How Did You Become A Wanderer

[HIKER7s]

How did you become a hike and why is hiking important to you.


Years ago, I mean I was in the fourth grade I went on a fishing outing with my grandfather to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. That one trip, that weekend I look at as the beginning of a lifelong urge to be within a wilderness or to just be able to wander through it.

Shortly thereafter I read a book called Trap Lines North by Stephen W Meader. This book, a true story in that it followed a real trapping family through its existence in the early and mid thirties in central Ontario, was totally in the wilderness. I was hooked.

More books and more knowledge of the long distance trails followed. I was determined that whatever the situation I would do the AT. In March of 78, a year after graduating HS (after already years of hiking the AT in PA and NJ) I began my thru hike in Georgia and although I was awed at the challenge I submersed myself in it.

It took a couple hundred miles but I am glad I got into the mindset of "hiking my own hike" this way I met many people and made many new friends and still was able to make my hike a solitary and rewarding accomplishment.

I kinda came of age however in the years since. I have hiked the AT again since, in sections. I finished my section hike in 2001. I have done parts of the PCT in Oregon, walked the Patagonian Landscape, Done the Long Trail and many other hikes to numerous to mention. I have evolved into this person who believes "church" is "out there".

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[TOW]

for me, it all started when i was about 7 yrs old living in ft. polk, louisiana when my mom told me to quit watching tv and take a bath and hit the sack.....i pleaded with her to let me watch the rest of the show i was watching on the tube and she was the type of person that you knew you had better well jump when she spoke.....so she fired off in my direction and i hit the door running.....she slammed the door shut and yelled "you can just sleep out there tonight!"

well i just ran away and must have hiked 6 miles when the mp's picked me up and brought me home to newspaper cameras a flashing and my momma and papa grabbing me up in their arms being so glad to see me.....

i was a wanderer from that moment on but the next time i ran away and was returned by the mp's there were no camera's a flashing, instead there were a sparks a flying off my behind as mom and dad took turns a strapping me.....

that didn't deter me though and i am still a wanderer, in fact i am yellowblazin along the trail right now and loving every minute of it.....i'm gonna park my old beast soon and hit the trail for a little while.....i'll probably be along the corridors of the trail all summer long....

i've been all over the world a wanderering...........

[Footslogger]

I was born that way as best I can tell. As a kid my dad was always off at work or playing golf. My mom used to just pack me a lunch and say "have fun and be safe". In the 50's you could do that with your kids. I spent hours and hours exploring and sitting quietly in trees just observing nature and enjoying the freedom.

Life got a lot more complicated as I grew up and hiking was my main source of solace. I walked EVERYHERE !!

I've always felt lucky to have experienced the peace and solitude of hiking when I was young. Whenever things start to get on my nerves the first thought that comes to mind is always ...better go for a walk.

'Slogger

[ZEKE #2]

Mom sent me off to summer camp for two weeks. They took me on an overnight backpacking trip. I never was the same when I got back. The next year I went on a 3 dayer, then a 5 dayer, then a 7 dayer and many 10 dayers after that. Went backpacking in the Rocky Mtns when I was 14 for 10 days on a Girl Scout Wider Opportunity. Started dreaming of hiking the PCT, changed it to the AT when I learned about it. 35 years later I am making my dreams come true. NOBO in 2008.

[sleepwalker]

When I was in the army, one of the few things I enjoyed was road marching. The longer the better. I was a terrible runner and only a mediocre soldier but I could out march just about anyone. I had never tried to walk 25 miles before the army, so I discovered then this "ability." Even with an overweight ruck and an M-249 at my front I loved every minute. I sort of likened it to a euphoric experience...my mind wandered so peacefully when I was on a forced march. It was addicting.

When I got out I still went hiking with a TA-50 ruck and made several improvements to it. Then I discovered the world of gear and the rest is history.

