[pct-l] The hazards of hiking alone

[Tom Bache]

I'm a section hiker who has hiked 2000 PCT miles over the past 5 years. I
hiked with other people early on, but quickly learned that it is much better
to hike alone.  Some of the benefits are obvious -- no need to coordinate
schedules or to compromise on hiking pace and style.  But the biggest
benefit came as a surprise and delight.  Stated simply, other people are a
distraction, and the solo experience is much deeper and more intense.  When
alone, I hear, see, and smell elements of the natural world that would go
unnoticed in the presence of input from other human beings.  This includes
companions, of course, but it extends to all human-created input.  The trail
itself is a distraction from this perspective, but that's unavoidable if the
objective is to hike the PCT!  Digressing a moment, I encountered many miles
of snow-covered trail in Oregon early this summer, and noticed that the
intensity does go up when traveling with no signs of human activity --
interesting, but a very slow way to cover 2650 miles.

Almost everybody who hears about my solo hiking trips seems to think it is a
dangerous thing to do.  I usually respond that the hikes are orders of
magnitude less dangerous than the long drives I take to get to and from the
trail.  I sometimes point out that the odds of injury inflicted by nature
are millions of times less likely than the odds of injury inflicted by other
human beings, so it is safer on the PCT than in most cities.  In any case, I
have never felt any danger on the PCT, and I suspect that is true for most
hikers.  

Tom Bache
San Diego


> Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:01:48 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Nathan Miller <erccmacfitheal at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [pct-l] The hazards of hiking alone
> To: pct-l at backcountry.net
> 
> For everything we do and every choice we make, there's always a
> trade-off--always.  Whether and how to hike is no different.  My last three
> hikes were done solo mainly because everyone who was interested in joining me
> had to bail for one reason or another and I was too stubborn to just stay
> home, despite my wife's wishes.  The first of these ended prematurely when
> blisters prompted me to make a strategic withdrawal--on this trip, I only saw
> one person in 3 days.  On the second, I had no mishaps at all (aside from some
> relatively short-lived bad weather on Mt. Hood) and met a lot of other people
> on the trail, a few of whom were also out there by themselves.  On the third,
> I encountered a cougar, a bear, a rattlesnake and then subsequently crashed
> the car on the way home--I saw a few people the first two days, but no one the
> rest of the time.  Good times, good times....  Anyway, my wife, understandably
> insists I don't hike alone.  In fact, most people to
>  whom I talk about hiking -- section or through -- say, "Oh, you're not going
> alone, are you?"
> After reading this list and hiking, I've come to conclusion that hiking by
> one's self isn't really any more dangerous than doing anything else by one's
> self.  I'd be interested in hearing about y'all's attempts -- successful or
> not -- to convince others of this.  I fear I'll miss out on some great hiking
> because I fail -- through my own fault or not -- to secure hiking companions.
> 
> -Nathan Miller
> Newberg, OR