[pct-l] Anticipation

[Jeffrey Olson]

I love this time of the listserv year.  The newbie questions and 
respectful answers are slowing down.  Gear issues reveal themselves for 
the "I'm dealing with the anxiety of leaving my comfortable/normal life 
behind" coping anticipating big change involves.  And all of this of 
course has nothing to do with what one carries on a sweaty back.

The whole kickoff thing starts to become a focus.  It's been a couple 
years since counter-voices questioned the whole idea of a time when 
thru-hikers would gather so close to the border.  It seems that the 
kickoff is an institution now pretty much the majority accepts is a good 
thing.  I miss Donna's voice.

The hikers who don't have a lot of backpacking experience but have a 
vision/dream are trying to be centered.  One step in front of the 
other.  Figure out a resupply strategy and stick to it.  Start with a 
little more gear than you'll likely end up keeping.  It's easier to 
trust gear than ones ability to make decisions in the stressful moment.  
This is how it appears at the beginning.  It'll only take you a month or 
so to shed the excess crap, to be shivering at 9AM and set up the tent, 
go to bed, and lie there all day long warming up while the wind and snow 
blasts the trail.  This is the good choice.

Over time the urgency of making miles resolves into the reality of 
making miles.  There's a peace that develops, a peace radiating from the 
soul, the sense of being in balance and harmony.  Realistically, this 
peace lasts for a half hour at most, and the most we learn to open to is 
that it happens a couple times a day, or more.

So what's it like the other hours of the day?  That's where you do your 
work.  You young people - the 20 somethings leaving the nest for the 
first time, have an incredible opportunity in front of you. Your 
hormones are rivers.  Emotions are amplified in ways you've never 
experienced.  You're faced with the vision and plan to hike the PCT.  
You stumbled on the idea and it appealed.  Slowly, or in an instant, 
this became your dream.

The pre-trip anxiety unsettles everything you have been told is true, 
that you believe.  You are totally ready to head out into a future that 
has no promise, no certainty, no end.  Sure, the "dream" involves 
standing on the monument at the border and dancing the jig of the 
accomplished.  But you are so unsure you'll be able to do it you are as 
humble as you'll ever be in your life.  Revel in your humility.  Please, 
and remember it.

This may be the first time you've told your folks "I'm going to do this" 
and ignored their fears and worries - the fears and worries you see come 
from choosing a path of material comfort and deadening stasis - this is 
how most young people see their folks.  They chose to have children 
after all.  You're both resentful they gave you life and the pain 
involved, and thankful for the caring and love that is your core 
connection with them.  It's ok to be conflicted when you're in your 
20s.  That's your job...

In your headiest moments you realize you are the future.  You have a 
basic faith heading out on the PCT will change you in a way that will 
enable you to live a deeper, more meaningful life than if you had done 
what your folks wanted you to.  When you're done you'll be there.  You 
will be.  Trust that hiking for 2650 miles over four or five months will 
shed the surfaces and you'll find the core that lets you put one foot in 
front of the other no matter what you're feeling.

Also trust that if you decide to leave the trail you will do so within 
the crucible of an emotional intensity far more deep and broad than 
leaving your true love to go to college, or another city for work.  
There is no "shame" in leaving the trail, the hike.  I've section hiked 
numerous times, and left a thru-hike.  I'm stronger for the doing.  This 
is where the emotional core of HYOH comes in...

You have faith.  This is your strength, and what scares you the most.  
You have a dream that has you walk for 2650 miles and stand at the 
Canadian border and dance.  That's the end of it.  It really is.  It's 
such a small moment.  If you can find the DVD with Yogi talking, listen 
to her.

If you hike 100, 500, 1000 or 2650 miles, you have entered the "I am 
totally responsible for my life "zone.  The weak will sneak off and find 
dark basements to do their work.  They'll re-enter lives of privilege 
and marry and get fat and have children and make a lot of money.  
Material success is the consequence.  Luckily, success - achievement of 
a dream - is defined in many ways.

