View Full Version : Ziggy and the Bear closed
LuckyMan
10-29-2016, 22:21
I'm on a hike on the AT now (and there's nothing like a hike or rather rock-climbing crash course on the AT in northern New England to make you appreciate those beautiful switchbacks on the PCT) and heard from another hiker that longtime trail angels Ziggy and the Bear have closed. I checked Z&B's website, which states that they have permanently closed.
Does anyone know details? After stopping there this spring on a PCT hike I certainly can understand why. When I got there Z&B were kind and helpful but all the hikers on the patio just sat there staring into their phones all evening. None said a word when I said hello. Every once in a while Z or B would step outside and try to start a - brace yourselves - conversation. I'd reply but no one else could overcome the mesmerizing effect of his phone screen. Then our hosts would give up and go back inside. It was sad.
Possible accounts of self absorption through electronic addiction. :-? Funny you're talking about this because I briefly heard some PCT thru-hiker accounts of this this yr from some who were at Z&B's place when I was doing the PCT in OR this Aug.
Trail Angels are often doing what they are doing to have some social interaction with others in the hiking community/hikers. When that breaks down it can make angeling feel like a job and trail angels feel like they are nothing more than a tool, a Kleenex to be used and discarded, with hikers coming off as disrespectful disconnected selfish ungrateful users exhibiting an air of entitlement. It's a scene I've witnessed before.
What needs to be understood and to be personally accountable for is when connecting to electronics particularly tunnel vision focusing on small hand held iPhones, etc it tends to disconnect the user from his/her immediate physical, emotional, and mental environment. It comes off as wanting to be disconnected from this immediate environment too. In essence, it's pushing away, ignoring, to at least some degree, who or what is happening in the user's immediate environment for something they deem of higher importance. What happens then is more and more in the group start behaving in the same disconnected self absorbed way. Then, usage sucks the user in which is similar to the pathway to any addiction: shopping, drugs, gambling, gluttony, consumption, greed, etc.
rocketsocks
10-30-2016, 03:31
Sermon on the mount :D
gpburdelljr
10-30-2016, 08:34
I seriously doubt they closed because hikers spent too much time on their smart phones.
Solution is to unplug the router.:)
There has been a history of Z&B issues previously. Must have decided enough was enough.
pilgrimskywheel
10-30-2016, 17:25
I spent a month at Z&B's in spring 2014. I did a very pleasant and unforgettable work for stay while madly in love with their assistant. (We rode off into the sunset, then crashed and burned somewhere in the Sierra's. Great gal!) I worked on the bathhouse plumbing. And as the assistant to the assistant I got to know Z&B very well - unlike other hikers I was welcome in the house, and at table. Ziggy and the Bear are the most wonderful people I've ever met - right behind my late grandparents. The hikers on the porch usually spent time staring off into space - bonking after coming down San J. and realizing that this hike is getting heavy. Kept at arms reach for good reason, it was easy for them to overlook the complex, expensive, and demanding operation being run just inside. Z&B's wasn't just a place where you washed your feet before showering and crashed on the porch - it was a full-time round the clock hiker support center - they needed one whole person to man the phone! Think Standing Bear, Four Pines, Uncle Johnnies, Tom's, Saufley's, or the Anderson's - full time jobs for mama and papa with help, usually at least two helpers or more. These two folks did it all with little help and are in their eighties! ('14' was the first time they had a full-time helper on-site.) They had an honor system suggested $20 donation which MAYBE covered their water bill - and you get more than a pallet in the barn. I don't think I need to list all the stuff your donation got you, just think of every possible hiker need times 100 recurring every twenty four hours and figure out how to meet them year round. Christmas, New Years, the 4th of July, your birthday, anniversary - for years. Ice cream for everyone every night! Breakfast every morning! Burger King for dinner - you buy he flies and four of us carry the order in! On the AT people stop at places because they WANT to, on the PCT you HAVE to - or, you may well die. That makes for a different operational tempo. Hiker season? Remember not everyone stays the night. I was there the day they broke 100 hikers just passing thru. Boxes, mail, info, power, trash, showers, laundry, a meal, the store, the bank: "I want to hike out at sundown!" We had to bucket brigade the mail into the garage everyday. Hundreds of parcels. I was also there when hiker 1000 for the year stayed the night - two weeks before Memorial Day. (About 300 more trickled in by the holiday.) Most will arrive in the spring hiker bubble. Imagine 1000 guests overnight at your house in about a 90 NIGHT period. Maybe 2000 more just popping in to use all your appliances. And EVERYONE is DEFINITELY coming. It's the middle of a desert! All that and no - our technology isn't bringing us closer together. My sense is the dying art of conversation didn't help matters. Not that there isn't any conversation - it's just the same conversation - over and over over: "Miles. Water. Food. Feet. Gear, and poop." It does get stale to sophisticated civilians who's minds are not necessarily boggled by the super awesomeness of our epic, self-centered by design , tunnel-vision-inducing adventures. I LOVE YOU ZIGGY, AND YOU TOO BEAR - THANK YOU FOR THE SPRING OF A LIFETIME! Thanks for magically helping thousands of hikers - and not just on their hikes.
pilgrimskywheel
10-30-2016, 17:43
The Shadow of San J36758
Holy cow, there's a lot of bitterness in this thread...
