[pct-l] Waiting to Decide...

[StoneDancer1 at aol.com (StoneDancer1@aol.com)]

In a message dated 4/10/2005 8:17:53 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
jjolson@uwyo.edu writes:

>>>>>I'm curious to see how long I could remain centered  enough to hike 
alone 
in 2005.  The thought is frightening to be  honest.>>>>>>
 
With 40 years of backpacking and climbing in the Sierra, I had never spent  a 
single night alone in the mountains or hiked alone.  Even so, the  crowdruns 
strong out of Campo, and I did not spend a night alone until 400 miles  up the 
trail, at Little Rock Creek, under The Eagle's Roost in the San Gabriel  
Mountains.  It would be a fair assessment to say that I was a "little"  
apprehensive. 
 
 The night passed easily and the next time I spent a night in  another's 
company   (not  counting the herd at Kennedy Meadows, the claustrophobic canvas 
tents of VVR,  and the anonymous, crowded campgrounds of Tuolumne Meadows) was  
when I  shared a motel room with another thruhiker at Buck Lake Lodge,  more 
than 875 miles up the trail. Between  there and Oregon, I spent one night with 
another hiker above Belden. 
   

I found the freedom, the self-reliance... the solitude...to be what I had  
been looking for all along and forever... or perhaps for the 60 years that I  
carry.  

"No Way" Ray  Echols