[Mags]

My first "big hike" was what did it.
http://www.pmags.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=33

I am going back to Franconia Ridge almost twenty years later in May when I go back east to visit the family.
My little brother[1] is in the Air national guard and is getting an all expense paid trip to Iraq. Thought seeing him before he goes may be a good thing. He's more concerned about telling Mom than going to Iraq. Sounds funny...but you don't know our mother. ;)


My first backpacking trip in May of 1996 (ten years ago..time flies!), planted the seeds as well:
http://www.pmags.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=33


[1] He's 26..but he'll always be my little brother. :)

[Seeker]

i grew up outside a mid-sized city in central new york... farmers were selling the edges of their farms to people like my parents to build homes on 1 acre yards. their kids were NOT going to become farmers, and the business was dying out. behind me house, there was nothing but woods, hedgerows, cornfields, and ponds for about a half mile straight back, and a mile in both directions left and right. across the street, it was the same, but a mile back. lots of acreage for a young kid to wander... mom told me i escaped from the fence around the back yard once when i was about a year and a half or 2 years old, and she only found me due to my red stocking cap... about a quarter mile away in a meadow...(you could leave a kid alone for a good while back then. not like now.) guess that sort of started my 'wandering'... as i got older, i wandered farther.... every day after school, i changed into old clothes, picked up my 'stuff' (BB Gun, knife, canvas bag with snacks/nature guides, etc), canteen) and hit the woods for a couple hours... dinner was at 5, and mom blew the whistle at about 20 til... i could hear it and come home... i did that all the way through high school. by then, i knew every rock, tree, and bush in the area...

i saved up some "S&H Green Stamps" (ask your mom. in brief, you got a couple every time you filled up with gas) when i was 6 or 7 and traded them in for my first tent. camped out in the yard all summer after that. my first backpacking trip was with some family friends in the 'high peaks' area of the adirondacks when i was about 9 or 10, and i joined the scouts around that same time... my scoutmaster/uncle/godfather didn't give a rip about merit badges except at summer camp. meetings were for teaching outdoor skills, and one weekend a month, rain, snow, or shine, we went camping out in it... good way to grow up. learned a lot, and got the 'woods bug' real bad... started hunting sporadically in my later teens, picked up now and again as i was able to while in the army. learned to hate walking then, but got back into it after i got out and moved to an area near the smokies...

i still try to get out 1-2 weekends a month, with a longer trip whenever i can manage it... longest out is 10 days (voluntarily-lots of involuntary living in the woods with the army for longer periods, but that's not fun), but the AT thruhike is a dream for retirement... trying to instill this in my daughters too... one doesn't like it, the other likes camping but not hiking... but she's still a bit small, so there's hope...

[sherrill]

My mom was finishing her Masters in Europe so sent my brother and me to a camp near Asheville, NC. This was when I was 7. Every week we'd overnight somewhere fairly close to camp.

Later, when I was older, I joined the group that would go off for two weeks at a time, a lot of which included sections of the AT in GA, NC, TN, and VA.

It was these experiences that led me to a thru in 83 with a couple of buds from this camp.

[Limbohiker]

My dad is the craziest guy ive ever known. When i was little he used to randomly throw some of our clothes in a brown paper bag along with food and a tent and we'd go camping. Completely roughing it. He used to play these tricks on me and my brother and make us watch "scary" movies like the predator before we went camping then take us off in the woods and pretend to leave us. It was the only time i ever got to really spend with my dad.
Then about ten years ago my dad went hiking down the grand canyon by himself. He ended up staying on a old indian cemetary that had be disheveled because of a flood a few years earlier.
My dad was a great adventurist but not a great father. Ive since stopped talking to my parents but parts of my dad still live on in me.

[Fiddler]

I can not (so far) call myself a long-distance hiker as I've never been out over 2 weeks. Job, raising kids (then grand-kids), stuff like that took my time. My family always comes first. I'm retired now, kids gone, so will be spending more time doing things I want to do. As a youngster I liked to camp out (backyard boy-scout tent thing) and explore the woods close to home. Mom wouldn't let me stay overnight in the woods. I was always walking, usually no destination, just walking. I still sleep in a tent in my back yard sometimes, and just an hour's walk in the neighborhood is enjoyable. An over-nighter is better than nothing, 5 or 6 miles out, make dinner, sleep, make breakfast, come back. My wife thinks I'm nuts. Of course the longer hike I can go on the better it is. Seems like I can't walk enough, always want more. I wanted to do the A.T. this year but circumstances now say 2007, maybe 2008.

