[pct-l] Wife Buy-In and Contracting Biz Prep For Thru Hike

[Eric Lee]

Jesse wrote:
>
My long-winded-point IS, I did a "Google" search re: wife permission PCT,
etc since there is some resistance and mostly incredulity from the spouse.
(Not much in the way of search results came up) I announced the date to her
last week, and while watching the Nat Geo PCT doc (little lame, I know) I
told her only 300 hundred or so people tried it in a year. She asked "How
many people are in the US?" and I responded, "I don't know, around 300
million maybe." She said I should easily be able to figure out my odds for
going by using the two figures...
>

This is a tough one.  Every person has to find their own guiding light here,
so I won't presume to tell you what to do.  I'll just tell my own story and
maybe you'll find it useful, or maybe not.

I first got bitten by the long-distance hiking bug about 12 years ago.  At
the time I was right in the middle of starting a family.  Dumb timing - I
started having kids a few years *before* I figured out I wanted to thru-hike
the PCT.  However, there was never any doubt in my mind about which passion
of mine was the more important.  As much as I love the PCT, my young family
is far more important than any hiking adventure could ever be.  Speaking
strictly for myself here, there's no way I could ever justify missing ~5
months of my kid's lives for what is, in the end, a very selfish luxury.
There's no way I could justify leaving my wife to parent them alone while I
ran off to chase a dream.  I chose to marry my wife and to have children and
I proudly stand by that choice.

For a little while I was despondent, thinking that meant I needed to totally
give up this dream of mine for all time.  However, I realized two things.
One, the PCT is not an all-or-nothing deal.  Section hiking is a perfectly
viable way of participating in the trail community and feeding my soul while
still giving my family the attention it deserves.  I've been doing annual
section hikes for 11 years now.  I started by doing ~100 miles in 5-day
trips close to home in Washington so there wasn't much travel time on either
end.  As I've gotten more experienced and my kids have gotten older (so I
feel I can be gone a little longer) I've bumped it up to ~150 miles in 7
days with more travel time on either end (so I'm gone a total of 9 or 10
days at a time).  This summer I past my personal halfway point so I've hiked
more than half of the entire trail.  I also do a fair bit of trail
maintenance and stay involved in the PCT community in other ways as well.
No, I'm not a thru-hiker (yet), but I think I've extracted as much long-term
enjoyment out of the PCT as anyone.

My second realization is that there are two major demographic groups of
people on the PCT.  The first is the group of young unattached people who
are thru-hiking before they settle down and get an typical "adult" life (or
maybe in an effort to avoid that life).  The second major population is the
group of folks in their 50's and 60's who have already delivered on their
responsibilities and are now becoming free again.  There are people of all
ages out there, of course, but I was struck by the number of "older" folks
who thru-hike.  I realized it's not a now-or-never deal for me; I can raise
my family and complete that responsibility, then go thru-hike afterwards.  I
fully intend to do a complete one-season thru-hike someday after my kids are
all out of the house.  My youngest is going to be 10 next month and I'm
counting down the years, believe me.  :-)

So this is the compromise my wife and I have come to.  I promised not to go
wandering off and abandon my responsibilities while my family needs me, and
in return she lets me do a section hike every year and tolerates my general
obsession with the PCT.  She also understands that I *will* do a thru-hike
someday when my family responsibilities are reduced.  Five months of
separation will still be tough for both of us but we have a long time to get
used to the idea.  In the end I'll get the hike the PCT twice, once as a
section hiker and once as a thru-hiker, which affords me two very different
experiences of the trail.  How cool is that?  When I think of it that way I
consider myself actually pretty lucky.  A lot of folks get a wild hair, go
off and thru-hike the PCT in one blaze of glory, and never really return to
long-distance hiking again.  Because my life situation has constrained my
choices I've been forced to turn my interest into a life-long passion for
the trail and for that I am very thankful.

Eric