[at-l] "Purity" Then and Now... longish

[sloetoe@xxxxxxxxx (Sloetoe)]

I have watched some of the comments go by regarding a supposed
decrease in the verity to be accorded claims to 2000 Miler or
Throughhiker status in the last decade or so. As I'm not the
only dinosaur here, I was hoping some others from 20+ years ago
(yes, Rickles, that now includes you!) might comment...

SOME HISTORY I OBSERVED:
(Which is to say, not all of what was available, but what my
sample slice provided...)
FOR MYSELF:
I was no purist. I'd been observing how trails were lain long
before my throughhike, and when I thought the trail went a dumb
way, I went what I thought was a smarter way. Sometimes this
involved avoided a pointless up-n-down, sometimes it involved a
rock scramble to a great view. (Yes, I climbed Albert. No, I've
never taken a "bad weather bypass.") On the AT, leaving Damascus
(in a Memorial Day sleet/sneaux storm), I hiked on the Virginia
Creeper RR route that was either the former AT or was going to
become the AT. [it was pretty confused then.] Bridges were
washed out, the flood waters were quite deep and roiling, and
the water ugly. (This from a New England water rat.) When I
crossed the Creeper bridges, I struggled against gusting wind to
stay between the narrow gauge rails, fighting to keep my eyes
from being hypgnotized by the swirling water visible between the
ties two and three stories below. Now the AT runs stupidly
*next* *to* the Virginia Creeper, in pointless ankle busting
cobble, within sight of a better alternative. Phooey.

### I ghost-blazed whenever the alternative was described with
"pointless," I blue-blazed if the alternative was described as
more scenic. I new-blazed a section south of Waynesboro that was
shorter than the current AT, but was essentially a 4 mile
bushwhack with flag assistance, and swam in a really neat
cascade/pool for my trouble. Very kewl. I yellowblazed into
Waynesboro to get a PO drop, and hitched back out to slackpack
the skipped section the next day. (And had my parka shell stolen
from the WFD locker.) I greenblazed (yellow/blue?) the old AT to
get to Peaks of Otter. What a day! I no-blazed out of Harpers
Ferry on a route that entailed a federal offense at the time,
but is now the official AT route. Even though I hiked Mass-Conn
the previous September, I hiked Connecticut for the umpty-umpth
time (including Macedonia Brook State Park, Dark Entry,
Cathedral Pines, Mohawk Mtn, Red Mtn, and the ferocious drop
into Falls Village, Bear Mtn, Sages Ravine, Mt. Everett) but
hitched the middle 60 miles of Massachusetts from Jug End to the
south side of Greylock. I yellowblazed into Pinkham Notch at
10:00pm to avoid the AMC, having hiked from Mizpah/Pierce that
morning. I ghost-blazed and bushwhacked a quite a *few* times in
Maine, whenever the registers were quite clear about how
pointless/negative the route changes were. Each one was
incredible... And my hitch out of Monson was (I'm guessing) on
what's now known as the "short-cut" route -- I found out after
my ride had gone. I did not hike backwards to make it up.

THE POINT, PERHAPS:
### Not very pure, eh? Or is it? 98%? Throughhiking requires
slavish addiction to self-propelled forward motion, but requires
awesome flexibility in nearly every other facet of our
existance. Including routefinding. If not, we FAIL; and I was
not out there to fail. I was dedicated to the task, had a
boatload of hardships in the south, and kept on truckin'. There
was not the 'crowd' out there then that is out there now, but
when you're out there, you know *exactly* who's doing the hike
and who's not. (That, it seems, has not changed one iota in 24
years.) And I'll say this much: I did not see *anyone* north of
PA who was not faithful to the task -- the pretenders/partiers
had long since succombed to the cancer of skipping&cheating.
Having diluted the meaning of 'hik*ING the AT', they realized
they'd ruined the ability to say 'I hik*ED the AT' and they quit
the sweaty chirade. (This, perhaps, may have changed -- that the
pretenders have held on longer. The boys and I saw one in the
Whites this year... occasionally... near roads. Another had quit
at Glencliff.)

APOLOGY FOR THE RAMBLE:
1) Flexibility in routefinding predates Shaffer, and postdates
to the PCT, CDT and beyond. Welcome to the mountains.
2) Faithfulness to the task, even "purity" was a topic back in
'79 just as it is today. And them as were *not* faithful stuck
out, then as it seems they do today.
3) If anything has changed over time, perhaps it is the ability
of the pretenders to hang on, to lollygagg through Maine, even
to muster the gumption to climb Katahdin (waiting on a perfect
day) and write the ATC.....

Don't know if that helps...
Sloetoe
GA-->ME'79

### Lastly, to Shane, who wonders why anyone would care, I would
observe this double standard: Shane, you're in a field chockfull
of certifications, alphabet soups, and people who strive for the
value-signaling such things provide. Where do people who claim
knowledge without certification sit in such a world? Where do
pretenders lie? Answer: pond scum. No different with the AT,
just a more select, sweaty crowd.

=====
Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
   Pro Pondera Et Meliora.

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