Too much car support

imported
#1

From following a few online journals last year, I picked up on at least 6 groups of hikers being followed by car support along the CDT. This, from my understanding, is a large part of the CDT thru-hiking population. I know it boils down to personal opinion and Hike Your Own Hike, etc…but now I’m hearing about a lot of car support this season too. Doesn’t it take away from the other hiker’s experience to have a lot of car supported hikers around them? Just a thought… Personally I see a big contradiction between thru-hiking, and all the resources burned up and money spent on a supported hike. I say loose the vehicles hikers.

Carless

#2

I agree, I believe as a purist one shouldn’t be calling it a thru hike if there is car support like we see from more and more hikers. I also don’t think leaving the trail to attend functions, go to Disney World etc. is appropriate to qualify as true thru hike. But as with anything people will always find a way to make something easier.

Phillip

#3

I was a purist, in that I tried not to even hitchhike & walked thru alot of towns just like they do in europe; On the other hand, I wasn’t a purist in that I didn’t do every foot of trail, but only a continuous walk from Canada to Mexico. I even did most of my own resupply as I went: Bozeman for MT/WY & Denver for most of the rest. But hey, I did get some car supported water drops & snacks etc… what if the car is a hybrid or solar powered? Perhaps that would be more pure than soiling the wilderness with town visits???

gingerbreadman

#4

The trail continues to exist, and improve as they say, year after year after year. On the other hand there are only so many of the old school style thruhikers, relatively few hikers hike the CDT twice, so eventually we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and in some cases that’s who were seeing out there now. Same phenom as on the AT, Earl Shaffer vs the jerk who started north with 10 other jerks last week, and are spending all their time in towns, shelters, and cars. On the CDT the dumbing down has merely been delayed.

N

#5

Ya! YA MAN! Don’t these people know they should hike their own hikes!! And that we’ll dictate to them exactly how they will do it!! They better not apply for a completion certificate if they don’t follow our exact annotated tax-audit-like instructions on how to hike!!

We purists must unite in our desire for in-duh-viduality on trail!

Who do these people think they are anyways?! How dare they not follow the various guidebooks? Don’t they know past hikers and guidebooks are as sacred as a holy text??!!

:lol

Jason

#6

Old school thru-hikers actually hike.

They do not bitch anonymously about other hikers on the Internet. Because they are, well, hiking. People who do that are called “wannabes”.

:cheers

Old School

#7

Hike your own hike and quit worrying about how others are doing their hike(s).

TwoCan

#8

I totally agree that all hikes should be purely unsupported. That means planting, hunting, or gathering your own food the whole way. It also includes making your shoes and clothing, and completely making them out of homegrown products.

Seriously folks, you really think it’s worse to have a car meet you than it is to walk or hitch into town? You realize that one way or another all of your supplies are brought to you by a fuel-powered vehicle, right?

I’d admire some sort of historical, thoroughly pure hike, but nobody does that. It’s all varying shades of grey. The only black and white out there is whether you actually walk from point A to point B or not. Even “thru” is incredibly vague. So you’re saying it doesn’t count if you leave the trail for a week to go to a wedding? How about if you leave the trail for a week because you have giardia? How about if you leave the trail for 1 day for business vs. leaving the trail 2 months for a sprained ankle? Where you draw the line of “thru” is entirely arbitrary and not pure at all unless you never set foot off the trail and never stop moving your legs for a second.

:cheers

markv

#9

+1 Markv

IMO, we’re talking to omuch and not hiking enough. You do the trail your way and call it what you will, and I’ll do the same. To me, if I get from end to end (on ANY trail) in a single year, it’s a thruhike, no matter how many zero mile days, weeks, or months there are in it. And yes, if there’s a more interesting alternate to the “official” route, I’ll take it. If local authorities close a section of trail that year and there’s no viable hiking alternative around it, I’ll skip it and call it good…it’s still a thruhike.

