Hiking Through Hyperbole: The Vortex of Fear

Great read and really enjoyed your writing, which gives a good sense of what it was like to be there.

Hope that you will be able to write more about this amazing adventure….what you have written so far just leaves me hanging and wanting to know more!

-Tony

'Nothing back home in Maine can remotely compare to driving in San Diego, which I can only describe as the scariest driving conditions I’ve ever been in, even including Boston.'

LOL, That's just…well, sounds like fear-mongering and hype to me. I grew up in the mid-west, but I live in San Diego now, I can't see where driving here is any worse than driving in any other big city. But maybe I've developed the skill set to deal with it.

I just find this 'Look at me, I'm smarter than the herd' attitude a little irritating.

Skill also comes into play when the trail is under snow. Ask yourself, do you have the skills? It was a smart move for the author team up with others, so as to ensure a safe passage on difficult terrain, given his self-admitted rusty skills. Teaming up is how a lot of people got through that area last year. If an unprepared hiker blithely marches off thinking 'Don't believe the hype, it'll be easy.', bad things could happen. (Am I fear-mongering?) If you have any doubts, go see for yourself, but be prepared to bail if you're in over your head.

There is usually a grain of truth behind the things that people get concerned about on the PCT. Yes, things get overblown, and what may have been valid at one point in time likely isn't valid a few weeks later, snow-wise. One has to has to try to distill the facts from the fiction, and decide whether they have skills to manage the challenge, or not. In the end, I think it's better that people overestimate difficulties than underestimate and end up screwed.

I find it interesting that the author elected to skip the last half of the hike above Idyllwild, so he 'could get on with hiking' or something to that effect. I assume he didn't apply the same logic to the several hundred miles of snow hiking that remained ahead.

I hiked above Idyllwild in 2008 and 2009, and explored part of that area in 2010. There was essentially no snow to deal with in the first week of May the first two years. Last year at the end of May, it was still all about route-finding. People who hiked the PCT in 2010 faced a lot more snow challenge than the average. Hats off to the 2010 hikers who dealt with that!

John, I was a little chilly on some nights with just the thermawrap, railriders, and silks, but never particularly bad. I prefer cold temps, though, so it's hard to say how much insulation you or others would need.

Kendall, there are definite benefits to section hiking… like hitting each section of trail at just the right season (after the snow is gone in the Sierra, during the dry summer in Washington, etc.), and not being in as much of a rush to beat the beginning of winter. I'm already hoping to come back to certain sections for a re-do.

Enjoyed reading this part, and looking forward to the next one!

Last year I learned (a bit late) to answer fellow hikers with what they should hear instead of directly answering their questions.

Ryan,

Thanks for putting this labor of love together, very much hoping for future installments of your journey on the PCT.

I want to add my name to the long list of people who are enjoying your article. Having followed many hickers who did this at the same time you did and meeting many of them when I was hiking a section in Oregon (where I live)this summer; I know there will be several interesting experiences ahead. Thanks for writing a great article.

Dennis Phelan

Since not too far down the road I'll be in a position to take the time off for an adventure such as yours, I really appreciate your insights and impressions and look forward to the other installments. Good job!

Ryan,

Absolutely fabulous article. I too hiked the PCT last year and you very well describe much of my feelings toward PCT community. Both while hiking, and since, I have been very frustrated and even angry with that community. Certainly, fellow and former hikers meant well, but in all I think the PCT community did a great disservice to hikers. Fear-mongering was rampant: you needed a gps, crampons, etc. I was definitely present when so-called experts announced that one needed mountaineering experience for Fuller Ridge. Many people hiked around, or skipped sections of trail, without ever checking out conditions themselves.

I certainly have no problems with hikers bypassing sections of trail, depending on conditions, comfort level, their own goals, etc. My concern and my problems is that fear and misinformation was so common that parts of the trail were never even examined by many hikers. Furthermore, it is my opinion (despite my complete lack of desert, snow, and altitude experience) that every concern was blown way out of proportion.

