JPD Womens Record

imported
#1

Here’s a link to her interview on CBS Early Show this morning. Compliments of “eArThworm”

< http://tinyurl.com/43weos4 >

Lady Di

#2

Too bad I missed this. I was out doing trail work this morning in a group setting, giving something back. No one was there to interview us - we didn’t ask and the media didn’t come. Maybe next year I’ll run the trail with my mattock and McLeod, then call CBS so we can “get some airtime for our cause” and most importantly feel extra special about myself at the same time. Us trail types really dig hanging with the suits and talking heads under fluorescent lights in the big cities, anyhow. So I’m sure it’ll be great and my ego, well after all that who can say whether it’ll finally feel big enough to plug the cavernous whole in my long damaged soul, but all I can do is try.

tiny earl

#3

There are many ways to give back to the AT. Maintaining the trail is one way. Bringing attention to this valuable resource through the national media is another. Odyssa has and will continue to give back to the trail in the way she can most effectively despite the narrow-minded viewpoints held by some trail people. It is too bad that many well-meaning, good-hearted people who want to give back to the trail have only been met with criticism by people who feel that the trail should only be hiked in a certain way and helped in a certain way.

Warren Doyle

#4

While I am in total agreement with your post and take on JPD, Warren, I have to question name calling as an effective means to bring others into a broader understanding of the trail community and how those ideas concerning community might bring to our day-to-day lives. I am not confident that some will put aside their prejudices, ideas of self, etc., so as to join a larger movement, but I think they should still be invited. However, if the direction out society is moving towards is any indication, I am concerned for our future.

John Mattes

#5

Consider this a 3am phone call to well-meaning, good-hearted people who want to give something back to the trail: please stop the narcissistic self promotion and do something truly meaningful with your time.

We understand your predicament. You’re white, suburban, comfortable lifestyle, you went to college, kept a high gpa, became interested in athletics and the great outdoors, and the AT just sort of fell into your lap. The CBS spot might well have been a job interview for you, the AT record your resume. You want to do well financially and make a name for yourself and get ahead of the crowd. That’s your mentality and the trail seems like just the ticket.

But now it’s 3am. Please wake up from this Disneyland world view. That old road is well worn and tired now. The great outdoors needs more than just your fleeting physical presence and the rest of us need more than just your me talk. If you’re going to walk for 16 hours a day for a month and a half then you can at least take maybe an hour to come up with some sort of a conservation message to squeeze into your 2 minutes of prime time television. Talk it like you walk it. If the interviewer is feeding you milquetoast, as most do, then take charge and speak beyond yourself and your accomplishments. Bring us into the fold. Tell us why the AT absolutely needs our support right now. Tell us how the outdoor experience needs to be about stewardship at least as much as recreation, and way more than chest-beating iron man athletics. At the very least, please tell us you did it for more than just the chance to brag about it coyly in front of the national media. How often does the Appalachian Trail make it onto prime time tv? As it was this was nothing but yet another golden opportunity squandered.

cabin joe

#6

I’m pretty sure CBS contacted Jen & Brew, not the other way around. There is only so much one can say in a short interview segment. Jen is an excellent spokesperson for the Appalachian Trail in many ways. Surely, her message is a refreshing change from hearing about Gov. Sanford which generated much more prime-time publicity than her noble accomplishment. The AT endurance record could not be held by a nicer person. Let’s not squander this golden opportunity of an AT human resource.

Warren Doyle

#7

Yeah, I’d have to ask - is it anywhere on record that she approached CBS?

And anyone that wants to give crap about how she might write a book about it…why don’t you go after the crappily-written memoirs that are already out there - Eye On The Horizon, for example, Dreaming The Appalachian Trail for another - and leave this poor lady alone?

The genre - hiking memoirs - needs a swift kick in its Thoreau-wannabee ass as it is. Maybe she’s the one to do it. :cheers

Kineo Kid

#8

I got to believe that if someone has the drive to push themselves like that. Its because of the want to achieve more than the right to brag. The bragging would just be a plus. I didnt thru hike to brag. I did it because of a calling a need an obsesion, but if people do ask me about it today,well yeah,theres a pride involved.

Virginian

#9

I’ll second what Virginian said. You do the trail because of a calling…something from within yourself. The bragging is just icing on the cake. If I could have done what she did (no way that I ever could), I would brag! Heck, I only made it to Vermont on my thru attempt and I STILL brag when people ask me about it! :slight_smile:

I met Odyssa just north of Erwin and spent the night in the shelter with her. You couldn’t ask for a nicer person! Needless to say, I was left in her dust very quickly!

Flying Turtle

#10

On her 2005 hike that is!

Flying Turtle

#11

I feel like there should be a Bob Peoples joke here…

JPD slacks Bob People’s Hard Core team:cheers :cheers

Snoring Sarge