[pct-l] Thru-hiking versus Mountaineering

[Brett Tucker" <blisterfree@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Brett Tucker)]

John, Mr. Smallberries sir,

You have no more right to throw your massive old-school mountaineering
weight around a three-season Pacific Crest Trail forum than a flip-flop shod
and well-oiled desert rat would have belaying a party of Harvard
mountaineers up Huntington Ravine in January.

Which is to say, you have every right in the world. Go ahead - park thy ego
squarely on our sunny knoll, and profess to us about the ways and means of
an experience you have yet to experience. Dare the unthinkable. Dangle your
rope off that slippery ledge and dig in your crampomatic-compatible
all-leather dogs for all they're worth. You might even hook a nice, fat 2003
thru-hiker in planning.

Mountaineering is like fishing: a little action here and there, but mostly a
lot of sitting around in restless anticipation. Who knows, maybe it's even
worth it. But most PCT hikers wouldn't know - we're too busy walking all
day. We are simply too preoccupied with our mileage, the sun and heat, the
moronically well-graded and wheelchair-accessible switchbacks, to care much
for fishing. To worry much over the sanguine summer snowpack (having
squirrelled away a little ice axe and the straightforward skills to use it).

The problem with mountaineering types is that they tend to wilt in the heat.
Pansies are that way, too. The spring wildflowers following an El Nino
winter in the California desert are often splendid, but the grey-light
hillclimbers are usually too entrenched on their far-flung walls of ice to
notice. With rare exception, mountaineers and PCT hikers are as mutually
exclusive as ice and heat.

Why?

Different attitudes spawned by different latitudes.

The philosophy of the hardened Crest walker is born of her predicament, just
like anything. And just as the 5 month walk of 2,700 miles through a
cross-section of infinitely variable micro-environments is a unique
experience, so too is the attitude of the individual thus entrenched. It is
an attitude of adaptation, Darwinian and true. To see such an animal in situ
is almost as interesting as hearing from them afterward. Those whose brains
haven't been thoroughly sun-baked by journey's end sometimes even show up on
this list, tickling our fancy and teaching a great deal.

So sit back, John. Welcome and relax. Mountaineer types are generally
accustomed to sitting and waiting for moments of supreme opportunity. Those
with a penchant to expand and explore their horizons stand a better than
average chance of belaying some very useful data in these here parts.

- blisterfree, editor "Beyond Backpacking"

PS - This letter is intended for entertainment purposes only. Not to be used
for actual flaming.