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[at-l] What are YOU doing to prepare? was AT may be too tough
Note: When I responded to the thread about Earl Shaffer's comments
about the trail being too tough, Alison responded to me privately,
relaying/restating her fears about our own proposed throughhike. Just
before Thanksgiving, I responded to her with the following
exasporated, exhorting reply to her continued pessimism. We talked at
home that night, and she said "Thanks for your email. You said a lot
of good stuff for me to think about. You were very
thoughtful...convincing."
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Subject: What are YOU doing to prepare? was AT may be too tough
Author: Thomas McGinnis at UCCLAN
Date: 11/20/98 11:02 AM
I think your comments are on target and I appreciate your willingness to at
least give Shaffer some benefit of the doubt.
Why? Or maybe why shouldn't I? What are you getting at?
I do worry that if He found the
trail that difficult
So difficult that he COMPLETED IT, in FIVE months? At EIGHTY
years of age? Have a little perspective.
if 6 year olds should be expected to transverse such
difficult terrain.
WHOSE six year olds? Ours?! The kids who shortly after their
fourth birthday climbed Mt. Sterling with nary a prob? (Now
THERE'S a climb with an astounding lack of switchbacks! An
unmitigated forty-seven hundred foot, five point two mile
straight climb. I don't think there's such a thing on the whole
of the AT, for Chrissake.) Our kids, who at barely four and a
half, climbed Max Patch, Walnut Mtn, and Bluff Mtn, all in less
than 24 hours? Only to go bouldering on top of Bluff? Were you
ON that trip?
Understand this: Cole and Connor were not as fast as you or I on
our last trip, but they hiked us into the ground. INTO THE
GROUND! At FOUR years of age, not SIX. They are perfectly able
to enjoyably hike the entirety of the AT right now. That's not
debatable -- they've already shown it on that last 5 day trip.
The AT in many ways is nothing more than repeated 5 day trips
just like that one, AND THAT'S WHY I PLANNED IT THAT WAY. No
accident. Every one of our trips with the boys, as you MUST be
aware, has been an exercise, to drill on methods and techniques
and operations necessary to COMFORTABLY complete a throughhike.
Each one has built on the one before, "doing" just a little bit
more. Just like our little "night hike/cold weather overnight"
two weeks ago. Not perfect, no, but definitely successful and
EASILY improveable. Didn't you point out how much warmer the
kids would have been if we'd packed ourselves first, and then
them? Etc., Etc, Etc. A good tripie considering we just threw
things into the car -- and that's how we learn. So ask yourself:
How much easier would the "cold" mornings be if we'd done three
or four in a row?
I have been very worried that we will encounter trail that is so difficult that
we, never mind the kids, will not be able to get across.
(Doing my best Ronnie Reagan:) "There you go again!" You had ONE
bad experience trail-wise, full of PMS and bad vision (and no
ibuprofen) and you absolutely REFUSE to grant yourself (and now
your kids too) the respect for already proven skills and already
demonstrated accomplishments. Again, it was no accident that the
kids did Davenport to Hot Springs: Forest Service trails! Real
A.T.! And you! This focus on the second day of Franconia Ridge
is WAY old, and you are overdue to GET OVER IT. Your first day
up, MAKING THE DAMN RIDGE, was without complaint. Hell! Let's
climb the rest of the way to Lafayette's summit! The third day,
going over South Twin (boy, there's a bitch of a climb, too) and
on to Zealand Falls, was where you took you pregnancy "power
picture," that was pretty enjoyable, too -- but you refuse to
remember. Then there was the little "stroll" up Mt Somebody
(Webster?) to have lunch at the cliff, where with only a FEW
DAYS in the mountains we motored past EVERYONE like we were
mountian goats. And Mt Clinton/Mispah Spring Hut, in a day,
CLEARING TREELINE with rime ice growing on every northern face.
UP AND DOWN in a single day. So out of how many excellent days
in those TOUGH mountains, you remember only ONE. WHY? Then let's
think about Hell Brook, which you never DREAMED of whining
about, but which I still rank as the toughest hike I have ever
done anywhere at any time. And think again of our kids. After
seeing them (when their head is in it) burning around on Turkey
Run rocks, do you really think Hell Brook would do them in? I
don't THINK SO. And just to remind you about your stroll through
Georgia: most people remember Georgia as one of the toughest
states on the whole AT. Davenport GAp to Hot Springs is tougher.
Do the math.
Hiking the AT is not just a walk in the woods. It DOES require some skill and
level of physical fitness ? levels of skill and fitness I am not sure 6 year
olds are capable of having.
