Chapter 4 Excerpt
Learn from Trail Lore
It amazed me how many people were attempting to thru-hike the AT and had done little to no research on what they were about to do. Every spring thousands of prospective thru-hikers ascend Springer Mountain in Georgia, the southern terminus of the AT, hopefully thinking that they will hike all the way to Maine. However, a whopping 15 percent quit at Neels Gap, a mere 30 miles into their journey!
About 70 percent drop out before the halfway point. Fewer than 20 percent actually complete the entire trail. Moreover, the vast majority of thru-hikers make major changes in their gear within the first couple of weeks. What accounts for these dismal statistics? It is what happens when people don’t learn from trail lore.
This chapter will explain the importance of the Fourth Principle. It is hard to get the most out of life when you spend the majority of your time unnecessarily suffering from errors that you could have easily avoided. Some of these mistakes are meaningless, but others can devastate your life. To squeeze the most out of life we need to learn from the experience of others. By building on this experience not only can we make progress as individuals, but also as a society.
If the young only knew; if the old only could.—French Proverb
Before I had ever backpacked, I talked to those who had. One guy told me how he would hike 10 miles a day and carry 70 pounds-this same guy would later tell me about his chronic back problems. I intuitively knew that carrying that much weight all day must be highly stressful on the body. I learned from others and got a day pack instead of an “expedition” backpack. Day packs were not much bigger than your average school backpack. Getting a small backpack was a great way to discipline myself. With so little storage space I had no other choice but to get rid of unnecessary items and to find lighter versions of the necessary ones.
When I talked with first time thru-hikers, they all wished that they had minimized their pack-weight from the start. In other words, they all wished that they had learned from trail lore. This lesson applies to life off the trail too. The goal is to learn from other people’s experiences so that your experience is the best it can be.
Next—Read the Chapter 5 excerpt