[kyhipo]

I first started wandering when i was in my early twentys,I would hitchike all over the west coast just for the fun of it!started biking mountains and hiking in oregon calf,when i moved to ky I was cutting wood bored to death with my life and happened to read a old nat.geographic,I was hooked like a drug addict,very ignorant to what real hikers do!I hopped on the trail in s.virginia with a bookbag from the dollar store a wallmart sleeping bag,overalls and a jean jacket:) and some clothes,I hiked to mass got into some probs,my fault ofcourse,eventually turned around and hiked down to trail days,since then have matured in many ways have backpacked many trips since then and still enjoy the thrill,but i guess I am a pure gypsy love rainbow gatherings love to wander and most of all love it when people tell me to take a hike:D ky

[Lion King]

Its been in me since before I can remember. Its odd in a sense, as you grow up and feel someting that you cant explain and that no one around you understands. A longing, a searching of some sort that cant be handled by a hug and a kiss on the top of the head.

Sure most people are searching and trying to fill a desperatley empty place inside of themsleves with something, be it drugs, woman, drink, etc...which I have tried to do with all of them...,but the longing is still alive and vibrant and kicking so hard it makes working a 'normal' job an impossibility. I realized a few years before my 1998 hike that my mind and body were rippping into pieces, be it from my lifestyle choices, my lack of giving a damn about the stupid crap that most people dwell on and worry over and fight and fuss about, and the lack of people in general understanding me because of the above listed things.

When I walk in the woods in silence I am at peace. I find a place inside of me that is clear and strong and positive and it sees and feels the real world for what it is. A place of growth, beauty and strength which all transfers into me making me become the person I truly am and not the person modern convieances have allowed me to be.
Fat, lazy, stagnant American. Thats not what I am and the more time I spend outdoors, the more those things float off me and the power of life comes back and energy is restored and life and everything in it becomes as clear as the mountain stream I always long to drink from, no matter where I am.

I am so happy I will be on the PCT in a couple of weeks, my mind and body need it desperately.

[Lone Wolf]

I was born hiker trash.

[Almost There]

I did it to quit smoking...Oh Krap!!! I'm still smoking...alright it was for the wine, women, and song...wait, I'm already married...alright it was for the wine and the Kill Me Quick!!!, that and excuse to krap in the woods!!!

[chicote]

Since I can remember I always liked exploring out in the woods. My first big hike was in Middle School out in the Pine Barrens. My brother got me into it in college. Then going to college in Boone topped it off. I guess I could say "playing outside as a kid" is why I like hiking.

[Vi+]

When I was a child, much of entertainment consisted of reading. I read “The Last of the Mohicans,” by James Fenimore Cooper. I loved the book.

“I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do.”

The above is the honor code at few schools. Few of these schools actually enforce the code. Cooper’s “Leatherstocking Tales,” of which “The Last of the Mohicans” is one, implicitly honor the code. Outdoor life. The Code. Pretty heady stuff for a child. I was hooked.

I learned that kids manipulate, deceive, and bully, all variations of lying to one another. They also cheat and steal from one another. When my playmates became most disagreeable, I’d spend the rest of the day in a nearby woods. Often I’d spend the following day or days, wandering about the woods alone, and I always loved it.

I spent quite a bit of extended time outdoors in the army. It wasn’t all enjoyable, but the thrill of simply being outdoors wasn’t extinguished.

I’ve enjoyed working on boats on the Atlantic and the Pacific. A boat is but a small island bobbed about by nature, with a temporary pass.

I’d get away from college wandering about in the desert several times a semester.

I came to realize that much of the work world is crap. Most people who advance in a career seem to get there by developing and honing the dishonoring skills they exhibited as a young child.

Nature is nature. It isn’t misleading. It doesn’t care who you think you are. It just is.

I understand that a good part of my enjoyment, of being surrounded only by nature, comes about by my disenchantment with human society. I suspect each of our individual love of nature may be genetically predisposed and nurtured, or not, by our experiences.

