[pct-l] Thank You All!

[Joanne Lennox]

I have no Rules for other people!!  HOwever, if one is announcing that they will do a hike in record time, unsupported, I wonder what that means.  Every hiker has been supported in one way or another ( by cars, post offices, people sending packages, people doing trail maintenence, etc.).  Unsupported seems a completely meaningless  concept, as is trying to set a RECORD on a thruhike.  Such a concept is treating their hike like a race, which it isn't.  To state that one did the trail in a certain time is one thing: to call it a record besting a prior time when that prior hike was obviously done under differnt weather and travel conditions, different equipment seems to miss the point of a thruhike.

So do you have a definition for unsupported?  And who should decide??  And why are we having to define record, unsupported, etc - because someone wants bragging rights to WHAT!!

Joe just applauded Scott for doing 40,000 miles of the PCT with" little or no impact" ( how can that be?) and slammed somebody that walks 7 miles to a camp!!  These two are setting themselves up to define these terms and in turn the rest of our experiences as thruhikers and hikers.  And I was okay with that until his post today.  He thinks that the only impact that he has is on the trail, That because he has a "record", he has a right to belittle other hikers, and that there should not be a discussion of the definitions that he is using to define his hike. Even though he he is using these definitions and making "claims".

Better the person who dreams, who starts , who tries, who continues their thruhike without announcing that they plan to do a record unsupported hike.

The greatest gifts of a thruhike can not be told, and certainly have nothing to do with setting a record.

I am anxious to hear about Scott and Joe"s hike, but their mileage and times are the least interesting parts, and the hike does not stop when they reach Canada. 

rom: Andrea Dinsmore 
  To: Joanne Lennox 
  Cc: joseph kisner ; pct-l at backcountry.net 
  Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 11:51 AM
  Subject: Re: [pct-l] Thank You All!


  What are Joanne's rules for an unsupported hike ?? 

  PCT MOM

   
  On 8/22/08, Joanne Lennox <goforth at cio.net> wrote: 
    "For all of you who came to our defense over the fire closures, THANK YOU!
    Scott and I both, would never even consider doing anything, that would make
    us (hikers) look bad in the publics eye."

    YOU JUST DID!!

    You complemented all the help and free stuff and support you got
    (Unsupported?), and then slammed everybody else, and assumed that they had
    never done any hiking.  Phew!! Reread your own writing.