The Initiative…12,500 miles, one year, will he do it?

Injuries at the start of a thru-hike are extremely common. They often end hikes. Sometimes it's the physical damage, sometimes it's the damage to morale. If nothing else, Samuel is still out there.

Injuries like this are usually the result of people pushing beyond their current physical fitness levels. It often happens to even experienced hikers. They may start out trying to crank out big miles like they are accustomed to doing, and find that they aren't yet in trail shape. It sometimes results in seriously trashed feet, for example. It's even more likely to happen to people without long distance hiking experience. They don't know what they are capable of and it's human nature to want to prove that they can do it. That sometimes results in significant injuries that can take days, weeks or months to heal.

Unfortunately, Sam was trying to do world class mileage and he wasn't in shape yet, and now it's costing him. He can't undo that, but it can serve as a lesson for the rest of us, and for Sam in the future.

Most thru-hikes allow the luxury of doing reduced mileage for the first month or so. Regardless, it's wise to listen to our bodies to prevent injury. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Two months and he's still in the first state of the first trail? Game over, enjoy the hike but know theres no way he's doing all four trails in one year. But even if it takes the rest of his life, its more hiking than a lot of us would get to experience.

"Like the fanciful drawings of a bunch of tiny humans with stone-tipped spears trying to bring down a huge woolly mammoth."

Not sure what you are implying, but mammoth (along their forest dwelling cousins, mastodons) remains have been found with human-crafted weapon points embedded in the remains. Would a band of cro-magnons taking down a mammoth be considered an easy task? Not at all. But not impossible either.

Len has hardly obsessed over the details of Gardner's hike. I don't think he feels a need. Like most experienced hikers, he looked at the resume that Gardner himself provided and didn't see anything there that made the guy sound ready for an AT section hike, much less a 12,500-mile one-year mega-trek that would include a winter traverse of the NCT.

Gardner actually got very upset that anybody had the temerity to criticize him. In the cheaptents.com interview he actually identifies critics as his biggest problem. Far from it. But some of the gullible people who have digested Gardner's motivational-speech pablum seem to also have a problem with anybody who applies any kind of realistic analyses to what Gardner has said and done up to the present.

Len has made no mention of it appearing that Gardner has some lofty goals above and beyond just enjoying the publicity generated by his would-be mega-trek. But Ted Alvarez at Backpacking Magazine had no trouble identifying Gardner's ambition, writing about theinitiativesite.com: "there's enough "overcoming adversity" and "achieve your dreams" talk on his site that I wouldn't be surprised to see a book in a few years, or at least a speaking career."

Note that Gardner incorporated The Initiative. Also note that it's a for-profit corporation.

Here's an interesting video about The Initiative. It features Sam and his brother Calvin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmUoFaWlBO0

Sorry, but I can't stand people who employ empty, portentous phrases like "people who make the conscious decision…" This is as opposed to people who, what, make decisions in their sleep? I dare anybody to watch this whole video and try to tell me that Sam and his brother aren't out to launch some kind of motivational-speaking project or other such similar undertaking.

Calvin: "We want to give back to the community. We want to give back to everything that's helped us to get to where we are today." Meaning? Calvin's profession appears to be website designer. He used the same template for theinitiativesite.com as for this bike shop in Houghton, MI:

http://downwindsports.com/mainSite/

After taking five years to get an undergraduate degree from a local school, Samuel H. Gardner took a job as a heavy-machinery operator. He then quit (or alternately was laid-off from) this job because it "pained him to see people struggling for mere dollars." Meanwhile, Sam puts up a promotional site for his hike where he asks the hiking gear manufacturers and the general public to kick in, for the financing and completion of the hike, "mere dollars," $25,992 of them.

Gardner was challenged on WB about his lack of hiking experience and responded (through a post from his pal/webmaster/spokesperson Matt Abbotts) that he and Matt have regularly engaged in "weekend and weeklong hikes averaging over 40 miles per day" and that wolf tracking was the equivalent of long-distance trekking. Also from the promo site: living in a snow cave gave Sam "a glimpse into just how tough he could be."

Upon starting his hike, Gardner instantly proved that all of his claims were groundless. People may not be happy with that truth, but don't take it out on Len just for pointing it out and not trying to cover up Gardner's failure with happy talk.