[Footslogger]

Hey Vi+

Couldn't have said it better myself. Guess we have more in common than just our old Army units.

'Slogger

[Tim Rich]

Greetings,

I've always enjoyed wandering on foot, bike, motorcycle or car. As a youngster our property adjoined several hundred acres of timber company property. We'd come home, eat, watch a rerun of Gilligan's Island, Rat Patrol or the Brady Bunch and we were then kicked out of the house until supper time. It was rare to encounter another kid after school, so we made our own fun, fishing and poking around in the woods. Eventually, I got a motocross bike and rode the firebreaks in the woods to a gasoline pipeline and just went.

Sunday afternoons we took many rides to the woods to cut firewood and find longleaf pine logs for kindling, or we just rode around the countryside. I always thought it was just fun to ride the backroads like that, but I didn't realize then that my Dad was looking for houses under construction to get the masonry work.

Road trips and hiking trips were sometimes thrown together in a single excursion during college, blowing off a day or two of classes to get an early start on a weekend hiking trip with my roommate. He and I continued hiking after college, sectioning the AT NOBO from 1989 until Katahdin last July. Each trip was anticipated, savored and relived through tales, laughter and photos.

I hike for the same reason I duck off the interstates during my business trips: to see and experience what I haven't before. The solitude of the trail or a long road trip both allow for clear thinking. I'll take the trail over the road any day, but a tops off, windows down road trip with "Roll Me Away" playing staves off trail madness until I can suitably dose my malady with real trail time.

Take Care,

Tim

[swede]

Great thread. A chance to wander down memory lane. I guess I always wanted to see over the horizon. While visiting the "old place", I wandered off at two years old and was found at the back of the farm asleep in a freshly plowed furrow. I don't remember that one. But as an army brat, I had access to all the surplus gear I could carry. My friends and I spent many, many nights camping in the woods around Fayetteville, NC. My scoutmaster was a Green Beret. My troop today would be considered a "high adventure" troop. Talk about ultralight; senior scouts would go on long hikes on base, camping with a canteen, poncho & liner, and knife. We made fish traps and ate raw fish if we couldn't make a fire. Basicallly a survival school. Came in handy one time in college as a frat pledge when I was dropped off on a cold night 30 miles from campus. A new moon and no traffic on a secondary mountain road made me decide to find a pile of leaves and burrow in. Next morning I brushed the twigs out and thumbed into campus. Told my frat to shove it.
Driving, boating, hiking. I'm always thinking about travel.
Must be hereditary; my son has backpacked Europe. He's moving back to Europe this summer with his fraulein. My daughter is more urban, She just likes to check out big cities.:D

[Big Dawg]

My dad was a YMCA camp director, & we were involved in the Y-Indian Guides which gave us the opportunity to go on many camping, canoeing, & spelunking trips. It was during those times that I fell in love w/ nature. We never did any backpacking trips. Then life took over & before you know it, it had been 10 years since enjoying anything outdoors related-(more than dayhiking). Then I met my hiking friend, Dave, in 1994. He was into backpacking & suggested I join him sometime. We did some loop hiking trips in the NC/VA mountains. Then in 2000, Dave suggested we take on the AT, in sections,,,,,, & the rest is history. I have become an AT addict. The joy I receive from leaving it all behind to "wander down a trail" in nature will forever fuel my desire to keep doing it. Now I have a list of trails to conquer before I leave this planet. Because of my wife/job/kids, I can only get my dose of nature in small 1 to 2 week intervals. That's ok, cause I love my wife/kids,,, job, eh, not so much,, but hey, it helps take care of the wife/kid, & support my adventures!

[Kerosene]

I got started with camping while in the Boy Scouts in the late 60's and early 70's, which gave me a good foundation for backpacking. I devoured Ed Garvey's Appalachian Trail book in 1972 as a 14-year old Eagle Scout, which led to my first AT section hike (DWG to Unionville) the next Spring, along with 2 of my scoutmates.

We spent our Easter vacations in our Junior and Senior years doing Pennsylvania (Duncannon to Lehigh Gap) and southern New England (Lee to Webatuck). Interestingly, I was the only one to continue on the AT, doing several section hikes through college capping it off with a SOBO thru-hike of the Long Trail and a 2-week jaunt with my future wife after graduation.

