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

[Scott Williams]

This question has elicited some beautiful responses.  I guess I'm so deeply
touched because it is such an important issue for me and obviously many
others who love hiking, love the idea or the doing of a long trail, and yet
still love their partners and children.  I always tell people that it is
the hardest thing about thru hiking for me.  I really do miss Katie and my
daughter Sarah.  And it is hard for each of them to have me gone for such
long periods.

I have been a backpacker since I was a boy in the early '60's and came to
love the freedom of the road, hitching and backpacking all over the country
in the late '60's and 70's, when so many of us became vagabonds.  Our first
major commitment before marriage or family, careers or homes was the joint
purchase of an ocean going sailboat with the dream of sailing around the
world together, so Katie also understands wanderlust and it is part of what
we share.

Careers stepped in, lots of shorter adventures together and eventually a
child when we were 40, and the wonderful experience of raising a daughter.
 I became a Girl Scout leader, one of the few fathers to do so, but I
wouldn't have missed her childhood summers for all the tea in China.  It
gave me a chance later in life to play and be a child again myself as she
grew up and learned to love the wilderness as much as Katie and I did.  She
was Kayaking on the SF Bay at 2, sitting between my legs, Kayaked the
Bowron Lakes in BC's Caribou Mtns when she was 4 and began backpacking the
Skyline to the Sea trail and Henry Coe State parks when she was 6 and 7, so
I continued doing what I loved all throughout her young years, which went
so quickly.

I retired in 2007 from 30 years in law enforcement and cured my addiction
to cortisols (stress hormones) through backpacking the High Sierra,
Wonderland and West Coast Trails.  I'd followed the AT trail journals for
years and dreamed of a long hike, but never thought I could do one.  In
2010 Sarah was off to college and Katie still had several years to work
before her own retirement and I decided to try a 5 week shot across the
deserts on the PCT.  I started two weeks before Kickoff and by the time I
hitched back to Lake Moreno for the event, knew I wouldn't stop walking
till I'd thru hiked the trail.  Within the first few weeks I'd met some of
the finest folks I've ever hiked with, some of whom I'd end up sharing
thousands of miles with and the adventure of a lifetime.

It was not an easy sell to Katie when she came to pick me up at the end of
5 weeks, as I had a commitment to cater her brother's wedding, but for me
this was my window.  Sarah was away at college, my parents were gone and
Katie was still working.  I'd completed a long career, been a father who
was present to his daughter when she was growing up and needed me, and been
a devoted husband.  This was my turn and in spite of Katie's objections, I
took it.  She  was not happy about this and I didn't enjoy much support
from the home front.  It was a genuine hardship for her to maintain our
property by herself for 5 months, and not have the emotional physical
support I usually provided at home.

The summer was a seminal experience for me and like so many others, I came
home "ruined."  I couldn't stop thinking about another long hike.  Living
on trail touched human strains that lie dormant in all of us and it also
 harkened back to those marvelous summers on the road in the '60s.  I
hadn't felt more alive and "right" in my entire life.

This year I thru hiked the CDT and had a much more supportive spouse.  She
seems to have gotten just how important and powerful thru hiking is for me.
 She's not interested in long trails for herself, but she and my sister
mailed 28 food boxes to me over the duration and jumped through hoops when
stuff went wrong.  She came out to Breckenridge for a mid hike vacation
together into Rocky Mtn NP, and most importantly, she had my back.  I could
talk to her by phone from the tops of mountains and we provided each other
with an emotional component that had been lacking during my hike of the
PCT.  My Spot device provided some sense of safety for both of us, whether
real or imagined.  I felt like I was married to a saint this summer and
count my blessings that I didn't find my clothes on the front porch when I
got home.

How we've compromised around my need to hike is that when I realized I
wanted to continue this craziness, I agreed not to do it every year.  In
the alternate years, she gets to pick where we go and what we do.  After
the PCT our vacation was in Alaska in an RV we rented.  Not my cup of tea
usually, but I had a ball and would do it again.  Next spring we'll be off
to France for her choice.

We are all so different in this lover/family issue, and you must do what
you eventually find right for yourself, but for me, I would not have missed
my daughter's childhood summers for a thru hike.  In retrospect, childhood
is such a little part of one's life, and yet so important in the shaping of
the adults we become for the 60 or 80 years thereafter.  Also, since
beginning to hike long trails, I've met so many people in their 50s, 60s,
70s and 80s who are having as much fun as the 20 year olds, all be it maybe
a bit slower, that I realize I've got many years of hiking still to come.

When I attempt the AT in 2014, I may want to hike it in two sections so I
can put a much longer vacation with Katie in the middle of it.  And besides
I hate East Coast summer humidity, and could hike into autumn and the
changing colors of New England.

At this point in my life I won't stop hiking, but I also cherish my
marriage and the years and experiences Katie and I have had together and
will continue to work for the compromises that include both.  I think
there's a lot to said for being present to the different episodes in life
as they occur.  Don't miss any of them to wishing you were somewhere else.
 There will be time, and in the meantime, take those kids backpacking.

Great question.

Shroomer