The Greatest Trip That Never Happened

[Stephanie Jordan]

Companion forum thread to:

The Greatest Trip That Never Happened

[Dan Quixote]

Man, that's rough!

I hear you though. I was planning something less ambitious, but for me still pretty large, and I jacked my knee and spent 5 weeks hanging with my cousin in Portland instead of hiking the PCT up Oregon. It was still a good time, but dealing with big let-downs after big build-ups is a difficult process.

Thanks for sharing!

[Roger Caffin]

We sympathise – having been through the same problem ourselves. (Caught bad virus on way to start of trip.)
But – primary requirements: survival, then having fun.

Cheers

[Tom Clark]

Hey, just as kids fall while learning to skate, ride a bike, ski, etc. I guess we should expect to fail sometimes as adults. Not sure why our perspectives change as we grow older, but it's a reminder to get up and brush ourselves off. It's good not to be too reckless, and glad there was a plan B…besides flying back home.

Thanks for sharing.

Tom

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[Jenny A]

Boy does this hit home!

My daughter and I spent MONTHS preparing for a through-hike of the Colorado Trail last summer. We made spreadsheets. We invested in ZipLock baggies. I arranged for a 2-month leave from work. She quit her job. We purchased some new gear. We enlisted friends and family to help with resupplies. We bagged and boxed food and gear. We went on training hikes.

The day to leave arrived, and we started hiking. Yay! So glad to finally be doing the thing that had dominated our thoughts for so long. But within a few hours of starting, I began to develop blisters. Nothing new there, just tape 'em up. But over the course of the next couple of days, those turned to blood blisters. I ended up pulling off the trail after 72 miles, leaving my daughter to continue solo.

I shed many tears on the drive home and really felt like a failure for the first time in my life. I didn't want to return to work early and have to repeat over and over why I was there and not on the trail. But as a coworker eventually pointed out, failures can actually teach us more than successes, an idea I have grudgingly come to appreciate. I will eventually complete the trail, perhaps differently than what I envisioned, but maybe that's OK.

[Marko Botsaris]

The first day of my planed modified 6-week JMT on steroids (or Quaaludes depending on how you look at it), and I mean literally the first night I checked my Inreach I got a message from my lawyer that my douchebag former employer, who owed me 4 months back pay offered to settle my fraud lawsuit against them. They had been using every delay and lie in the books to take longer (they actually made multiple LAWYERS say "wow, these guys are jerks"), and we figured they still had a few more they could try before the Sheriff would be able to knock on the front door and threaten to freeze their assets.

So we all assumed I was good for 6 weeks at least. Still when I got the message I naively thought "well great – that's one less thing to worry about." However after about 10 days it was clear that they were still playing games and my lawyer said I desperately needed to be near a fax machine! Arggh! Long story made short, the last month of negotiating with them was the most painful part, and kept be from ever disappearing into the wilderness more than a few days from technology. I was so upset that I failed to do what probably would have been the most logical and economical thing, and just go home until it was done. So I kind of skulked around the carcass of my murdered plans, doing modified section hikes and fly fishing withing a day of phone coverage and the dreaded fax machine, all the time hoping that the thing would finally be settled enough so that I could get back on schedule somewhere along my original time-table. Almost as expected in my newly pessimistic world view – yup, they finally fully caved THE DAY BEFORE the the date I originally planned to exit at Whitney Portal. JMT plans completely nuked. On the other hand they had to pay like 5 time more than they would had they just paid me my back salary and not committed fraud. I can use the money to do my dream JMT next summer I guess.

The only time I had an illness cut short a planned trip the first day ended in tragedy. I got sick with the flu and had to bail on my friend, but offered to pick him up in 3 days. That ended very badly.

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