My wife is always amazed at the detail I can recall from my hikes. I frequently thought about backpacking in the 80's and 90's, but career, house, family, and school kept getting in the way. My old gear sat in a corner of my garages until I finally decided to get out in 1999 and do a 2-night, 38-mile hike on a nearby trail in flat southeast Michigan at the peak of Autumn. I was so relaxed after only a few days that I immediately set out plans to finish the AT, and I relish returning to the woods at least once a year.

[boarstone]

Growing up I was very lucky to be a kid that was afforded the luxuary of being raised in this great area of Maine, Piscataquis county, in which lie K.I./Schoodic lake/Jo-mary/Katadin.
On the year of my mother's death, I, as a fifteen yr. old, was asked by my dad to go to Boarstone Mt. for a climb to it's top one Sunday in Sept. Labor Day weekend to be exact. Seeming this odd but a great adventure as I didn't see my dad as a "hiker". Off dad, I and my little brindle dog of a mutt, Jinney went. We all three climbed to the top. At the time the caretaker there (name I don't remember) was a friend of my dad's. The mountain wasn't open to hiking in general then. Only the ones the caretaker knew. If you didn't have connections with him, you didn't go! and you couldn't drive to the house at the base either, you had to walk from the parking lot like hikers today all have to do now! But we got to drive up the road to the house. Years ago, at Boarstone, they use to have and raise fox in a fox-for-fur farm. Anyway, that hike was very special, my first hike ever! up a mountain or otherwise as my mode of transportation was always on horseback from 8 years on up.
My dad passed away in 2003 after a long battle with COPD. I took a hike up Boarstone the year of his passing. It wasn't the same. It's been "taken over". The old trail is no more, the iron steps we had to climb are no longer there, the ledge of rock you'd have to dig to find hand and foot hold is no more. The spruce you had to crawl under on the trail--no more-- the trail now goes out around. (trail moved) Many more people are hiking all over this Mt.on a much easier trail system. Yet I'm so glad to have been able to "walk the walk of the wardens trail". Which by the way, the last warden on this Mt. had only 1 good leg with which he climbed this trail EVERYDAY to his post on the tower until it was decomissioned.

[Amigi'sLastStand]

I was born hiker trash.

Me, too. Hiker trash, through and through. Now that "real life" has passed me by, I'm joining LWolf. In four years we're gonna have a beard length contest. Loser buys the gorp.:)

[Doctari]

According to my parents, they started taking me camping when I was about 1 year old. We always went on day hikes wherever we were. When old enough, I was always in the woods near home (starting about age 5) & vacations were always camping, usually in the smokies. Didn't start backpacking till my early 40s, but it had always been a dream. Saw the AT for my first time about age 10, wanted to hike it from that moment.

Doctari.

[Mountain Maiden]

As a young girl, I did the Girl Scout thing and camped with the family. LOL—Not much hiking there! As an adult, I moved to the SC mountains and found the woods fascinating! I began with short day hikes. <o></o><o></o>

My first long (ha!) distance hike was <st1><st1>Mt.</st1><st1>LeConte</st1>.</st1> Eight miles later, I was hooked! That very day, I met a 72 year old thru-hiker in G’burg. I walked away from our conversation thinking “I don’t want to be 72 y/o hiking the <st1>Appalachian Trail</st1> but I want to be able to!”

Three years later, I had never been backpacking a day in my life but I made from <st1:country-region><st1>Georgia</st1></st1:country-region> to <st1:state><st1>Maine.</st1></st1:state> The rest is history.

Now, I look forward to hiking the Trail when I am 72!<o></o>
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Some of us are lucky enough to be born hiker trash and the rest of us have to work our way into it!

:sun




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[hacksaw]

Had my head blown off in Vietnam(Not literally, but you get the picture) and when dope, motorcycle raceing, fast cars, loose wimmin', more dope and booze didn't work I went for a walk in the woods. It lasted about three or four years. After that things just seemed to gravitate toward the woods about every three or four weeks for the next thirty odd years. Works better than all that other stuff.