[pct-l] PCT-L - Most Common Causes of Thru-Dropout

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

On Sep 22, 2011, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> tl;dr - In your experiences what are the most common injuries and  
> causes of hiker dropout?? What can we do to avoid these pitfalls??  
> Any particular training we should consider beyond hiking, hiking,  
> and more hiking?
>
> Any points for consideration will be greatly appreciated.

It's quite often the repetitive stress injuries that lead people to  
quit due to injury early in the hike. Doing a lot of hiking will  
definitely help.

As for the whole mental thing, I think it would help everyone if they  
stopped thinking of quitting a thru-hike as a failure. The trail is  
still there. You can always pick up where you left off, start over  
and give it another try, choose to section hike instead or whatever  
suits you. The all-or-nothing attitude of thru-hiking causes a lot  
more emotional pain to people than almost anything else about the  
experience in my opinion.