[pct-l] Quotes for 2004

[Bighummel at aol.com (Bighummel@xxxxxxx)]

I picked up a rare copy of "The Pacific Crest Trail - Escape to the 
Wilderness" by Ann and Myron Sutton, 1975!  

They are/were travel writers who specialized on trails and have one on the AT 
to their credit also, published earlier.  As such, their writing style is 
great and their attention to natural detail is phenomenal.  They hiked most of 
the trail in varying times and seasons by section and thus attained their 
insights into the areas and history.  

A few quotes from it are applicable today, nearly 29 years later, as they 
were when written.  If you are so lucky as to find a copy, I highly recommend the 
reading, whether you are an aspiring thru-hiker, dedicated section hiker or 
has-been thru-hiker.

Enjoy and happy New Year!

Greg "Strider" Hummel

"In our opinion, the greatest pleasures along this trail are enjoyed not 
necessarily by hikers who cover forty miles a day, but by those who do seven, and 
especially by those who are part naturalist, poet, musician, artist.  Getting 
the most out of this trail involves all the senses, and if we hone these 
senses during a hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, we are apt to return home 
refreshed and more able to enjoy the miraculous in the commonplace that surrounds 
us daily."

"A person may exercise a right increasingly restricted these days: to wander 
at random.  This aimless roving may be contrary to the principles of 
industrial progress, but for a wanderer nothing is better calculated to clear the mind 
and enlarge the vision."

"Will an earthquake strike while we walk on the fault? This question may 
cause trepidation in some persons, but we should bear in mind that hiking out here 
on the fault zone is probably safer than walking the streets of cities or 
driving on country roads."
   " Should we feel a thud or shock, then swaying or rolling motions, we can 
regard it as exceptionally good fortune.  If no stones fall on us, or if we 
otherwise sustain no injury, we should enjoy every moment of such a rare event.  
Releases of tremendous energy are felt by few people in the wilds, and the 
phenomenon of a strong earthquake is so uncommon that chances of experiencing 
one are slim."

"The plants were here long before human beings came, and they gained their 
exquisite status and occupied their high altitude niches totally as a result of 
growth and regrowth, success and failure, survival and conquest over thousands 
or millions of years.  Human beings had absolutely nothing to do with their 
beauty, their adaptations, their evolutionary development (though much to do 
with their recent protection).  We sit back in the greatest of all cathedrals 
and admire a creative force far older, more competent, and more omnipotent than 
ours."

"In a sense, the Pacific Crest Trail is a path through a museum, and in 
museums one does not crawl over the specimens or camp in exhibit cases.  Until the 
number of human begins declines a bit, the behavior of visitors to wilderness 
areas may have to become more like that of museum-goers who are allowed to 
look but seldom to touch."

". . . For persons who in the love of nature hold communion, there is more to 
be done and seen on a single mile of trail in the Klamaths than other hikers 
might see on a whole day's outing."

"But when we break out into a meadow bursting with sunlight, the change is 
striking.  Everything tries to grow at once, the species crowding on one 
another.  Grasses spring up interspersed with lupine, bluebells, clover, violet, 
buttercup, rose, thistle, parsley, paintbrush . . . Even a tiny depression devoid 
of vegetation is filled with spider webs coated with droplets of moisture."

from; Ann and Myron Sutton, in "The Pacific Crest Trail - Escape `    to the 
Wilderness" 1975