[at-l] Genuineness of Contemporary Thru-hikes

[bullard@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Jim Bullard)]

At 08:23 PM 1/4/2003 -0500, Clark Wright wrote:
>If you are hiking NOBO and take the southern blue blaze
>entrance to a shelter located 5 tenths off the Trail, you return to the
>Trail via that same blue blaze [as opposed to taking the northern exit
>out and thereby missing up to a mile of actual, white blazed Trail]; and
>if you hitch into town, you get a return ride to the same spot you got
>off, not the next road crossing up the way.  But, again, I close with
>the same dose of humility - even if you do all of the above, you have
>not hiked every step of the AT - nobody has and nobody ever will.

Not even the original thru-hiker, Earl Schaffer, hiked past every blaze
(markers back then).  When he did it the trail was in such bad shape from
neglect that he often couldn't find it and just went where he figured it
should be.  Why all this angst over doing it in a way that even the
originator of thru-hiking didn't manage?

To me all this discussion of purity is way off the mark anyway.  'Did you
hike past each and every white blaze?'  I frankly don't care.  I hike for
the experience of being out there, smelling the air, hearing the sounds,
seeing the sights.  I hike for the trip, not the trail markers.  The
genuineness of my experience depends on my going from point A to point B
(in this case Springer to Katadhin) and taking it all in or as much as I
can.  The blazes are just road signs that hopefully will keep me from
getting lost and ending up Albuquerque (although that might be fun
too).  Tying myself to 'I gotta do it this way or that way' sounds too much
like a job.  I go hiking to escape and to do what *I* want to do instead of
what someone else thinks I ought.

Saunterer