[pct-l] Southbounders?

[jolson at olc.edu (Jeffrey Olson)]

What makes for a good southbound year?  Why is the southbound direction 
considered more difficult?  Thanks.
___________________________________

2005 was a good southbound year.  I left Manning on June 10, and there 
were probably 30 people within five or six days on either side of that 
date that headed SOBO,  along with the 15 or 20 folks who flipped from 
Kennedy Meadows/somewhere to Manning.  Perhaps the high point of the 
"Wave" this year was the Timberline breakfast at which there were 15 or 
so thru-hikers. 

I wandered into that scene looking for the shop that held food 
packages.  There was almost a Brughelesque quality to the revelry.  
Everyone knew this was unique - all those thru-hikers downing 5000 to 
8000 calories in one sitting -together.  A couple of the men waxed 
loquacious and loud.  Most were dealing with the calories and the 
intensity of all sitting at one table in the midst of a restaurant 
knowing someting special was happening.  Even the tourons knew something 
was special.  Warner Springs Monte acted the host, and did it well (what 
I saw in the three minutes I hung out).  His graciousness and warmth 
were infective...

There was relatively little snow north of Rainy Pass.  This is what made 
it a good SOBO year.  I carried snowshoes, used them once (I really 
didn't need them) and left them by the side of the trail an hour after 
passing through Harts Pass. 

There was a post last spring, just before everyone left, that 
recommended using a trekking pole shortened as a self-belay device.  I 
carried an ice axe for the same purpose, and the pole would have 
worked.  I was more in danger crossing the mud before the Packwood 
Glacier than any snow I crossed (except for where I slipped and fell and 
was using the ice axe - handle buried to head almost - that stopped my 
fall).  I actually slipped for 10' before being able to stop on the mud, 
scraping one leg unmercifully...  There was also a post from someone who 
hiked from Manning to Rainey Pass in the wind and clouds and snow and 
cold and said maybe it wasn't a SOBO year after all.  She was wrong.  I 
stopped reading the listserv at that point, only three days before I left. 

There was a wave in 2005.   This made SOBO hiking relatively easier.  
Why?  Why is hiking SOBO more difficult? 

I've been doing month or longer section hikes since 1992 - four of 
them.  Except for the first one with a 70 pound pack and girlfriend I 
was madly in love with, I've hiked alone.  I spend at least two weeks 
each summer hiking alone. 

I realized this year that perhaps I really wasn't cut out to hike for 
weeks on end alone.  When you're alone the filters that keep your focus 
in the external world slowly disintegrate.  For most of us, me included, 
this disintegration involves a slow realization I have to face my 
demons, the internal stuff , big emotions.  Being-alone for weeks on end 
is intense.  A person has to have a really excellent sense of internal 
balance and harmony to greet each day with excitement and curiosity. 

Being alone for weeks on end is intense...  What the hell does this 
mean???  I still haven't figured it out.  This summer my most memorable 
moments consisted of the time I spent with other persons, one on one.  I 
spent three hours hiking with Donkey, and we hiked about ten miles.  
That was the marker distinguishing the early from later part of my trip 
- struggling to hike 15 miles a day and then easily hiking 20 miles by 
3PM.  In Cascade Locks Gizmo, Donkey and I drank beer, and when Burn 
showed up, we drank some more and had pizza.  I remember talking with 
Burn and being so damn honest it hurt... 

I spent three hours at the Warm Springs River with Gizmo talking about 
the meaning of life, how to make what we mean happen.  I spent an hour 
with two guys in Trout Lake eating burgers served by an absolutely 
gorgeous woman who smiled equally at us all.  In an hour I had a friend 
that I knew I could have counted on to help me find a place to live, a 
job, and good pot...  For those of you in my age bracket - 53 - you know 
how difficult it is to find kindred souls in the world. 

I saw that Skittles is going to hike the CDT this summer.  He was part 
of a triad - they were called the VIPs.  They perhaps formed the nucleus 
of this year's wave.  I would have loved to have spent four hours with 
every one I met this summer.  However, there was something inside me 
that eschewed the wave, hiking together and camping together. 

Why is hiking alone hard?  I don't think I'm coming any closer to 
answering this question.  Maybe I find it difficult because I'm 
emotional in a man's body and when alone the emotionality emerges I 
don't have the tools to cope.  How do you continue day after day when 
every emotion is a potential trigger to cry?  In the midst of this, 
there is no sensible end, no perceived benefit, no light at the end of 
the tunnel.  there is only the intense emotions that lead to tears and 
the seeming inevitability of tears with no karmic resolution. 

It is so hard to trust the process, to maintain a witness to the 
process, and just let it happen.  Modern society doesn't value this, and 
hence, doesn't give us the tools to move through this kind of growth 
process.  As soon as it gets intense emotionally, we go to the fire and 
huddle with other humans. When  a person spends day after day alone, the 
desire to leave the trail/trip becomes ever more a lighted torch 
pointing the way.  Why put up with the intense emotions when you could 
be hanging with friends and family? 

That this also means having a job, paying rent/mortgage, etc., etc., 
etc...  It's this part that recedes into the background while alone on 
the trail.  The pure, intense, emotional pain that living on the trail 
alone entails makes the routines of boring, meaningless citified life 
seem attractive.  You laugh!  Go out and spend a month alone on the 
trail.  Don't plan a thru-hike.  Plan a section hike where your whole 
intent is to be alone in the wilderness.  See what happens. 

I don't really want to spend a month alone any more.  I want to spend a 
month, six months if possible, hiking with a lover.  The intensity is 
the same, but you get to share it with a soul-mate.  The month I spent 
with Jane, an ex-fiance, on the trail is one that I remember really 
well.  How many other months in my life do I remember with such 
clarity?  not many...

I started hiking alone at 19, in 1971.  The challenge no longer has the 
majesty it once did.  I feel I'd rather hang with a woman and explore 
with her than do it alone.  I still don't think I could participate in 
"The Wave."  But that's me. 

Jeff, Just Jeff...