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Dogwood
01-10-2019, 22:05
Have you ever seen some LD hikers coming off a long hike or re-entering a town after a long resupply? Some are happy to be back. Others want to go back. Others look like deer in the headlights, foreigners teleported to a strange far away land, or Zombies wandering out of the viral mental fog back into the 'in your face' culture shock after being administered a "cure?" Mindf--k. Seriously, some have issue re-assimilating to the culture and lifestyle they previously embraced because of new awarenesses and connections. When I returned from a AT NOBO I slept on the floor for a month before crawling uncomfortably under the blankets on a bed. I went off on counting 22 spoons next to the stove throwing away 15 of the redundant ones. For the first month I made half my meals in the backpacking stove. I ate Cheerios out of that same pot despite having a closet of dishes. I later donated 2/3 of the dishes to a Goodwill.

OHHH the freedom and awarenesses one can experience a long duration away from their norms.

Mark Twain: Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

FreeGoldRush
01-10-2019, 22:23
I frequently hike the approach trail to Springer and enjoy seeing the SOBOs finishing up in the fall. Yes, they are often disconnected zombies and dramatically different than the terrified NOBOs going up the approach trail in the spring. The SOBOs sort of look right through you. The fresh NOBOs look right at you as if trying to find confirmation they made the right decision.

gbolt
01-10-2019, 22:32
Saw it and experienced it myself this fall. Took me six weeks to even realize that I was forever different and three months before I felt like I had a place in the “matrix”. When you move two miles per hour, in a natural environment; I felt overwhelmed by the speed of town / Life. The only way to manage it was to withdraw and engage slowly. Funny, one of the scariest heights I experienced was a bridge over a freeway. I was most fearful crossing a road in traffic! We joke about the old game called Frogger; but we felt at an even greater disadvantage because we felt more like turtles! I had more fear away from the AT then I did hiking any part of it! The crazy thing is that the treatment is only found in returning to nature for short periods of time to allow re-entry into both worlds at once! Great post Dogwood!

Tipi Walter
01-10-2019, 22:48
How bad could the culture shock be if we're all sitting at a computer or on a smartphone typing this stuff up?? Most of us were not raised outdoors in a yurt or a wall tent or an igloo or raised by wolves--- and so we all know about flush toilets and beds and hot showers and electricity and television. A person spending 20 years of his young life indoors and then 6 months outdoors will not erase those other 19.5 years of indoor life.

This is not to say that a person won't desire to spend more time outdoors because of his LD/Or Any Trail experience. In that case he/she can sleep out in the backyard every night---and let the significant others have the house---or set up a Yurt on some land and get a woodstove and live out permanently. Or just figure out a way to go backpacking all the time. There's a reason why some crazed individuals try to have the Most Lifetime Bag Nights.

The initial outdoor experience (like a thruhike) could prime the pump and turn your average Joe into the next John Muir. Or not. I see it more like this---We modern humans have 200,000 years of Neanderthal blood and so the fantastic craving we have for wilderness is powerful---though now severely blunted by two things---the Higher Standard of Living religion brainwashing generations of people---and the urbanization and obliteration of wild nature so there's no place left for millions of humans to go to and to live outdoors.

MuddyWaters
01-11-2019, 00:21
How bad could the culture shock be if we're all sitting at a computer or on a smartphone typing this stuff up?? Most of us were not raised outdoors in a yurt or a wall tent or an igloo or raised by wolves--- and so we all know about flush toilets and beds and hot showers and electricity and television. A person spending 20 years of his young life indoors and then 6 months outdoors will not erase those other 19.5 years of indoor life.

Not to mention the average hiker eagerly spends 1 night per week in a bed or more , eats in several restaurants and rides to/from town in a car.

I always enjoy the peace and quiet of getting back on a trail, gaining elevation, and leaving vehicle noises behind after a town stop.. I sleep better under my tarp, in the woods. But im usually pretty excited to get there too.....and eat.

Tipi Walter
01-11-2019, 00:38
Not to mention the average hiker eagerly spends 1 night per week in a bed or more , eats in several restaurants and rides to/from town in a car.

I always enjoy the peace and quiet of getting back on a trail, gaining elevation, and leaving vehicle noises behind after a town stop.. I sleep better under my tarp, in the woods. But im usually pretty excited to get there too.....and eat.