I believe what William was referring to was not that Len is critiquing Sam's trip, but that, as of right now, Len's only contributions to the entire BPL forums have been to critique Sam's trip. If you click on someone's name in the forums, it shows a list of all their posts. Len's shows only nine posts right now, all relating to The Initiative.

The reason I hang out at the BPL forums (mostly lurking these days, but still) is that people seem to have a genuine interest in backpacking, and not as much in trolling. If Len had any other posts here besides on threads related to Sam, I wouldn't see anything wrong with his criticism. As it is, I do see a singular focus.

I've been watching this thread despite the fact that I've stopped watching the hike itself. I agree with the criticisms in general. I just don't like when people join a community like this one in order to take one person down.

"Two months and he's still in the first state of the first trail? Game over, enjoy the hike but know theres no way he's doing all four trails in one year. But even if it takes the rest of his life, its more hiking than a lot of us would get to experience."

Yes. Even his 18month time frame is in danger unless he picks it up. I can see this, though. Some times on a long hike, things don't go the best they could. First his feet and ankle, now his hip. He needs to stay put for a couple days. Then ease into it, again. 10, 12, 15, 20 miles per day. Now that the worst of the worst of the winter weather is past, he can make time. He is very discouraged, though. He can avoid the worst of the winters hiking with careful planning and rerouting.

I don't really care about whatever business he intends to operate after the hike. Nor his self aggrandizement. He is young, this stuff is allowed. Few of us can say that we have never indulged ourselves that way. He will learn as he goes. Or this hike will break him and he will never through hike again. He must get through this last hip injury and stop feeling bad about himself and the things he gave up to do this hike. After two months, now the mental pressure is on him. The entire trip requires a different outlook.

I still follow Sam's journal everyday but not from a hiking perspective, that is frankly uninteresting. But there is a drama playing out that is interesting. I have read many trail journals of folks that have stopped hiking the PCT and we have been seeing similiar elements playing out with Sam. It appears that he is looking for a graceful way out and I fully expect that to happen any day.

If this happens many will call it a failure and they will be right only if Sam fails to learn some important lessons which I think is unlikely. The part that I am interested in is whether his "dream" of the Initiative is still alive and will he regroup, do the proper preparation and do some variation in the future. Then this experience would be a success.

+1 to Ryans's Post

yes, +1 more to Ryan's post.

While it might have been just a coincidence that White Blaze chose to lock all Gardner-related threads at the same time that Gardner cut off all new comments to his promotional site and erased all existing comments, it created an air of censorship around a subject that had previously been widely discussed.

All that attention is what Gardner wanted, at least in the money-gathering phase of the project. Perhaps Len felt it was a little too convenient that as soon as things (predictably) began to go badly on Gardner's trek, there were multiple efforts to make the hike invisible.

It's hardly surprising that he wanted to express his views on the subject. With WB having outlawed the topic, BPL is about the last place somebody can express their views to fellow hikers.

As I understand a troll to be an individual who takes a position purely for the controversy it will engender, then it's not fitting to imply that Len has engaged in that behavior. If anybody thinks he posted anything inaccurate about Gardner, I'd love to hear about it. Thus far, from what I have seen and heard of Gardner's words and deeds, Len's observations re the All-In Trek have been reasoned, accurate, and coming from a place of hiking experience. It's hardly fair to characterize him as somebody simply trying to stir up controversy.

If his all of his comments (choice ones synthesized below) are "reasoned, accurate, and coming from a place of hiking experience" then I'd hate to see Len get unreasonable!

"He is an unabashed attention seeker and braggart with absolutely no sense of humility, very immature for a 25 year old, pretty arrogant about his ability to pull this off; it's all about fancy websites, promotion, donations and talk, a bunch of BS hype, foolish, pompous crap and preposterous BS. Kinda makes him look like a jerk, overly impressed with his own limited abilities, with arrogance and total disregard for humility regarding his abilities."

I think we all get the concept that he got too big for his britches, posted too much about his grand plans, and isn't able to follow up on them too well, just as all of us figured it would go. Hey he's young, maybe that's excuse enough. We all make mistakes.