I, as far as I know, was with the first group to traverse the Sierra in the 2010 nobo season, and the hiking was tough; really tough. We left Kennedy Meadows Mat 30th and didn't regularly see trail until after Belden, somewhere around July 4th. It was continuous, very slow, methodical map and compass work for 500+ miles. It was tough, exhausting, but by no means impossible. It has, in fact, been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and I feel that is is something many people opted out of because of constant fear-mongering.

My major concern is that people, with the air of authority, speculated on conditions and convinced many hikers not to hike certain areas- Fuller Ridge, Baden-Powell, the JMT, etc. There were many ill-advised flip-flops that avoided no snow at all. Everyone, it seemed, was willing to believe that certain areas were impossible, or just down-right dangerous. I don't think I ever once heard anyone recommend to cautiously explore an area and decide for yourself. To me that is the greatest lesson I learned on the PCT. You can listen and evaluate advise, but that is certainly not a substitute for your own first-hand examination of conditions. Check it out for yourself, and if you are out of your comfort zone, you can always turn around.

Now that I got that of my chest I can work on a "This what they said; This is what we saw" segment for AZDPCTKO

Joe Johnson

Buenos Dias, What a great afternoon read! I hope you get to cover or publish ALL of your PCT sections in the future.

Well done sir! Excellent exploration of an interesting issue.

It's a great article and entertaining to read. Much of it I found to be true for my hike. I thru-hiked the PCT in 2009 but had sectioned a few pieces of it prior to that. The whole fear thing is so true; especially about Fuller Ridge and the snow levels of the High Sierra (no matter how little snow fell that year). People talk their fear up and it feeds on itself until people are skipping or flipping around while missing some great trail that was in no way as bad as they thought. Never take comfort in the fears of others. The best advice I ever heard from a former thru-hiker prior to my hike is go look at the mountain for yourself and then decide. That said, unlike some, I never felt that the organizers of the ADZPCTKO training sessions were fear mongering. But maybe because I have some experience with the areas in questoin prior to my hike, I took their warnings and cautions differently then someone who was already nervous about the whole thing.

However, experiences from one person to another and from one year to another can be completely different so you can't apply one's persons experiences from their hike to your own except only in the most general terms. In contrast to the author's hike, in 2009 for SoCal, I normally carried about 4.5L of water and twice carried 6L and was glad for it. However, I also held my daily mileage down in comparison to the author. I never exceeded 20miles before leaving Cajon Pass at the I-15 and only twice went over 24miles before Kennedy Meadows. Slower pace means you need more water between sources. I didn't feel the need to do 25+ mile days until I left Lake Tahoe in mid July.

And it does sometimes rain in sunny SoCal. Most of the time, it is sunny, but not all the time. The year I hiked, I know someone who became hypothermic in SoCal in late May after hiking in a rain storm who had no raingear/packcover or shelter. They and all their gear was soaked. Fortunately some fishermen had a car nearby. Other years have caught hikers in the San Gabriel mountains in snow while other hikers a few days ahead only saw a few clouds. So its important to be flexible in your preperations and expectations. You may have a completely different set of experiences then someone just a week ahead.

Great story and the info about the vortex of fear is spot-on. The fear-mongering can get so outrageous that to even dare to say that it's not as bad as everyone is saying leads to cries of how irresponsible it is to encourage newbies to be unprepared!

The flip-side of going out and seeing for yourself is that sometimes you go out and see for yourself and don't like what you see. That happened to me in 2009 in the Tuolumne Meadows area (I was not a thru hiker). No problem though. I just did an alternate route, an option that is available to any thru-hiker. It's always better to go see and decide for yourself.

Mr. Linn, well done!

Seems like I echoe most everyone elses comments about your article. Your writing style is intelligent, easy to read and enjoyable, you're neither self-deprecating nor do you puff your chest up. Beautiful.

I'm hiking NoBo this year, late late April. My attitude towards the hike has and will continue to be "Forward." I don't want to skip, flip-flop, or miss any section. If things sound tough I'll continue, and see it with my own eyes, and do my very best to assess everything in context with my physical condition and skills/abilities. Thank you for your affirming view on this. My feeling is, that if I wanted something slightly tiring but fun, I'd take my three pre-teen nieces to Disneyland. If I expect a challenge of much more magnitude, which I can look back on and be proud of, I'll hike every mile of the PCT.