My solution to the "town food" drool is to dehydrate 3 weeks worth of dinner meals for a trip and arrange my food bags with stuff I won't eat at home---pasta, brown rice, oatmeal etc---AND THEN when I hit the trail I'm craving this stuff. Don't eat any power bars or granola bars or RX bars at home---saved for the tongue on the trail. But you're right, after 3 weeks I'm sick of everything and even when I get home all I really want is a big cheese omelet and fruit---and not much else. Just my take on it.

Dogwood
01-11-2019, 00:46
@FreeGoldRush Kind of like simultaneously witnessing an AA meeting letting out and twenty intoxicated bachelor party members entering a bar across the street.

@Gbolt I liked the matrix analogy, it applies,...and remedy.

@Tipi Walter Maybe, we are trying to bridge the gap holding onto some connections/reconnections of/in both worlds when we discuss backpacking on line. Perhaps, Whiteblaze posters can assist others as they attempt to re assimilate.

Those first thirty days I either slept on the floor or outside on the deck or a patio on the back corner of the property abutting a forest preserve in the sometimes snow and rain through Nov in NJ...happy. I slept better and still sleep more soundly outside in Nature not in a tent, away from the 'commotion'.

HooKooDooKu
01-11-2019, 01:19
I found it to be a really strange feeling coming off my JMT hike and walking into a grocery store.

I spent 17 nights and days to get from Yosemite Valley to Lone Pine. During that time, the only "store" I say was the relatively small Red's Meadows on the 4th day. After leaving Red's, my only other resupply was a bucket I shipped to MTR. So I roughly spent two full weeks in the back country, not seeing a single road, not seeing a single car, travelling ONLY on foot, and eating out of a bear canister.

After checking into a hotel for the night in Lone Pine at the end of my hike, I walked to the local grocery store to buy some Saran Wrap to wrap up my back pack for the flight home. After being limited to the foods in my bear canister for 2 weeks, it was a strange feeling walking around a well stocked full size grocery store.

Slo-go'en
01-11-2019, 01:29
Driving car in rush hour traffic after 3-4 months in the woods a rush.

DuneElliot
01-11-2019, 03:27
It's been a shock to the system having to come back to real life after taking 18 months off to travel and explore new places, and I was only backpacking part of it while a most of it was a road trip. And that 18 months was still part of the busy world for the most part albeit at a different pace. And after 18 months I'm starting a new full-time job in a new country. So I get what you're saying because it doesn't necessarily have to just be those who hike for a long period of time...but those who step outside the "norms" of everyday life. I'm honestly really struggling with idea of having to go back to the "prison" of a 9-5 work life and re-assimilating into a work and life environment.

Leo L.
01-11-2019, 05:17
After two months in the desert I had slight troubles riding my own car again, my feet had to tune into the manipulation of the pedals again.
Biggest welcome present when I come back home after a longer journey is the bread. We have the greates bread in the world (in quality and variety) and usually my journeys tend to be quite frugal, so coming back I gorge in bread. Just bread and butter.
And then, for weeks we make frequent campfires back home inviting friends telling stories and doing the aftermath of the trip.

Zalman
01-11-2019, 10:06
After wandering for 8 years, it took me a long time to be able to sleep in a bed again. Even now, after many years, I use a mattress that everyone else considers much too firm for comfort. I get aches trying to sleep on hotel beds.

One outing, I spent 24 days in the Wind River mountains, the last 14 of which were solo. I saw not another soul that entire two weeks, and only a few others for the 10 days prior. I barely saw a tree during that time. When I emerged, I had to hitchhike back to Boulder, and was picked up by a family of metalheads in their painted van, playing Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" turned up WAY past 11 the whole way. Their three kids (about 3,5, and 7 years old) knew all the lyrics and swayed in unison to the music as my entire head was blasted to smithereens.

Tipi Walter
01-11-2019, 10:07
Those first thirty days I either slept on the floor or outside on the deck or a patio on the back corner of the property abutting a forest preserve in the sometimes snow and rain through Nov in NJ...happy. I slept better and still sleep more soundly outside in Nature not in a tent, away from the 'commotion'.

