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Re: [pct-l] trail blues, suffering from depression



Dear Dave,

Regarding, after the hike depression, I found almost the exact opposite to be true. After the hike in '77 I went back to my junior year at UCSB and found that juggling the school work and varsity basketball was so easy that I pulled straight A's through my junior and senior year without what I felt was a great effort. I believe I was so pumped up in confidence from accomplishing this large effort that I knew I could do anything if I applied myself with the determination I threw into the PCT. The PCT also gave me the uninterrupted time to clearly examine the hugely important choices in life immediately before me: graduate school or job, marry or wait, kids or not, California or Colorado, etc., etc.=20 I made my decisions with confidence after having an abundance of time to examine all angles and issues, bringing them up with friends, co-hikers and family and insuring that they were the best for me considering all information available at that time. I have followed those decisions and accomplished all, now looking in hind sight, 21 years later! It is, by far, the single most important event in my life, so far. I hope to repeat it in about ten or fifteen years!

I did almost quit from depression after enduring an extremely dangerous and difficult trek through the Sierras in which I was alone for 11 days straight and in several life threatening situations. I recovered in a motel in Independence for two days and pushed on, vowing to myself to hook up with someone or group and stay with them and not put myself, knowingly, into potential life threatening situations again. I hiked on and off with a group and both of my brothers through Yosemite and Tahoe areas and then by myself again up to Lassen. I didn't feel the depression in Nth California that Karl did, maybe because I was looking forward to turning 21 around Burney Falls and I knew that Oregon would be beautiful in a different way. I ran into alot of PCT'ers at Burney Falls and one, Paul Hacker, hooked up with me and we stayed together to the Canadian border.

Loneliness was my greatest enemy. Under stress, the ability to reflect, discuss, and share with another brought sanity to me. Alone, I didn't trust my own judgement and craved the sharing of the beauty, adventure and wonder of what's over the next hill, with another human. I have since been backpacking in the Rockies and Sierra's alone and not found this to be true anymore. I don't know if this is due to the confidence I gained in the rest of the hike or if I have matured over the years.=20 Several times Paul and I agreed that alone we would have been much more depressed over the mosquitos, rain or whatever that we were enduring, than together as we were.

I believe we are each very different in this department. Attitude is critical. Some look for the bad, the pain, the difficulty and ignore the rest. Others look for the beauty, the details, the colors, the joy and ignore the rest.

IMHO,

Greg "Strider" Hummel * From the Pacific Crest Trail Email List | http://www.backcountry.net *
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