I look forward to someday combining the two: hiking the PCT with my nieces, then hitting Disneyland to celebrate! :)

Looking forward to more Ryan, and deep thanks for your time & effort.

Dug
http://thf2.wordpress.com

Guthook! A fine piece of writing. I'm looking forward to the next installments.

-Sneezes

Dug, have a great time on the hike this year, but don't forget once you get out there to stay flexible. I'm with you in that I prefer to hike continuously, but I certainly don't think that's the only way. My tone may have implied that I think the people who flip-flopped did the wrong thing, but that was just something I personally didn't want to do. I don't begrudge others their decisions, only the people who pushed them toward those decisions with overblown stories.

As for hiking every mile and not missing anything, it's a good goal to have. In the end, though, I don't think it's about not missing a single inch of trail, but more about not missing any opportunities. I missed Fuller Ridge and Baden-Powell, and as you'll see in the coming sections of the article I also missed a bit in Oregon. I decided it was more important to have a good time than to not miss any trail.

Everyone has a different philosophy on how to hike, though, and I think it's most important to stay true to your own ideals, rather than let anyone tell you how to do things. As Sean said in the earlier post, everyone has a wildly different experience on the same trail, so what one person (me or others) says about the trail may be completely different even a few days later (the next section of the article, which should come out next week, touches on this a little).

Cheers!
Ryan

And just a plain good read. Ryan, I appreciated all you had to say and the level of thought and style you put into it. I'll most likely never have the chance to a do a complete through hike, but I do aspire to walk some sections with a friend who'd really like to do it. Bookmarking this article will help when we decide to start making that happen. I sent hime a link to it as well and bet that he'll quite enjoy it too. Thanks for making your experience come alive on the page. And thanks for putting some perspective on the hype. It really is all about the current conditions and one's own skill set. Others anecdotal comments and experience are meant to be taken with a grain of sale and in light of, well, the current conditions and one's own skill set. Ryan, I really do look forward to your next installment.

NOTE to BPL staff: this is first rate content and well worth the annual -m charge. Oh, and this article is no charge. Way to go BPL. Reelem' in.

I enjoyed reading this part of your PCT hike. It brings back warm memories of my 1981 PCT hike. The information available now days has certainly changed since 1981. I remember leaving Campo and meeting 2 brothers from England doing the hike, they had tuna helper and canned tuna for their dinners for the entire trip (I do not know how far they made it). The people you meet along the way make the trip special.
Mahalo

I already said how much I like you article, but I am equally impressed by your pack base weight of 11 pounds. I didn't see any change of clothes (underware, socks, short sleeve shirt…) did you keep the same clothes on all the time? I didn't see any towel, pot scrubbing devices or personal items – comb, soap. You seem to have traveled very light for a thru-hiker.

Three months wearing the same underwear

Interesting…

I spent too much time on the BPL forums in the year before I hiked :)

No changes of clothes– just extra layers. I eventually picked up extra sets of socks after Kennedy Meadows. Underwear… well, it's not on the "clothing worn" list. It's hot in that desert!

The town stops provided more than enough for my laundry and showering needs. I did look a little funny in towns wearing my driducks and rain wrap while doing laundry, but what are through-hikers (or backpackers in general) if not funny looking?

I read this article again, and I suppose some of the fear is born from possibly the greatest perception changer, namely the weather. I hike often in the Cascades and honestly, I can think of a lot of great days spent hiking around amid blue skies and pleasant temperatures. I can also remember more than a handful when the weather was particularly bad, the winds blowing, hard rains/driving snow and thinking to myself, "What am I doing out here?" Amazing how a familiar trail can suddenly seem rather foreboding.

All it takes is for a person to have one near-fall on an icy slope and that slope is deemed as dangerous. I think the same holds true for the PCT – people have a scary experience, and suddenly it becomes gospel. And of course, I think most hikers are a bit guilty of distorting the facts – how your remember things is influenced by so many factors, I think we'd be disappointed to see our "heroic adventures" played back to us. Thus, the stories of close calls move up and down the trail, changing along the way until it doesn't resemble anything like the actual incident.

