[pct-l] Post Trail Adjustment - a reply

[enyapjr at adelphia.net (enyapjr@adelphia.net)]

I read your first post in its entirety but didn't have time to reply...  but I also find some statements in the replies very interesting to ponder...
But the one that stuck in my head was:
>We can not look at a map and say "There be dragons".

I disagree...  although some of the 'dragons' may move to different locations, one may place his/her personal (mental) 'dragons' upon a PCT map...  One must prep for the mental demons/dragons before a trek, also, not just logistically and physically...
SoCal - if it's hot/dry, the low, desert/waterless stretches; if it's a heavy snow year (2005), the San Jacintos/Fuller Ridge and possibly the San Bernadinos...
Sierra - no matter what the seasonal snowfall, there will be moments fighting the 'dragons', either deep snow/ice, stream fords, mosquitos, or all them...
NorCal - reaching the 'halfway' point (this is only half!?) and still be in CA for almost 2 more weeks; the "thinning out" and spreading out of the 'troops' - the toll the trail has taken, hearing who has "dropped out" along the way, a growing lack of morale support due to the lessening numbers of thrus...
OR - somewhat less opportunity to resupply directly on the trail, many fellow hikers hitching far off trail to towns and getting caught in the "town vortex" (I think the further one goes off the trail and/or stays off too long makes it difficult to return and "get back up to speed" - or get the trail "rhythm" back)...
WA - gotta hurry up to beat the snow; distant resupply points; the depressing clearcuts(!) that take too many hours to get through; even less fellow thrus nearby...  But an 'upper' is that the end is in sight, both mentally and physically...

Life is full of "ups and downs" - the goods and the bads that influence our mental state...  
The more one experiences in and of life, the better one can handle the "downs" that may follow...  
Yes, I could/would probably be diagnosed as 'clinically' depressed (at least "mildly") after a thru-hike and returning back "into society"...  Yet I am hoping to spend almost half of my retirement on the PCT - year after year, until either I can't walk or I die...
Hope to see one and all on the trail someday!

Sorry, gotta get back to work...  Happy trails!!!