[pct-l] End of Earth in 2012

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

Your post is awesome, Louie. You have it exactly right. The trip is  
an escape from fear. It's a journey into Middle Earth. It's a  
wonderful, safe, magical experience. You captured it correctly.

The thing is, the people on the trail know this, but most people on  
this list do not. Every dire warning on this list is total hype.  
You'll hear this complaint many times when you're out on the trail.

Since we're entering the lull time, expect this list to hype into  
warp speed with dire warnings about everything. Don't worry. These  
aren't the lunatics you'll be hiking with. Those lunatics are smelly,  
hairy and happy.

Diane

On Nov 4, 2009, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> You'll have to forgive me for posting back to back once again, but I'm
> trying to figure out just what kind of band of lunatics is going to be
> on the trail come 2010.
>
> All of this crazy talk about coyotes, and black bears, and rapists and
> the end of the world make me wonder if even one sane person wants to
> walk to Canada?  Do any of you fear mongers realize how benign it
> actually is in the Sierras?  How often the sun shines?  How kind the
> weather is for essentially, the ENTIRE walk?  We're safer on the trail
> then any one of us is in our own homes.  I hope the joke is on me  
> and I
> just didn't get it.
>
> Because I plan on enjoying myself.  I am going to have fun.  I am  
> going
> to partake in all the fish and bird the mountains grant to me.  And  
> what
> I won't be doing is entertaining all of the silly worries about Lions
> and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!  I'll be sleeping like a baby every  
> night.
> Because, apparently I know something all the paranoid people don't  
> know.
>
> This trip is supposed to be an escape from fear, it is supposed to  
> be a
> peaceful walk, a contemplative time.  A Mission.  When the wilderness
> becomes nothing more then an extension of the fears we carry around  
> with
> us in the "world", then God help us all.
>
> Plan on having fun.  Your failures won't be because you got  
> attacked by
> a bear, or a rapist- you'll fail because you quit on yourself.  And  
> that
> is the hard truth.