Again, whose six year olds? OURS have been in training for
years, and have ALREADY shown themselves perfectly capable of
starting a throughhike RIGHT NOW. And we still have Seventeen
Months and counting. THEY are ready NOW, and still have a year
and a half to grow, learn, and practice. DO the Math.
Connor and Cole are already ready. Whether YOU like it or not.
YOU are already ready. Whether you like it or not. And whether
you like it or not, you are already quite an experienced and
accomplished hiker -- certainly with buckets more experience and
trail wisdom than NINETY PERCENT of SUCCESSFUL throughhikers.
Why do you insist on having to be told these things again and
again and again? Do you need the praise that much? It's very
draining at this end, but I think you refuse to believe ME.
When I did the trail, I was trying to hike to Katahdin in one
hike, without breaks, buying/resupplying this ONE HIKE along the
way. It took me hundreds of miles to learn that I wasn't going
to Katahdin overnight, but instead to "some place north of
here." Hundreds of miles to pick through equipment/technique to
find that the only thing that mattered was eating and a good
night's sleep: if I kept my feet aimed north, ate and slept
soundly, then everything else would take care of itself. I was
overtaken by worry for months and hundreds of miles, but worked
and worked and worked to improve, and bit by bit I did. And by
the time I left Deleware Water Gap -- twelve hundred and fifty
miles up and 4 weeks behind schedule -- I was confident that I
had a formula and could not only progress, but could MAKE UP
time, as well. The knowledge of throughikerness.
I put that knowledge into action when I hit Connecticut and had
a wild ride north for the last 750 miles -- THAT WAS a Walk in
the Woods. I WAS "one with Nature." I WASN'T satisfied with how
tough the trail was, but yearned for wild weather to hike over
bare summits and howl at the wind. I had a ball. And I HID from
towns, counting it a victory when I could get in and out in less
than half a day, and actually did NOT live to get into town and
ACYE myself to death -- I enjoyed food, certainly, but I was
eating too well ON THE TRAIL to obsess over food once in town.
(This meant, too, that the food available in towns WAS truly
enjoyed, not merely consumed to meet minimum happiness
requirements....)
Anyway, I propose (to myself, since there seems no other
audience) to START You, Me, Connor and Cole on the AT in 2000 as
close to throughhikerness as I can manage. And I am MORE than
pleased with "where we are" in that respect -- maybe you should
know that I didn't expect us to be this far along in
preparations (Do you yet realize that that's what has been going
on?) until NEXT fall: the fall BEFORE the hike. As far as I'm
concerned, we're a year ahead of schedule, and this is why I
PROPOSED an ocean vacation for Summer '99 before we'd left HOT
SPRINGS this year.
There is a message here, and you really need to get it. When we
do the trail, it will be hard, sure, and I don't want to
minimize that at all. But you need to know that we will start
the trail more ready than perhaps any four people ever have
before. I am going to make the most of this, bring ALL of MY
experience to bear, to put us in the position of ENJOYING our
Walk in the Woods from the get-go, and not after hundreds and
hundreds of miles or weeks and weeks of merely endured toiling.
And it will be FANTASTIC! I KNOW it will be even better -- for
all four of us as individual persons and for us four AS A FAMILY
-- than I can conceive of right now. I know it. I have faith.
And I have made a committment to you and to Connor and to Cole
to get you out there prepared, and to experience a rainy morning
in the woods as a joyous thing. To know the outrageous prideful
feeling of knowing how a mountain range is composed by virtue of
having walked it's entire length since breakfast. To come upon
hardship and recognize its impermanence. And to prepare in
plenty and remain grateful. And of course, to know the entire
Eastern Seaboard of the United States intimately, and at a
young, young age.
The kids are ready now.
You are ready now.
I am ready now.
All's left is refinement of method and an exploration of how not
to waste all the spare time and energy which we'll have by virtue
of our excellent and comprehensive preparations. I want to get a
mailing together (next fall, closer to departure time) to all the
Post Masters with a self-addressed post card asking them to
return the card with a map drawn to depict the relative location
of the nearest library to the trail crossing and the Post Office
itself. I want to develop curricula so that our botany, zoology,
geology, history, sociology, transportation (geography),
engineering/physics/mathematics, astronomy, and even trip
planning/logistics discussions with Connor and Cole are NOT
accidental and ARE goal-driven. I think that could take up much
of the next year, easily. And what about you? I read two Herman
Hesse, two Richard Addams, and most of three Carlos Casteneda
books on the AT. All were accidental (left in leantos, etc., some
one piece at a time); I'd like to plan better for myself this
time, and maybe read mostly philosophy. We'll see. But I know
better this time, to plan for it (or at least project it and to
take better advantage of it when the time comes....) What are you
doing to take advantage? To make the most? To contribute?
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