[pct-l] frustrations of the section hiker

[matt_ripperton at yahoo.com (Matt Ripperton)]

I am bummed today, b/c I talked with my boss about taking 6 weeks leave next year to finish the PCT (all I have left is Washington), and she said it most likely wouldn't work out. 

Maybe I have been spoiled b/c I've asked twice in the past for a leave of absence to hike and have been able to go both times. Most people don't even ask for such an opportunity.  I would do the remaining 500 miles in shorter sections, but it's not the same. Shorter trips are nice, but they don't cleanse me the same way.  Oh how I wish I had asked for 1 more month off on my 2003 trip finished the trail with my friends... 

My advice to future thru-hikers - don't quit early thinking it will be easy to come back later.  The trail is hard, you will be cold, hot, wet, sunburned, bug-eaten, get the runs, your knee or ankle will be killing you, have horrible blisters, or you'll need to go back home for some reason. Resist it & keep marching north, because the reward of the journey is worth so much more than all that. I stopped, and now the unfinished business is calling me & I can't go.  I think if I'd never hiked the AT, or had the chance to do such a long PCT section (1700 miles) 2 years ago, it wouldn't bother me.  If I was a section hiker, this section could wait.  But I did the AT, and the 2003 PCT trip was long enough that it FELT like a thru-hike (until I had to come home from the WA border), so now I am a thru-hiker.  Or rather I wish I had been one.  I thought I could just finish later...

Thru, oops, I mean section hiker, who vows be be back out there someday,

Ajax



		
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