I remember walking down the trail - 10 days from starting - hot, 
thirsty, hungry and so, so missing my friend who was going to hike with 
me.  She got a new job and made a choice.  We had been fiancee's for a 
year, broke up, remained friends, and continued to hike together.  We'd 
planned to hike for two months.  There I was, all alone.  I put one foot 
in front of the other and started to cry.  Tears started and leaked and 
poured.  I continued to put one foot in front of the other as I walked 
down the trail.

I blubbered, hiccuped, snorted and blew snot.  I let out great bellows 
of unadulterated pain.  I wasn't having ANY fun hiking.  The trip had 
been planned as a couple thing and there I was, all alone. I just wanted 
to hang with my family up in Seattle or Santa Rosa.  I was so lonely, so 
hurting, so alone...

I cried for 10 minutes, walking down the trail in south-central Oregon 
in August.  I'd never let loose like that before.  I'd never just bawled 
and caterwauled and snorted snot like that before.  I hurt so intensely, 
almost as much as when we'd broken up to begin with.

What's funny, in the remembering, is that I was monitoring the trail in 
front of me.  I had a "guy" image to protect after all, and if another 
hiker had galumphed along, I would have pulled it together and passed 
through social space.  I hurt intensely.  I didn't want to be hiking.  I 
didn't want to be alone.

The first 10 minutes passed - it might have been 15.  I hiked and cried 
and moaned and it all came from my hurting heart.  How much I longed to 
be in a bar with a bunch of acquaintances and be drinking beer and 
watching sports on TV.  I didn't want to be feeling so intensely.  I 
DIDN'T.

But I did feel intensely and I stuck with it as all my guy training 
wanted me to get angry or surly.  I hurt intensely, and I knew I needed 
to stick with it.  I did.  I snorted and blew snot and let out great 
peals of angst ridden emotion into the forest.  The moans and groans I 
uttered were so intense I was almost frightened - almost...

What's funny, even as it was happening, is that all the angst and pain 
and suffering and longing to be somewhere else slowly dissipated in the 
face of a sense of rhythm, of walking down the trail, putting one foot 
in front of the other.  As long as I put one foot in front of the other 
I was ok - I'd make it through...

I can't express just how amazing this was to me in that moment - the 
moment of just letting it all out and screaming my pain.  Within a 
couple minutes I went from angst screaming trodding to dancing. Putting 
one foot in front of the other remained the same - the ultimate lesson - 
just do it and it will all get better even while it's getting worse.

But this first time of going from total hating my life in the moment to 
feeling totally being in balance and harmony, where every step was an 
expression of my being part of the universe - this was so enrapturing.  
I woke up in the midst of my abject suffering to discover over the 
course of five or 10 minutes, that I was part of something larger, 
something pulsing through me, step by step.

One of my tasks before I die is to express that 
transition/transformation in words.  I hint at it here, and I know there 
are dozens, if not hundreds of hikers on the listserv who have their own 
version of sticking with the pain to find the ecstasy. Perhaps I should 
meet with each of you who have a story of finding this space and explore 
together your perspective.  That's being a college professor speaking...

But it's more than that.  I remember a young man hiking by me, avoiding 
my gaze, a thru-hiker in pain.  He was physically strong but I could 
feel his antipathy.  He didn't really want to be hiking.

  I remember a five member group in 1994 on the top of the ridge before 
Sonora Pass - a segment of the herd.  I asked why they were hiking 
together, and one man stared into space and said it was just too hard 
hiking alone.  There was a hollowness in his voice that intrigued me.  I 
totally got it.

In my arrogance, I thought him weak then.  Now I know he was expressing 
what we all feel.  It's just too damn hard to hike alone, day after day, 
after day.  We all have stories to tell from our 10 day, 40 day, 60 day 
and thru-hikes.  Some of us can spend four months alone.  I'm not one of 
them...

Jeffrey Olson
Rapid City, SD