[pct-l] a good read!

[calinda4@hotmail.com (M. Delmartini)]

Kevin Corcoran wrote about an old National Geographic book about William 
Gray and Sam Abell's hike on the PCT.  I picked up the same book recently at 
the library and have been reading it alternately with various guidebooks.  
Even though guides are informative and even exciting to peruse, one can get 
overwhelmed with the DATA available about the trail; the theories,  the 
tips, the PLANNING of it all.  How delightful to open a book and find an 
account of wholehearted enjoyment, beauty, fatigue, wonder...the drudgery of 
long snow crossings and the exhilaration of high passes...and great photos 
of dirty, smiling hikers!  The more I explore this world of ours, the more I 
realize that I need very little more than the tools of my own 
mind--attitude, confidence, humor--in order to do so.  Somehow, that book 
reminded me of this fact!

I was surprised, on my JMT hike this summer, by how many people I met who 
had committed themselves to walk hundreds of miles and who didn't seem to 
enjoy HIKING at all.  They were very "gung-ho" (what the heck kind of idiom 
is that, anyway?) about their experience, but they cursed the uphills, they 
cursed the downhills, they cursed the mosquitos when they stood still...

Sending my thoughts out into the ether... Who are all you people, anyway? : 
)

Take care, all.

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