
tried to cover the segment, failed and backed down, and sought a safer
alternative.  For me it is not important to cover every single foot, but it
is important to TRY to cover the entire trail.This is related to the
preception of what I had started out to do, which is to walk from Mexico to
Canada, and the PCT sure seemed like the best way to do it..

In the end these questions can only be answered by the individual.

I decided recently that I like long journeys- I like staying in nature for
5 months at a time.  I also like going somewhere, but wondered how I would
feel just wandering around a lot smaller piece of country(say the southern
sierras) for that amount of time and without the time or distance
constraints.  And then I wondered what it would be like to travel about 300
miles north on the PCT and then turn around and do the same segment south,
repeat for 2,650 miles( can't figure which segment I would choose).  Gone
off to the wandering thing, walkabout.  It is why I started - exploring.
Used to be remote pieces of country, now it is remote pieces of myself.

Joanne