Why just those thirty days? I sleep out on the back porch in the "backyard" every night when I'm not out pulling one of my backpacking trips. I always hunger to sleep outside year round and so here it is January 11th and I just came in from the yard camp to shave and flip on the computer. My sleeping setup is below---
44467
The beloved WM Puma down bag atop an inflatable Thermarest and a Solar ccf pad. Home sweet home. Which brings up this corollary subject---Gotta Keep Up Your Chops. Meaning---

Gotta keep your Thermarest chops---meaning you never stop sleeping on the ground on a sleeping pad (or in a hammock)---you get so used to it that you vastly prefer it to any bed.

Gotta keep your leg sinew chops and core muscle chops---meaning you hike under significant load on a lifetime regular basis thereby developing "steel like" leg tendons and ligaments---along with the stomach and core muscles to lift such loads.

Gotta keep your cold weather chops (ability to withstand cold weather for long periods). The best way to do this is to either live outside in the cold or if you can't do that---sleep in the cold.

In other words, you never stop backpacking and living out---so you keep these chops honed.

Beyond all these "keeping up your chops" challenges, the biggest one is the over arching desire to sleep with Miss Nature in all conditions.


I spent 17 nights and days to get from Yosemite Valley to Lone Pine. During that time, the only "store" I say was the relatively small Red's Meadows on the 4th day. After leaving Red's, my only other resupply was a bucket I shipped to MTR. So I roughly spent two full weeks in the back country, not seeing a single road, not seeing a single car, travelling ONLY on foot, and eating out of a bear canister.


THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!! HooKooDooKu gets it!! The discussion doesn't ALWAYS have to be about thruhikers stopping in a town every 4 days to get food and restaurant meals.

Tipi Walter
01-11-2019, 10:12
After wandering for 8 years, it took me a long time to be able to sleep in a bed again. Even now, after many years, I use a mattress that everyone else considers much too firm for comfort. I get aches trying to sleep on hotel beds.

One outing, I spent 24 days in the Wind River mountains, the last 14 of which were solo. I saw not another soul that entire two weeks, and only a few others for the 10 days prior. I barely saw a tree during that time. When I emerged, I had to hitchhike back to Boulder, and was picked up by a family of metalheads in their painted van, playing Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" turned up WAY past 11 the whole way. Their three kids (about 3,5, and 7 years old) knew all the lyrics and swayed in unison to the music as my entire head was blasted to smithereens.

Wow, great story. My real "outdoor addiction" started in 1980 when I gave up all apartments in the town of Boone and started living outside and out of my old North Face pack for many years. "Wandering for 8 years" about says it all. And it's easy to give up the indoor bed on a permanent basis---just sleep outside every night. It worked for those 8 years---why not for the next 60??

Rift Zone
01-11-2019, 11:27
Wow, great story. My real "outdoor addiction" started in 1980 when I gave up all apartments in the town of Boone and started living outside and out of my old North Face pack for many years. "Wandering for 8 years" about says it all. And it's easy to give up the indoor bed on a permanent basis---just sleep outside every night. It worked for those 8 years---why not for the next 60??
Oh yea, I know exactly how that goes Zalman, Tipi Walter... search and rescue was called out on me only once; I was 5. By the time I was a tween/teen, my mom would assure the other camping parents that if their kids were with me, being out in the woods for many hours at a time was no cause for concern as we were all just fine... -she had seen plenty of that before. Then I came of age and rather than pursue some bs "American dream", I did the John Muir thing: hung out in and learned the language of wilderness. ...literally spent most of my adult life living in a tent/out of a backpack. Culture shock indeed; as far as I'm concerned, nature is my native environment, irrespective of being raised in Silicon Valley.

Tipi Walter
01-11-2019, 13:26
Oh yea, I know exactly how that goes Zalman, Tipi Walter... search and rescue was called out on me only once; I was 5. By the time I was a tween/teen, my mom would assure the other camping parents that if their kids were with me, being out in the woods for many hours at a time was no cause for concern as we were all just fine... -she had seen plenty of that before. Then I came of age and rather than pursue some bs "American dream", I did the John Muir thing: hung out in and learned the language of wilderness. ...literally spent most of my adult life living in a tent/out of a backpack. Culture shock indeed; as far as I'm concerned, nature is my native environment, irrespective of being raised in Silicon Valley.

