As the AT Hiking seasons gets into high gear for 2004, the list of this years “Failures” is already starting to grow. I want to make a “Failure Matrix” or List of Why the hike failed. I would guess this may become a list of 8 to 10 primary reasons or indicators that a hike is in danger. I would hope that a future Thru-Hiker could take a self-test to see how many “Indicators” they may have for a Hike Fail. What would you suggest for a Reason or Indicator to inculde on the list.
gardenville
Woah!!! Call this list something different. “Failure” is the wrong word. People leave the trail for many different reasons, and “failure” creates a negative picture.
There is a difference between “quitting” the trail (you chose to leave) and “getting off” the trail (you’d like to be on the trail, but something caused you to leave—injury, out of money, family needs at home, etc). Grouping everyone who leaves the trail as “failures” is not fair.
yogi
I guess that the majority of hikers are failures if you go by that definition. As a section hiker, I’m a “failure” 10 -15 times a year. If only I had known before…
billygoatbritt
Take your emotional reflex responce out of the question. An AT Thru-Hike is a Successful venture or a Failed venture. Calling it something else may just be what a persons ego requires them to do. This is a Black/White - Guilty/Innocent - Succeed/Fail question. Then the “WHY.”
gardenville
Gardenville,I cannot imagine one Hiker standing on top of Springer right now, with failure on his or her mind.My answer to your emotional reflex response is,get rid of the NEGATIVES.Glad to see, I’m not the only one that feels the same way.
Bill Harris
Yuck, not a good word. heck, you win if you tried and the knowledge gained gives you a better chance next time. We take WAY too much of our " real world" ideas out into the woods. Yogi hit it on the head… there are too many reasons to go thru about why folks get off the trail. Sometimes they just realise it isn’t what they wanted to do in the first place. A failure is when you don’t learn anything…I have yet to meet anyone that hasn’t on any long hike. Sometimes they don’t realise it till they get home. Until someone has been out and tried to do a thru hike I am not sure they should be using that word… failure,and only for their own adventure if they choose to.
yappy
To Applesause, This is the type answer I am looking for. Bad Knees? Why does this happen? Walking style going up or down hills? Trekking Poles (yes/no)? Type of foot gear? Weight of pack? What you were eating? Could a little warm up excerise helped before starting out for the day? A slower hiking pace?
This is not directed to you Applesause. Sometimes we just want to go home and it is easier to have something to blame. Something unrelated to the knees and the knees got the blame?
gardenville
This sounds an awful lot like someone’s attempt to come up with a topic for a thesis, dissertation or publication. Hiking the trail is about intentions, goals, dreams, challenges, and achievement (defined in any number of ways). The reasons for leaving the trail are many, and not necessarily due to failure.
Mama Starbuck
The word “failure” is not just offensive, gardenville, it’s usually inaccurate on a per case basis. While some people may see the trail as a quest for a result, like you imply, I believe most people see it as a success in experience regardless of the end result. The fact is, its a personal perspective. When I hiked the AT, I was always thinking, “let’s see how far I can get”. I honestly forgot about the big K.
I think a reason or indicator for your list could be "they thought the trail was a win/lose, black/white, succeed/fail conquest -big mistake".
Tha Wookie
Suppose someone has only a limited amount of time to hike the AT (say only 2 or 3 months instead of 6), and knows that they won’t finish the entire AT, is their hike a failure? What’s the point of creating a list of ‘indicators’ anyways?? If I’m hiking and see that I’m experiencing some of these indicators, how am I (or anyone else) to interpret that? You seem to be looking for black and white definitive reasons and I don’t think that’s always the case.
kevinc
Ed Kuni (I think I spelled it right) attempted a thru-hike back in the 70’s. He was a retired postmaster or the like, well into his 50’s, and hiked an average of 17 miles per day, and is one of the only through-hikers I ever heard of (in print, anyway) who NEVER spent a night indoors, prefering shelters exclusively.
So anyway, about the time he gets to Vermont, with all systems running, there comes news of a great hurricane that has come up the east coast. It brought such severe rainfall, that - I forget all the technical schematics - his house wound up under 10 feet of water. Fearing for his family’s safety, he left the trail.
So does that make him a failure?
Before you answer yes or no, you must first hear, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.
The very next year, Kuni not only started back at Springer and finished that year at on Katahdin, he then turned around and walked back to Vermont, finishing the trail he’d not completed the year before. He was then offically recognized by the ATC as the first to thru-hike the trail twice in consecutive years (did I get that right?), thereby paving the way for the Baltimore Jack’s of the world.
Kineo Kid
This just sounds like a person trying to stir it up on the message board.
Among other things, I had strep throat, a pulled IT band, and a concussion that turned my 2003 thru-hike attempt into a section hike. Of course, I guess there were other things wrong, and that concussion at the end was just an excuse to get off the trail. The dizziness, lethargy, lack of coordination - - that was all probably just in my head.
Seriously, what are you trying to do here?
bearbait
I think it would be reasonable to classify the “premature end of a planned hike” in one of two broad categories: 1. Hikes volutarily ended by the hiker with no intention of returning to complete the planned hike, and 2. Hikes ended due to external circumstances beyond the hiker’s control that necessitated leaving the trail, but with the intention of returning to finish. This could include family issues, hurricanes, etc but could also involve physical injuries that prevent the hiker from continuing. Knowing most of the posters on this forum, I think most would say those who drop off early on the thru hike are mostly in the first category ( it wasnt what they expected / dont want to continue) versus those who make it much further only to be forced to leave for one reason or another.
Cutman11
I agree with what Yogi said, and with what Yappy said “A failure is when you don’t learn anything.” When I was planning my AT hike last year, I thought the only way I could fail was if I never tried. On the trail, I felt EVERYONE on the AT was a successful person, whether thruhiker, section-hiker, or dayhiker. They wanted to hike on the AT, and they were. That’s success.
I’m not going to call a 70-year-old hiker who’s on his third AT thruhike attempt a failure because he’d tried twice before and didn’t make it. To me he/she is a hero! BTW, I knew two such hikers last year, and they both made it to Katahdin. Had they left the trail before reaching Katahdin, I wouldn’t have thought less of them. Still heroes to me!
Going back to your original idea, Gardenville, you’d need to consider pre-hike expectations too. Some say they are thruhiking, when they actually have time constraints, or don’t really plan on hiking the whole thing. Reasons for attempting a thruhike are as important as the reasons for leaving the trail. I’d guess the real reasons for leaving the trail are as varied as the reasons for hiking it in the first place.
Wench
Wench
In 2000 by columbus day weekend I was near Surgarloaf mt in Maine. It had been raining for three days and now was turning to snow. I decided to take the old AT to the top of Surgarloaf and head down the ski trails to town. I made it to Stratton and stayed at the white wolf. Local weather was reporting a foot of snow the next day and Baxter was closing early and not allowing any hikers to go up Katahdin. I never made it that year and finished in 01.
My goal in 2000 was to thru hike the AT. I didnt, the word maybe negative but, I failed to accomplish my goal, for what ever reasons. If I hadnt taken so many zeros maybe I would have been to Baxter earlier, If I hadny carried a 45 lb pack 1900 miles, I could have hiked further and faster.
Chef