What sits more poorly with me are folks who get closed out of the flame war at WB and feel the need to "join" the community (i.e. only posts on BPL are negative ones about this one topic) here to keep their vitriol going. Reasoned comments about his trip and failures and plans and whatnot are cool… going off repeatedly (as above) makes me question why individuals are so intent bringing this one guy down.

p.s. Iver, are you a pen name for Len, or a friend of his?

He needs to heal his hip.

He's off the trail as of today until his hip is healed. He might as well give it up. He just hasn't been putting in enough miles to be able to do this "trek" in under two years. I know it's easy for me to say from home but this just didn't look good from the start for some reason I continued to follow it? Time to stop all it does is make me wonder what he thinks he is doing.

I hope Sam returns to his hike – not because I believe he will finish all four trails – but because I think the experience of perservering through difficult times is one of the greatest rewards of long-distance hiking. It's hard enough being sidelined for a few days on a long hike, I can't imagine how difficult it will be for Sam to return after indefinite rest and recovery at home. Maybe take down the website and just enjoy himself?

Yeah, he tried and failed. I won't get long winded and try to second guess his mistakes. These were already pointed out. But, after two months of slugging it out with the winters in NY and pushing through the snows we get, I don't blame him. With the most minor injury things get down right annoying. With the tendonitis in a walking joint carrying extra weight and snowshoeing? I would quit, too! He says two months to heal. It will take him 1-2 mos to get back in shape to do it again. He will loose a third of a year before he gets back, if he so decides. I think he will be driven to try again. He DID defeat the worst of the winter weather with the help of trail angels. He would have given up a long time ago without their help. Yup, one chapter is closed.

He has two wounds, his hip and his pride both will take time to heal. I for one hopes you doesn't abandon the original dream. It would be great if he healed, really trained, modified his plan and gave the original goal a try. I know there has been debate if the "All-In" Trek in a year is possible, I think it would be cool to have a serious attempt to see if it could be done. And with a little less fanfare. Hope his hip heals and he does something cool with what he learned.

Greg, you called it. Yes, two wounds. I too hope he has learned enough, and, be stubborn enough to keep on hikin'.

With 12,499 miles left in his trek and from the horse's mouth, "…call this a failed attempt… If anyone knows of an available job prosect- please shoot me an email at samuel@theinitiativesite.com."

C'mon someone has to have a lead for him.

I just have a bad taste for all the hype made by Sam and where he is at now.

He can have my old job at the peanut butter factory if he likes. As for me, I quit and now live out of my backpack, not dissimilar to what Sam was up to, but I decided to be smart and go somewhere warm. *wink wink*

And yesterday I picked up a nice little old ten-speed, so now I can distribute my home between the backpack and the bike rack. It's the life, I tell ya.

I wasn't trying to "create controversy". I certainly didn't need to. Sam intentionally created all the controversy with his promotional campaign in order to draw attention to himself, one goal he certainly succeeded at. I realize my opinions were unpopular, but they are what I believed to be the truth. I wasn't trying to be popular, and obviously I succeeded at that ;-). But I am somewhat amused that he has stated in his last journal post that, "Alright here is the new plan . . . I am going to call this a failed attempt and move on . . . second attempt next January 1, 2012. Same start location, same plan."

Same plan? You all are experienced hikers. You all know this plan is not viable. "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results", isn't the definition of initiative – it's the definition of insanity (thanks Al).

I also hope he keeps hiking, but with a lot less self-promotional hype and fanfare and a more realistic plan and time frame.

/the end

your work here is done, len.

have fun back at FlameBlaze.

Eh, with some serious gear revisions (as in: dop the packweight as low as possible) and some real pre-attempt training I don't see why it's not a possibility. Very much a challenge, yes, but hopefully he has a better idea of the scope of that challenge by now.

Starting the attempt this coming January, though… I don't know about that. First of all, he'll need a few months to fully heal this hip problem, and then he'll need at least several more months to get into serious condition for the trip, and there's always the unpredictable factor of training injuries. On top of that, I really do think he'd be better off considering switching up the trip timing, maybe jumping from section to section of the various trails in order to spend less time in deep snow. Trying for all four trails in 365 days is crazy enough as it is; hiking a large portion of them in the most challenging conditions the year offers doesn't make much sense to me when trying to be the "first" to achieve a feat. Once it's been established that it can be done, then it makes sense to up the ante with things like intentional bad-weather timing.