[at-l] Thoughts of Slackpacking: WAS: Helping a newbie update: Warren's School Report

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Shane wrote:
>To admit my emotional baggage on the subject, I have nothing
>against Warren or his school.  However, tampering with a
>man's dream is wrong, and it has aggravated me.  This is my
>issue, not Bob's.

Yep.  (or is that "Yip" - naaah, I don't think so)

Shane -
You've gotten a lot of good responses - I was gonna do this last night and 
decided 1/ that it was too late and I was too tired and 2/ that it might be 
a good time for me to sit down and shut up for a while.  So I did.  So all I 
can do is to echo/reinforce much of what's already been said. And like 
Curtis, I'll do at least some of it from personal experience.  As a sidebar, 
Curtis's journal entries were really cool - and right on target.

Slackpacking, for the most part, is an AT phenomenon.  We did NO 
slackpacking on the CDT - and only one short day on the PCT.  The CDT, in 
particular, is not generally a place you'd want to get caught without a full 
pack. Just recently, in fact, Fiddlehead and Pieps were doing a 34(?) mile 
slackpack on the CDT and only managed 17 (?) miles for the day.  As a gross 
understatement, they spent an "uncomfortable" night.  That's point #1 - 
slackpackers don't have the gear to be "comfortable" if they don't make it 
to the rendezvous point.

OK - personal AT experience - my first slackpack was in VA - I had never 
done a slackpack and hadn't done a 20 mile day in 35 years, but figured it 
was time.  The pack was shuttled 24 miles ahead - we made a wrong turn, 
added a couple miles to the day, and ended up with a 26 mile day.  
Constraint was that we had to be at the rendezvous by 6pm.  We got there a 
half hour late.  There are shuttle drivers who get really irritated if they 
have to wait that long.  In any case, there's a mental pressure to push so 
you can get there on time. It can and will interfere with your "sitting and 
watching the view" time.

We slackpacked from Harpers Ferry to Duncannon with a group that had started 
slackpacking in the Shenandoahs.  We were doing 20+ mile days, having a good 
time, enjoyed the people and never had a real "timing" problem, BUT --- with 
one very small truck, it got really complicated moving 8 people, 8 packs and 
a dog around, finding motels and restaurants, and keeping everybody well 
fed, on the Trail and relatively happy. At Duncannon, Ginny and I picked up 
the packs and left the group.  Reasons - it wasn't the hike we were out 
there for. It was complicated, confusing and EXPENSIVE (we didn't have the 
money to play that way). It was an entirely different hike.  No less valid - 
in fact, some of those people slacked all the way to Katahdin.  Funny thing 
is that we pulled into Delaware Water Gap before they did, we paced them all 
the way to Gorham, and then finished 2 days after they did. The slackpacking 
didn't make a great difference in the long term timing of the hike. What it 
did was to tie those people to the road crossings and sometimes to force 
them to hike longer days than they'd have liked - or than they would have 
chosen if they'd been carrying the packs.  It reduced their freedom of 
choice/action/movement.

I know - you might think this isn't Bob's situation - but it would be.  The 
last run-on sentence in the last paragraph would apply just as much to Bob 
as it did to the Slackpackers. So would the comments about the cost, 
complication and confusion - although to a lesser degree.

So - if I understand what's been proposed, it's for his wife to pick him up 
at road crossings every night - or at least as often as possible.  Notice 
that there are a few places on the AT where the "every night" doesn't work 
and he'd have to carry a pack anyway.  That means you're NOT off the hook 
for buying the same gear he'd need for a non-slackpack hike, cause he'd 
still need it at times  :-))

Another thing - after you've slackpacked for a couple days, it gets REALLY 
HARD to pick up that pack again.  Ginny and I have found that for every day 
the pack isn't carried, for every day you slack, the pack gains an automatic 
5#.  You can't see that weight, you can't touch it, you can't smell it, but 
when you put the pack on again, it's there - and you can't get rid of it 
except by hauling that pack up another mountain - or three - or more.  3 
days in town = another 15 mental and emotional pounds in the pack  :-(

Hmm - another thought just crossed my mind - many of the hostels don't 
welcome "drive-in" hikers. That was one of the problems the '92 Slackpackers 
ran into.  And motels are definitely more expensive than hostels.

Finally - we watched this same general scenario being played out on the PCT. 
  There were not just one, but four hikers who were using support vehicles.  
One hiker (who will remain unnamed but will see this) liked being in town 
every Wednesday(?) to watch Survivor).  Hey - everybody has their own 
criteria for what makes a good hike. I'm not much on Survivor - I've never 
watched it and wouldn't let it become part of my hike - but that's me. His 
support was his SO - and she treated the whole thing as an extended 
vacation.  But then, she wasn't picking him up "every" night either - that 
don't work on the PCT.

Another young lady had started the trail with her SO.  150 miles later, he 
hurt a knee on the same 21 mile, 7,000 ft descent where I broke a toe.  He 
got off the trail, got their truck and met her at the road crossings all the 
way to Canada.  Her experience - she put in massive miles in order to get to 
the road crossings ASAP.  She was constantly tired, hurting and hurried. But 
by her own account, she had a great hike, too.  His experience - he spent a 
LOT of time waiting at road crossings, got to know a lot of cops, is 
intimately familiar with every gear store on the West Coast as well as ALL 
the roads in the mountains, read more books than he'd ever read before - and 
he was bored out of his mind.

The other two were a couple who had talked her mother and father into 
supporting them.  Mom and Pop were retired and were having a good time 
getting to know the people in the towns along the way.  The hiking couple - 
uh -- I wouldn't say they were having a good time - they were hiking massive 
miles, starting at dawn and ending at dusk when they weren't being met.  
They were making a real "job" out of it. But - again - it WAS by their 
choice, so maybe they were doing "what they wanted to do" - aka HYOH.

Bottom line --- Bob has to decide what kind of hike "HE" wants.  And then go 
after it. I don't think he has the information he needs to make an 
intelligent decison about that yet.  As Mara said - he should wait a while, 
go to Trail Days and/or the Gathering, talk to others, look at the pretty 
pictures -- and let it all sink in for a while.  He's not (or shouldn't be) 
in a great panic to make final decisions yet.  We talked to a man last night 
who'll be heading for the CDT this week and has yet to make final decisions 
about route, mail drops, or even where, when or if he'll flip-flop.

The "slackpacking hike" will work, BUT it's not the same hike as carrying 
the pack. The social aspects of a slackpacking hike are different, the 
timing is different, the "freedom" is constrained, it's more expensive - and 
other drawbacks.  But still, it's a valid way to do the Trail if the hiker 
is happy with it.

We're back to the philosophy that only ONE person has to be happy with what 
anyone does - and that's the person who's doing it.  Any other opinion, 
positive or negative, is extraneous and, sometimes, unwelcome.  But that 
still comes with the caveat - as long as what they're doing doesn't damage 
the Trail or the Trail community.

Walk softly,
Jim




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