[pct-l] Winter Absurdism...

[jjolson at uwyo.edu (Jeffrey J. Olson)]

I've noticed over the last couple of weeks that the number of pct-list 
posts has increased.  This is normal.  As time winds its own way, at its 
own pace, towards the kick-off and actual hiking, we mortal humans find 
outlet in our listserv.  We passionately offer opinions on tiny, 
insignificant subjects.  We do this with a high degree of 
self-awareness.  Anyone who spends more than a week on the PCT is an 
oddball in terms of "normal" living.  My guess is that those who stay 
here are not normal - and we wear our appellation with pride and dignity. 

This oddballness manifests itself in short posts that fuel the fire, 
that rev up the engine, that strive towards orgasm, an orgasm that is 
never reached because, compared to hiking, our words here are pale 
imitations of a fundamental truth, the trail is everything. 

It doesn't matter if you're Brian Robinson riding the crest of an 
unimaginable year-long effort, or the neophyte 22 year old bursting with 
imaginative fire and resolve based on a couple weekends hiking in a 
forest somewhere.  The orgasm comes.  EAch of us who have spent enough 
time on the trail knows this.  WE have in our personal history the 
experience of an intense maturation that blew everything else we've 
previously known out of the water, into confusion and seeming 
insignificance.  The wisdom of the 22 year old after having spent three 
months on the trail is unsettling and wonderful both... 

When we begin the trail our emotional skin is stimulated.  There are 
cyclic ripples of emotion, the perfect high at Noon walking down and by 
the Palisades Lakes, after sleeping in the Upper Basin south of Mather 
Pass.  Well-hydrated, well-fed, the rhythm one with the trail, 
everything harmonious and right.  Tired, hungry, thirsty, depressed and 
wondering why I'm doing this - the low gives itself just as strongly. 

The trail connects the highs and lows.  I remember Tully Hole and the 
impending short climb with sinking heart because I was so crazed with 
lonely wondering what my new found love, so far away in Laguna Beach, 
was feeling.  My heart was so torn with longing and missing her.  I 
remember setting up camp on the ridge overlooking Spectacle Lake and the 
Three Queens, the jagged silouettes of unknown, incredibly portentous 
peaks changing color as I lay in sleeping bag and ate my cold dinner.  
The light changing, my aching body, the presence/prescience of the 
moment so strong by opening to the memory this day I can alter strong 
moods.  I was so glad the next day I didn't stay at Park Lakes as I'd 
planned. 

The ups and downs, highs and lows build upon one another.  Even ten days 
into a hike when it all gets to be too much and I try and just hike, to 
ignore the feelings, both high and low, up and down - it all is part of 
the rhythm building, the melody establishing itself, the crescendo and 
burst of consciousness raised - up and down, the plateau of accepting 
I'm going to feel good and feel down, at least a couple times a day. 

The trail links and serves as connector.  Wild and emotional I walk 
moment by moment, hour after hour, day by day.  Up and down, up and 
down.  I put one foot in front of the other, hungry or full, tired or 
energized, so damn high I float down the trail and so damn low each step 
is a lifetime.  Methaphorical rhapsody and exaggeration?  Hah...  This 
is the beauty. The images are true descriptors... 

After enough time, different for each of us, shorter for section hikers, 
longer for thru-hikers, the core of the trail emerges, the ribbon that 
holds the pieces together.  The trail itself becomes the metaphor for 
one foot in front of the other.  There is no more than the hike, the 
mileage, the grinding out of  hours and passage through terrain.  The 
focus narrows and deepens to the trail, the thread that connects what 
was done to what will come. 

If I felt horny I don't anymore.  If I worried about finding a job when 
done, I don't anymore.  My phone calls go from ecstatic contacts with 
loved ones to assurances I'm doing well and am on schedule.  You and 
your world recedes as the days and weeks pass.  The rhythms of the trail 
and my hike along it become rituals within which I find an intense 
meaning I've never felt before. 

To pitch the tent, lay out the sleeping quilt and sleeping pad, to 
choose which bag of food I'm going to eat - each small act is a world of 
significance and satisfaction.  The moments of living supplant the 
threads of my busyness life.  Each leads logically to the next through 
my body's movements.  The part of me that sees gets stronger and more 
present.  To toss a mouthful of far east mix into my mouth as I lie on 
my butt pad is a small ritual in the ritual of trail living.  To finally 
snuggle down into the sleeping quilt and relax as the last light 
disappears is an obesiance, an offering, a gift.  To whom or what?  
Doesn't matter.  It's part of the rituals of trail life.  The moment is 
so real and present and vibrant and, and...

What's wonderful about this listserv is that each of you understands in 
your deepest sense of being what I'm talking about.  There is a 
fundamental thread that connects us - the trail.  Each of our 
experiences is different, and yet, if we were to sit and talk until we 
were on the same page, we would find we were on parallel paths amidst 
the difference. 

The rock-bottom-base-line sharing that comes from expressing the 
heart-of-being is itself momentary.  You can reread this and will not 
recapture where you are right now.  Such is the trail.  WE learn to let 
go our need to ground and replicate for the ultimate glory of a creative 
life - life on the trail...

Jeffrey Olson
Laramie Wy, where we broke the high temperature record at least 100 
years old...