Re: [pct-l] Various

[BLISTERFREE@delphi.com]

>>Lately I've been wondering if (with all the talk of clearcuts and
unnecessary picnic tables and unwanted views of eroded earth) the PCT is
still worth it; if perhaps while I still have the time I should switch,
perhaps to the CDT.  Anyone who's done the PCT thru-hike lately (last
couple of years) have an opinion?  I've been starting to get the feeling
that, for too much of it, the walk will be like hiking Florida to Maine on
the shoulder of I-95, without the convenience of fireworks stores and the
Mexican Sombrero restaurant. <<

No way. Not in my experience. In hiking from Mexico thru the Sierra this year,
I was continually amazed by the purity, wildness, and solitude of the trail
corridor. Even through the bowels of southern California it was mostly a
wilderness-like experience. My conclusion is that pct-l is a separate reality,
just like distance hiking along the PCT. The two are separate, distinct
realities. The list is like the morning news - it reflects its subject in
a series of continual, abrupt, biased, "newsworthy" shorts, and as such can
never accurately describe or replace the whole of the actual experience. As
is natural, the list gravitates toward "issues" - topics for discussion and
debate, and as with the Times, the Sun, or the Citizen-inquirer-daily, the
issues are usually the what's bad, what's wrong, and the what can we do about
it of the PCT. But then sometimes, usually on a back page somewhere, we'll
find something more heartening, something truly newsworthy.

Like the goings-on of marmots among the rocks in the August sun. Now that is
news that's fit to print. 

- Blisterfree
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