[pct-l] Solo Female - Leaving Boyfriend At Home

[Scott Williams]

Great question and responses.  It's such an issue for many of us hooked on
long trail hiking.  I had planned on 5 weeks of desert hiking in 2010, but
after just a week on trail, I knew I wouldn't be ready to stop at that.
 Telling my wife that I'd really be gone for the entire summer was a hard
one, and she wasn't ready for the solitude of having me gone for that long,
but I had found an experience way beyond backpacking, and I wasn't willing
to give it up.  Walking for months through wilderness and town and living a
daily adventure that most people only read about or see portrayed in
movies, struck some bone marrow deep chords, some rightness of being that
I've never felt before.

On my first hike, I got tacit support of a not too happy kind, but as Katie
has come to see how important this experience is for me, she's come around
to being able to be a major support on my CDT hike this past summer.  I
planned a mid hike vacation with her when I got to Breckenridge and called
her from trail whenever I got reception.  This hike I carried a Spot which
gave her a definite evening OK, and I kept up a running Postholer journal.
 When I got home, we spent a week soaking in the hot waters of Harbin Hot
Springs, just reconnecting.

On the PCT I just sort of vanished into the experience, which was wonderful
in itself, but this time I reached out more from trail, including my wife
and college age daughter more than before in the hike.

We've also come up with what seems to be a workable lifestyle that may keep
me hiking and married.  We alternate vacation plans year by year.  When I
hiked the PCT, I was retired, my daughter in college and my wife still
working.  The year after that, Katie chose Alaska and we had a wonderful
vacation up there.  I then hiked the CDT this past summer.

Now, Katie is retired too.  This year will be travels she chooses, a few
shorter backpack trips, Europe, Hawaii and a big kayak trip in the Bowron
Lakes of BC.  I'm lucky that she loves the outdoors and camping, she just
has no desire to walk across a continent and at this point, I do.  I'll
take a one month long hiking trip with my serious hiking friends in August
during which I hope to re-hike the Winds and Glacier NP, but it is
predominantly her year.  Next year will be mine again and if I don't
re-hike the CDT or the PCT, it may be time to go back East and see those
Appalachians.

One of the sweetest parts of being in love with your resupply person is
that when you get home after a long hike, it's like being on a second
honeymoon.  Make the most of it.  Get romantic and let your lover know how
much you've missed them.  It's all true, so you don't have to fake it.  If
you haven't had a first honeymoon yet it doesn't matter, the reunion is
just sweet beyond words.

Whatever you can do to elicit your loved ones support is worth doing, but
even if you can't get it, I'd say go anyway.  The thru hike experience is
just too good, too important to give up because you haven't got 100 percent
support at home.  The first hike I didn't have it and hiked it anyway and
don't regret one day of that magical summer, but the second I did and it
was all the sweeter.

Shroomer