[pct-l] Hiking and the real world

[Scott Williams]

To throw in my 2 cents on this one, I got a job at our counties Boys Ranch
nearly 35 years ago working with troubled youth, and kept it primarily
because as a group counselor I was paid to take kids backpacking.  I did
multiple week long trips in Desolation Valley and other Sierra spots in the
summer, and took them to the Mtns in back of Santa Barbara in the winter.  I
eventually became a probation officer, and worked with kids in placements,
and continued to take them backpacking.  I took the kids from one group home
near Booneville Ca into the Trinity Alps, into areas much higher and deeper
in the wilderness than the PCT traverses.  They weren't long thru hikes,
which was what I really wanted to do, but they meshed nicely with a wife and
child, and for years added spice to a fascinating career.  I couldn't
believe I was getting paid to do this.  The best part is that when I've met
these now middle aged "kids", they always bring up those backpack trips as
such an important part of their adolescence.   My own parents gave me a
wonderful gift by taking me along the JMT when I was 10 and 12, and it was
just as important to these kids, from really messed up homes, to have had
someone do that same really healthy activity with them.

Anyway, it was a wonderful career, with some backpacking as part of it, and
now that I'm retired I do have the time to do the long hikes, and loved the
PCT this summer.

I agree, follow your heart.  You'll find a way.

Shroomer




On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Jeffrey Olson <jolson at olc.edu> wrote:

>  I love all the responses to Sasha's query.  One way to look at this is
> that "real life" is being in the wilderness and work has to be
> integrated into this.
>
> Also, very few people actually want to make a life that revolves around
> the outdoors, let alone long distance hiking.  Note how few people
> attempt the long trails each year compared to America's population.
>
> In my 20s in the 1970s I had lots of friends who "stopped out" for a
> couple years to ski and surf and hike and travel.  But I know no one
> from those years who is doing what you ask about.
>
> MSW level social workers can legitimately change jobs every couple three
> years, and you can work in a year off without losing credibilitiy.
> Teaching allows for summers off, and semesters off without pay, if
> you're any good.  Both those professions have outdoor related niches you
> could carve for yourself if you have good, dogged determination, a thick
> skin that sloughs off rejection, and a vision that entrances funders...
>
> Thinking out loud...
>
> Jeffrey Olson
> Martin, SD
>
>
> >> Hi,
> >> I'm a college student who, in the past few years, has gotten very
> >> interested
> >> in long distance backpacking. I've been on the list for a while and have
> >> heard from a lot of very experienced backpackers. Reading their posts, I
> >> was
> >> wondering, how you have implemented the backpacking world into "real
> >> life".
> >
> >
>
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