[at-l] Developing mental toughness for LD hiking

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

Ginny here -

You ask what does it take to be a successful thruhiker?

Jim wrote a lot about attitude in the thruhiking papers:
http://spiriteaglehome.com/THP%20top.html and/or
http://spiriteaglehome.com/cdt%20thruhiker.html

My short version - to be successful takes stubbornness (you either have it 
or you don't), commitment (again, you either have it or you don't) and, to 
some extent, love - do you really love the lifestyle enough to pay the 
price?  For some, long distance hiking is easy.  For some, the cost may be 
high.  For those of us who love the life, we are happy to pay the price - 
whatever that may be, physically, financially, emotionally.  Somewhere along 
the way I learned about 'fire in the belly' - meaning, how badly do you want 
the thruhike?  If you have it, you will keep going, regardless of how 
difficult it is.  If you don't, you will take any excuse that offers to 
leave. So, do you really really want to do a long distance hike?  If so, you 
should be fine.

When we hiked the CDt our partner told us, "If it were a question of 
physical strength and ability, I would have no problem making it to Mexico, 
but I'm not so sure of you.  But I know that isn't the question.  You have 
the fire in the belly and I don't."  And sure enough, despite a lot of 
physical problems, we made it to Mexico and he got off in Wyoming.

It isn't mental toughness. We never lost our love of the trail life. We 
always wanted to see what was around the next bend.  So we were stubborn 
enough to ignore the physical problems we had and kept going.

Ginny
>
>at 2174 apptrail2174 at yahoo.com
>
>Hello, all- I'm a wanna-be LD hiker, and at-l reader.
>I am interested in learning about developing the
>psychological traits that can increase long distance
>hiking success.
>
>I'm not at all interested in religous philosophies, or
>methods/philosophies that are "made from whole cloth",
>that is, somebody dreamt it up and there's no
>substantial foundation to it other than one person's
>belief.
>
>Any suggestions for me? Thanks!
>
>James W. Jones
>
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>
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>
>http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/
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>