It's neat to see some individuals here on Whiteblaze get it---and neat to see they got bit by the nature bug big time. Regarding nature---what's weird is the more I GET THE MORE I WANT. It's a neverending quest and desire to sleep with the Woman of the Trees and Rocks---and I never take her for granted---even as the North American continent gets obliterated with sprawl and development. And many hikers here on Whiteblaze get it too---you don't have to live outdoors permanently to love what's left of wilderness.

Puddlefish
01-11-2019, 13:42
After just two months on the southern AT, I returned to NH and got a lot of strange looks as I actually said "Hi" to people in my town.

Tipi Walter
01-11-2019, 13:45
After just two months on the southern AT, I returned to NH and got a lot of strange looks as I actually said "Hi" to people in my town.

A town is the wilderness we must endure before we return to Civilization---The Woods.

lonehiker
01-11-2019, 14:51
I don't get it. I can understand a soldier/airmen that has deployed for a year having issues assimilating back into our society. But, someone on vacation that has been into town probably weekly and in fact probably connected on a daily basis? Give me a break...

jackwagon
01-11-2019, 15:08
Can you imagine how this guy felt: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Stranger_in_the_Woods.html?id=d1RcDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false ?

Living in the woods in Maine for 27 years, and only really interacting with someone else once, saying "Hi" to one person in all that time. I read the book. I highly recommend it.

The author makes a point that very few people in the US spend more than a few minutes totally alone, ever. I can't imagine the first days after Thomas Knight was arrested, and in jail. It must have been his worst horror.

Dogwood
01-11-2019, 15:38
Good stuff TW. Your passion for Nature is truly appreciated. Your pts are certainly commendable and valid.

TW, people can embrace 'Mrs' Nature taking different approaches equally as valid as yours. I recall you nicely reminding me of the same thing. We don't all arrive at a deep love of Nature " getting it" having taken the 8 yrs squatting on land in a teepee approach although personally speaking that sounds truly awesome. Consider Native Americans had a deep respect and intimate living connection with Nature as seasonal roamers.

TW, you asked "Why just those thirty days?" I think Gbolt and yourself answered your question when you wrote: "The crazy thing is that the treatment is only found in returning to nature for short periods of time to allow re-entry into both worlds at once!" and specifically yourself, "...you don't have to live outdoors permanently to love what's left of wilderness."


We're getting off topic but what may help is to consider adopting a worldview that humanity is not separate and above the environment and Nature but an integrated part of it. To appreciate and experience the natural environment and Nature it does not have to be devoid of humanity. I think that's one aspect of what was being stated here:

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
― Chief Seattle

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
― John Muir

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
― Aldo Leopold

“Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/321811)

“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?”
― Aldo Leopold

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
― William Blake

stephanD
01-11-2019, 18:05
I don't get it. I can understand a soldier/airmen that has deployed for a year having issues assimilating back into our society. But, someone on vacation that has been into town probably weekly and in fact probably connected on a daily basis? Give me a break...
What counts is not the length of time but the experience itself, and i totally get what he's talking about. Even just a few hours of a day hike in Harriman/Bear mountain state Park or the Hudson Highlands Preserve (on the east shore), are enough to put me in a deep state of melancholy when I come back to NYC, to the noise, the dirt, the pollution, the crowding, the indifference of the people, the avoidance of eye contact....

Slo-go'en
01-11-2019, 19:01
I don't get it. I can understand a soldier/airmen that has deployed for a year having issues assimilating back into our society. But, someone on vacation that has been into town probably weekly and in fact probably connected on a daily basis? Give me a break...

5-6 months on the trail might be a vacation, but it becomes a life style. For some a life style with great appeal.
A thru hike has set many people on a different path in life then if they had not done it.

martinb
01-11-2019, 19:26
Weird, I feel this way after a five-nighter.

4eyedbuzzard
01-11-2019, 19:52
It's interesting that living in the wilderness and avoiding civilization for any length of time presented a much more difficult challenge before modern (industrialized) civilization and technology came about. Aluminum, nylon, stable packaged foods, transportation, etc. make it easier to get away for even longer periods of time to avoid and escape the very civilization that creates such stuff. Most of us want some of both, albeit in varying proportions. So did Muir, Thoreau, et al. While they definitely "got away", they were also very social people in many ways. I think the biggest challenge these days is what Muir wanted - preservation over conservation. We've conserved while still exploiting enough, perhaps too much, of the land. What's left somewhat wild is precious for being able to get far and long enough away to experience that feeling of a different natural world, and needing to assimilate upon returning because it's different enough.

gbolt
01-11-2019, 23:04
5-6 months on the trail might be a vacation, but it becomes a life style. For some a life style with great appeal.
A thru hike has set many people on a different path in life then if they had not done it.


