[pct-l] Eric Ryback

[ronaldgstrickland at hotmail.com (Ronald Strickland)]

When Eric Ryback appeared on the scene, I was a young East Coast backpacker, 
a veteran of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC.)  In the early 1970s, 
I spent summers in the Northwest to begin to create the Pacific Northwest 
Trail from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean.  The primary outings 
club there was the Seattle Mountaineers.  It was nothing like the PATC that 
I was used to.  In fact, it was not pro-trails at all.  No work trips.  No 
support for the PCT.  Nothing.  What its leaders did do was to conduct a 
smear campaign against Eric Ryback.  It went beyond the issue of whether he 
did or did not accept some rides during his thru-hike.  (Remember that the 
"purity" common today was uncommon then since the whole sport of thru-hiking 
was relatively new.)  Long distance hikers were denounced as "Rybackers."  
The PCT in particular was denounced as an intrusion into the domain of the 
Mountaineers.  The era's leading guidebook writer, Harvey Manning, proposed 
that the public only be allowed into the core of  any wilderness upon 
suffrance of the club.  He disparaged end-to-enders as  "stunters."  By the 
late `70s the "Rybacker" label stuck to me.  Because of my Pacific Northwest 
Trail I was denounced as the Great Satan of environmental perfidy.
  Eventually that nasty period passed and I am delighted today that America 
has the potential to expand our network of long distance trails to every 
state.  But Eric Ryback was a true pioneer.  He came along at a time when 
the country was very divided along generational and regional lines that are 
almost impossible to imagine now.  I for one will never mind beiing called a 
"Rybacker."
  The 2005 equivalent of Eric Ryback is Andy Skurka.  He is currently more 
than half way through his epic thru-hike from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  
www.andrewskurka.com
Ron "Pathfinder" Strickland, PCT 2004
www.sea2seatrail.org