I’m curious what this year’s crop of hikers has to say about their post-hike experience. What was it like when your hike ended? What did you end up doing? Rough re-entry? Easy? Anything different now?
I’m surprised how few people write on trail journals after they finish. I’m left wondering what happened next.
Piper
Take a gander if you want:
http://www.pmags.com/joomla/index.php/Outdoor-Writings/post-trail.html
Paul Mags
I’ve read your page before, Paul, and I appreciate greatly what you have written. I love how you sum it up:
"I’ll repeat what a former girlfriend once told me: “The outdoors for you is not a hobby, it is a lifestyle”. She’s right. But more importantly, my outdoor TRAVELS are a lifestyle for me. A lifestyle I am finding difficult to give up; a yearning that never goes away.
Even if I am not on the trail, or planning to be on long journey, the urge to get out there never goes away. Day hikes are nice, overnighters are fantastic…but nothing replaces the sheer joy and bliss of being on a journey. The simple act of putting one foot in front of another. Getting from Point A to Point B under my own power. Living out of my pack. Having the country all round me and being discovered one step at a time.
Once a bum. Always a bum."
I am curious about my fellow travelers, especially the ones I met. I understand Cuddles is happily snarfing Indian take-out on his La-Z-Boy. Some other friends of mine went back to work immediately and never had a chance to process their hike. They say it’s like it went into a special compartment and feels almost like it never happened. I’m curious about other people I met out there. Where are they now?
Piper
Re-entry sucks. It’s hard to describe, hard to write about. It’s just that no matter how much worthwhile stuff one has waiting for them after the hike is over, one’s still used to having one very clear all-consuming purpose for the past several months. Now that purpose is gone.
I can even look at it and realize objectively that the PCT was an arbitrary and not especially important purpose. What i’m doing now instead means more to me for my life, and it means more to other people. Yet all the same, the rewards aren’t as clear, the direction hard to grasp…non-hiking life is more CONVOLUTED. The PCT was much easier to make sense of. Wake up, get warm, walk, eat, drink, find the next water, the next camp, go north, get to Canada.
I can’t seem to get myself inspired and motivated to tackle anything more complicated than the PCT. It’s just too much. I honestly think i’d rather just go back out and keep walking instead. Weird, huh?
-Cuddles
p.s. Hi Piper!
markv
Hey Cuddles. I understand. Do you wake up every day quitting life instead now?
~Piper Quitting Life
Piper