If you run a hiker hostel that requires social interaction in exchange for stay, say so from the start. What do you expect when every hiker has a phone, has a life outside of the PCT, and finally has a chance to connect to life outside the trail while sitting comfortably in a chair?
If you run a hostel for social interaction, have everybody put their phone in a basket when they enter, otherwise, charge a fee and break even.
pilgrimskywheel
10-31-2016, 01:10
And there it is. I rest my case!
Sasquatch!
10-31-2016, 04:02
It is an easy hitch from Snow Creek to hotels, resupply, and restaurants in either Palm Springs or Banning. The descent from San Jacinto to Snow Creek is brutal, so it's nice to take a reasonably priced zero, and resupply, after hiking with only day or two worth of food from Idyllwild.
Holy cow, there's a lot of bitterness in this thread...
If you run a hiker hostel that requires social interaction in exchange for stay, say so from the start. What do you expect when every hiker has a phone, has a life outside of the PCT, and finally has a chance to connect to life outside the trail while sitting comfortably in a chair?
If you run a hostel for social interaction, have everybody put their phone in a basket when they enter, otherwise, charge a fee and break even.
And there it is. I rest my case!
Being a gracious GUEST at a HOST'S/Trail Angel's home shouldn't require notification of any requirement that the host may appreciate some personal social engagement. Behaving as a inconsiderate USER in this type of relationship isn't excused by dropping a few bucks in a donation jar either.
Charging a fee could involve legal/biz complications and really goes against the intentions of some trail angels.
pilgrimskywheel
11-01-2016, 22:05
Um, I was not agreeing with the "bitterness" comments. My "case", conveyed in the lengthy previous post, was that the art of conversation - especially on trail - is a dying art. A notion reinforced by the miscommunication. I'm confused by the confusion but that's conversation for ya - ill.
ezabielski
11-02-2016, 17:16
Pilgrim, thanks for that inside perspective. I passed through Z&B in 2014 and 2015. Their house was the most perfectly placed trail angel house on the whole trail. It was right in the middle of the first hot desert crossing on the PCT and comes after the longest descent of the whole trail. I am not surprised that hikers are totally out of it and not very talkative when they are there, many are reeling from the heat and the physical adjustment to the trail. In 2014 I stayed there from 8AM-5PM where I waited for the temperature to drop below 100 degrees before hiking out into the furnace. Everyone sat in the shade trying to make as little movement as possible. In 2015 it was quite a bit cooler (I wore a down jacket in their back yard!). I'm hiking again in 2017, really a bummer that I won't get to see them again.
As for why they closed up, no one has given any evidence that "lack of social interaction" had anything to do with it. Amazing that people are arguing about that. It's my understanding that Z&B were living at the house for free, and the house was owned by a former PCT hiker who had to sell it. There are many reasons they might have wanted to stop trail angeling. But speculation out of thin air is not a very good way to know for sure.
Leanthree
11-11-2016, 00:44
So I heard that the guy who owned the house and let Z&B stay there decided to sell the house.
gpburdelljr
11-11-2016, 09:10
So I heard that the guy who owned the house and let Z&B stay there decided to sell the house.
Is that why they left, or did the owner decide to sell after they left?
I stopped in for a few hours and hiked out after dinner. No problems, no complaints but interestingly the reason I left is because of all the social interaction - I have a hard time hiking alone and then being thrust into a throng of people.
I think most users of cell phones are rude. People think nothing of stopping in the middle of a conversation with you to pick up their phone and reply to a text message...every 2 minutes. I don't understand why people would want to be tethered electronically at all times. I have a cell phone but I never take it out of my car unless I am expecting an important call...which happens only a handful of times a year.
The low key grass roots hostels probably work best on lesser known trails or routes.
I suspect the PCT will go the way of the AT: More for profit services aimed at hikers.
And that is not a bad thing by any means. Probably a good thing, actually. But it is a change.
I suspect the PCT will go the way of the AT.
Yup. To some extent it already is which is why I want to get out and do another PCT thru before the gap in AT and PCT logistical, community, and character differences is lessened. Talking to some long time trail angels on the AT and PCT it certainly is so.
gwschenk
11-16-2016, 11:25
I haven't spent much time on the AT, but things seem different there. Staying at shelters with a crowd of people, campfires every night, all the booze and pot, etc. It seems like it is a social thing, not a hiking thing.
After my AT experience I understand now what's happening to the PCT. The illegal campfires are the most disconcerting. How can people hike for miles through burn scars and then build a fire? Pretty soon the San Gabriels will be one long burn scar.
All the fires that impact the PCT aren't the result from man's carelessness with fire.
gwschenk
11-17-2016, 12:55
All the fires that impact the PCT aren't the result from man's carelessness with fire.
That is true, however it behooves us all to be extra careful. Some fires have been started by thruhikers. And the drought is not helping matters.
Wow, losing Iconic Trail angels every year.....sad..The massive influx in the thousands in such a short span these past 3 years Im sure didn't help/