If it were economically feasible, my wife and I would be very happy to have her meet me at each resupply road crossing and save me the time and effort of hitching into town and back. Face it, SOMEONE is going to be driving, so it might as well be someone with whom I can share a meal and snuggle in town.:wink:

This works on a short hike but is prohibitively expensive for longer treks. The driver has to have something to do locally in between meetings, plus their room and board. Yes, having a camper could solve the last two, but compare the cost of said camper to the cost of motels. There’s no food savings. I suppose she could just bring her quilting and a box of books…

See you on the trail.

:cheers

Wandering Bob

#10

No problem here with somebody picking a more interesting route, but how many of you have chosen a less interesting one for some reason? Like road walking around the San Juans, or the Winds or shortcutting the Bob? How does that provide some sort of superiority to a vehicle supported hiker that carefully sticks to the trail?

Part “B” of “hike your own hike” should be to allow others to do the same without belittling their choices like a fundamentalist preacher.

hedrey

#11

I would sooner read a well written article or two, one for and one against - - it could be on the subject at hand or a thousand others like it, relative and unresolveable - than to endure another forum thread of unexpansive soundbite opinions that neither enlighten nor entertain, but only leave us in the peanut gallery to dumbly watch or, scratch the morbid impulse, to add our very own drivel to the pile. And so I have.

blisterfree

#12

HYOH:)

Bubblegum

#13

Holy pontification a few posts above mine here! Wow! Any room left in the backpack after that?

:eek:

And Bubblegum, HYOH? NO! Everyone knows that a thru-hike has more rules and regulations than the US Tax Code! You. Must. Comply.

Remember, we all go on long hikes to be free of the everyday grind. To be free of speed limit signs, of no right turn on red signs. So off we go to the trails (or to the internet forums) to dictate to others how they will hike.

Oh wait, umm, err. Uhhh.

I have a certificate! A permit!! I’m in the club darn it! The Shady Acres Golf and Hiking Club! It’s exclusive, I have the t-shirt!!! Everyone else in the club has the same t-shirt, so we must be right. We’re uniformed in-duh-viduals.

ps. car support is awesome!

Jason

#14

Really!? There is no such thing as a purist on the CDT.

Hikertrash

#15

There was a purist thru hiker on the Cdt, but it wasn’t grandma gatewood. Legend has it 1 or more Blackfoot Natives travelled S from Glacier National Park area til he saw shiny helmetted Conquistadors in the South somewhere & flipflopped quickly back up to BF territory… although they probably followed rivers like the Rio Grande instead of sticking to the high mtns.

gingerbreadman

#16

Followed rivers? Well, that’s blue-blazing. Sorry, try again.

markv

#17

No doubt some of you so-called thru hikers have followed the Rio Grande and returned home to tell your friends that you did the CDT. Not that anybody really cares but it’s good practice. By time you have grandchildren you’ll be able to look them in the eye and repeat the same sorry story.

Maybe you should cut back on the medications.

blinky

#18

Actually, I’d be pretty impressed with someone who followed the Rio Grande from its source in the San Juans to the Gulf.

All the high mountains, deep gorges, national park and rec areas, and of course the varied terrain would make an awesome trip report!

:cheers

Welcome to Rio

#19

Probably in a kayak or raft, though!

gingerbreadman

#20

. . . is such that I don’t actually bother to recognize the term as having any particular meaning. Because the word “purist” suggests one end of a spectrum, when in reality whatever you define as your version of purism can be trumped by someone else with even more ridiculous notions of how everyone else’s hike is less meaningful than theirs.

So one person’s notion of purism involves no car support? Fine. Someone else doesn’t consider them a purist because they hitch instead of walking into every town. And someone else doesn’t consider that person a purist because when they get back to the trail they start up again from the other side of the road.

Ultimately, all a declaration of purism means is that someone has defined the way they hike in a manner that makes them feel superior to others.

On the CDT I guess it’s car support that people want to go on about. On the PCT it’s water caches. On the AT it’s trail magic and blue blazing. Whatever. I don’t care about what anyone else does, as long as they’re honest about it and I’m not forced to take part.

But I tell you what – I hope to hike the CDT in 2012, and I can’t wait until 2022, when I can go on and on about how my hike was harder and more of a thru-hike than what people are doing then. That’ll be awesome.

Jester