As the author noted, he hiked the trail during a particularly snowy year, when temperatures in SoCal were mild. A year before temperatures were over 100 degrees in some sections. I guarantee the perception of those sections were completely different depending upon the year. He cruised through SoCal in 2010, and as Miner noted, the thought of doing 25 mile days from the start seemed out of reach for all but the most heat-resistant hiker in 2009. Conversely, the 2010 crowd dealt with a huge snowpack, creating a whole set of challenges that the class of 2009 didn't have to tackle.

Finally, the PCT also attracts its share of rather inexperienced hikers. It's a big adventure, and so to the inexperienced, and perhaps unskilled, some of the challenges seem rather foreboding until one does them a couple of times. That probably contributes the "vortex of fear" a bit.

Finally, I found the talks at the Kick Off to be informative, especially those in regards to the Sierra. The Sierra backcountry expert spoke of expected snow conditions and challenges in the mountains. He also touched upon hiker accidents and deaths. The purpose was not to stoke fears but rather to reinforce the necessity to respect the terrain and particularly the power of moving water (steam crossings) and the importance of keeping upright (aka…the most successful self-arrest technique is making dang sure you don't need to perform a self-arrest.) I think people left that talk better informed, and as a result, probably were a bit more careful.

That much said, I really enjoyed the article. I look forward to the next installment!

"My concern and my problems is that fear and misinformation was so common that parts of the trail were never even examined by many hikers. Furthermore, it is my opinion (despite my complete lack of desert, snow, and altitude experience) that every concern was blown way out of proportion."

It's the "Here Be Dragons" syndrome, I think. I suppose it's more commonly referred to as "fear of the unknown" but it does get the point across. It's the reason that the best horror films let you guess at what the big, scary thing really is, rather than just showing it to you: if you don't know, you'll make something up, and what you make up will almost invariably be scarier (to you) than anything the director can dream up.

Anyway… beyond that I just wanted to chime in with gratitude for a great article. I'm hoping to hike the PCT some day, but due to being a photographer, I'll probably end up section hiking it; I don't think that I'm capable of through-hiking it — there will be too many things to photograph ;)

Good writing and awesome photos. You make a lot of good points.

A thru-hike is never exactly the way you think it’s going to be. It will be harder in some ways, and easier in others. Many people find a thru-hike was one of the most rewarding experiences of their lives. Just as many find that thru-hiking isn’t nearly as much fun as they thought it was going to be.

Flexibility is absolutely key. In the last few months I’ve read some trail journals of fellow PCT hikers who hiked the trail last summer and it’s amazing how people experienced the same stretch of trail under similar conditions in very different ways. I remember one hiker last summer saying “I LOVE the rain” as she headed into Washington. And she meant it. I heard far more people cursing the rain. A sensible, positive attitude goes a long way.

It’s important to recognize the very real risks of the trail. Two thru-hikers have lost their lives in the last 6 seasons or so, one by falling and another after becoming lost and likely succumbing to hypothermia. I personally hiked with two people who nearly died during stream crossings last summer. That’s not an exaggeration. Still, if you are careful enough, stream crossings are just part of the adventure. This is great advice on fording. There were some very close calls on steep, snowy slopes, too. There have already been medivacs of PCT thru-hikers this year as there were last year and most years. Unfortunately PCT hikers have often started wildfires. The hyperbole commonly works both ways and has a lot to do with the attitudes of the speaker and the perceptions of the listener.

This page has some interesting stats gathered about backcountry deaths in 2010. Not surprisingly, it shows falling, getting lost (usually unprepared people succumbing to hypothermia) and drowning are the biggest risks. There are plenty of opportunities for all three on the PCT.

Despite the very real potential risks, all the PCT’s dangers and hardships can be reduced to near zero if you know yourself, have the appropriate basic skills, and use good judgment.

Guthook, I really enjoyed your article and the comments.

“To dream anything that you want to dream. That is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.” Bernard Edmond

Second Buck's link to the excellent discussion on fording. Fording two or more abreast had never occurred to me, but makes excellent sense, particularly when there are people of varying levels of experience and strength in ones party.