Well stated... I never thought of it as a vacation but a change in lifestyle, if only for a short six months. (That’s not to say that I don’t understand that there are similarities to a vacation, as far as a lack of responsibility as part of the normal matrix). However, as Dogwood effectively illustrated, the change in lifestyle does seem to reconnect us to an existence deep within our being. Something stirring deep within our core that doesn’t seem to thrive as well in a more modern setting. I agree strongly, that experiencing nature set me and many on a different path than if we had not done it!

Dogwood
01-11-2019, 23:42
One of the great causes of conflict lies in who gets to and how civilization is defined, and who gets to record historical accounts.

It's profoundly exampled in the great schism in how Native American Indians verse the Colonists, mostly Europeans, and later U.S. govt including the then President Andrew Jackson defined civilization and civilized peoples. It's been used widely as justification by those accustomed to European cultural tendencies and how adherents define civilized societies to subjugate, murder innocents, engage in massive theft, and extortion of those conveniently labeled as "savages" or uncivilized.

I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.
- Luther Standing Bear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Standing_Bear), Oglala Lakota Sioux (1868-1939)

KnightErrant
01-12-2019, 00:01
I hiked the Camino in 2015 and even though it's much more "civilized" than the AT, I found adjustment to transportation more jarring after those 5 weeks than over 5 months on the AT because the entire 5 weeks on the Camino, I traveled exclusively on foot. On the AT this year, I usually hitched or shuttled once a week or more.

Having lived in a few different countries (hello from Malaysia! Just got here yesterday.) I'm familiar with assimilation in its more conventional definition, and I found the culture shock of trail life and then reverse culture shock of post-trail life were a similar experience to changing countries. There were fewer mental adjustments (no language barrier or clash of values/identity or general uncertainty-- Katahdin makes for a clear objective and the blazes make for a clear direction!) but more physical ones (the miles, obviously, but also living/sleeping outdoors in all weather, diet changes, etc).

It was the physical part that I found especially challenging when re-assimilating. I was both fatigued and pretty seriously ill by the end of my hike, so I was unable to maintain even a semblance of the hiker activity level in my first two weeks after finishing. So instead of slowly weaning myself off constant exercise like I planned, I went from thru-hiking to completely sedentary and it was like crashing a car into a brick wall. All my exercise and fresh air endorphins were just gone, and I felt like an addict in withdrawal. Luckily, after about 10 days, my health problems were mostly resolved and I was able to start running and hiking, and I felt a lot more balanced again after another week or two.

My last few weeks on the trail were cold and wet (except for an absolutely perfect summit day!!) and due to the aforementioned ailments, I was pretty thankful for a roof over my head and a soft bed and fresh food when I first finished. But within a month, I was missing trail life. I'm a bit of a junkie for change, and without new challenges to adapt to, I get stir-crazy, so here I am in Malaysia. Work starts Monday, but I still miss the trail.

Dogwood
01-12-2019, 02:29
Verse the common European based versions chosen:

Civilization - the comfort and convenience of modern life, regarded as available only in towns and cities. The stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered most advanced.

We complacently adopt these cultural beliefs, rarely ever seriously questioning them.

There's a tendency to perceive one's own human social and cultural development as most advanced and therefore the "right" way for other civilizations to "progress", to "advance" even if it means by forced subjugation,... justified by 'it is for their or overall better good.' :-? That tactic has been utilized many times for justifying some of history's greatest atrocities.


Interestingly, the same vocabulary sources also include another possible definition, the version most vanquishers choose to ignore: Civilization - the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area. - WHICH LEAVES OPEN THE POSSIBILITY THAT IT CAN BE JUST AS VAILD...BUT DIFFERENT!

Less judgment in the last definition version. Dependent on what version is adopted has profound global and national consequences.


