[pct-l] The Reality of the Trail

[jolson at olc.edu (Jeffrey Olson)]

Switchback wrote:

>Wow... this river is too deep for me.  When I am tired, I rest.  When I am 
>hungry, I eat.  When I am thirsty, I drink.  And, I just walk, and walk... and 
>walk.  And... If I am lucky, both god and the demons leave me alone.
>
If "I" am lucky, gods and demons reveal themselves.  I set out this 
summer to hike the whole trail and realized very quickly this is not 
what I wanted to do.  The point was not to go from A to B. Rather, it 
was to hike until the filters of civilization fell away and I was left 
with only my motivations - gods and demons. 

This was my third long section hike of a month or more, two months all 
told this time around.  I met the folks in the wave and spent quality 
time with four or five other hikers.  I hiked with one person for three 
hours - and while it was wonderful, and we made nine miles in that time, 
jabbering the whole time, this is not why I was out there. 

In 1994 I met a group of hikers just south of Sonora Pass, way up in the 
beauty, and asked if any of them hiked alone.  All of them got a haunted 
look in their eyes, and one fellow said it was just too hard to hike 
alone.  A couple days later while walking in Grace Meadow just inside 
Yosemite, I met a guy who was 45, bored with his life, stumbled upon 
Jardine's bible, and decided to do a thru-hike.  He'd started six weeks 
after the wave and was about to catch and pass it.  He did everything as 
Jardine recommended, and was averaging 30+ miles a day. 

HYOH means that if you can hike in a group and go day to day, or like 
me, hike alone and struggle with demons, or any of the other myriad ways 
we pass our time on the trail and in life, it becomes our responsibility 
to rise to a "bigger picture."  What this means is up to each of us. 

I think my next long trip is going to include hiking with others.  I'm 
aware of my demons now, and they haven't submerged now that I'm back in 
civilization.  This last trip enabled me to let them emerge, face them, 
and now live with them.  Luckily there are a couple gods in there too. 

I think I'm ready for being part of a moving group, and perhaps like 
Switchback, will hope the gods and demons are background, rather than 
using "The Trip" as a foreground to explore them.  I'll have another 
chance for a thru-hike in three or four years, and can hike for a month 
or six weeks this summer. 

Of course, I'm still open to meeting that 50 year old woman/hiker to 
hang with on the trail.  If it happens, wonderful.  If not, so be it.  I 
must admit my most satisfying 35 days on the trail was spent with my 
lover, way back in 1991. 

Jeff Olson
Martin, SD