OR


Civilization - A civilization or civilization is any complex society characterized by urban development, social stratification imposed by a cultural elite, symbolic systems of communication, and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment.

That definition is based on the Abrahamic worldview - that humanity in all its diversity is and has to be perceived and organized along the BELIEF - the worldview - that it(humanity) is separate from the Natural environment and must dominate over it...with domination also variably defined according to often self serving whims.

This worldview is intrinsic to U.S. culture...and we rarely are aware of it.

John Muir, of European ancestry, a Caucasian, was open to adopting a different worldview too, and noting differences in worldview, and the consequences often involved in ignoring it, when he said:

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity”
― John Muir, Our National Parks (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1732004)

“The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”
― John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3042060)


So how can all this apply to hiking in wilderness, the backcountry, less influenced by cultural norms, the way we customarily define civilization...possibly quite a bit? :-?


In trying to 're-assimilate' we might want to ask ourselves what specifically have we disconnected from and what we want to re-assimilate, reconnect to...? And, to what degree? When the versions are profoundly juxtaposed and for often the first time we become intimately aware of different versions...after sobering up from our own intoxicating subliminal familiar unquestioned cultural norms... is when and ...why... some... have...problems...'Culturally sobering up' can create internal conflicting mental and spiritual dialogues and societal and personal lifestyle constructs between new awarenesses and old. This can threaten the hierarchical structures to which we identify.


U.S. military serving abroad can experience this too, possibly less so if still serving under U.S. cultural norms, albeit somewhat more loosely, established within the fabric of U.S. military operating in foreign lands. Even if in a different land the underlying worldview - the beliefs- the mindset -are most often rigidly and unquestionably still in place. That can also explain why some backpackers don't come away with a new or adjusted - worldview. There hiking experiences still revolved around a basic familiar cultural sphere of influence, albeit perhaps looser, but still close enough in character to their off trail cultural tendencies. Organizing your hike that way can make it less difficult to re-assimilate, to reintegrate IF seeking to return fully to the past.


That can possibly be one of the greatest consequences of a LD or certainly shorter hike or time outside of cultural norms - breaking free of being a cultural robot, becoming a more critical thinker, becoming less narrow minded, one who questions the answers presumed one will adopt.

Thats what Mark Twain was talking about when he said:“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”... :-?

4eyedbuzzard
01-12-2019, 11:22
We (collectively) are besieged by so many first world problems. Add "assimilating back into the modern world" after going off hiking - with our titanium and cuben fiber widgets produced in the cities by the factories of this civilization from which we simply must escape. THIS modern world is the only world that we will ever know. As were the then modern worlds of Muir, Twain, and all others before and after. And try as one might, one cannot escape it. It follows you into the woods as sure as the very pack full of widgets on your back. And it will always be waiting for you when you return.

We tend to romanticize our heroes' lives. While Muir, Twain, and Thoreau are remembered mostly for their literary and philosophical contributions, yet they were all part of the modern worlds of their day. Muir held many jobs in his youth as a craftsman and later spent decades managing commercial orchards and also being very active politically; Twain was a river pilot and later involved (unsuccessfully) in developing typesetting machines; Thoreau modernized and engineered the production of pencils in his family's factory. And, of course, they wrote - A LOT! Yes, they all "suffered" from wanderlust. Yes, they all enjoyed escaping to a more simple existence - especially Muir. They sought then, as many of us do now, to understand the balance between civilization and wilderness, and how to live between the two. And as Thoreau figured out, the train representing the encroachment of technology and negative impact on human experience, regardless of his opinion of it, was never going to go away.

Having some trouble re-assimilating after an experience outside "civilization" is a good sign. It means we found what we were seeking.

lonehiker
01-12-2019, 16:50
The only assimilating I've ever had to do, excluding military service, after extended long distance hikes is to look left and right at intersections...

Dogwood
01-12-2019, 16:56
Ford is introducing a new high powered vehicle called Civilization. Watch for it when crossing the street.:D :)

RuthN
01-12-2019, 18:22
This is one of the best online discussions of long-distance hiking I've read. Thank you.

RockDoc
01-12-2019, 18:30
After many decades of long distance hiking and endurance running events my new rule is to do nothing that lasts longer than I want it to last. I went through a lot of miserable experiences to find this simple wisdom.