PDA

View Full Version : a question for career or frequent thru-hikers



foodbag
03-04-2004, 09:07
For those of you who thru-hike the A.T. on a regular basis, multiple times, or who have made a lifestyle of long distance hiking I would like to know how you went about adjusting your life to accommodate hiking and what do you do to raise/save money in the "off-season".

Hammock Hanger
03-04-2004, 10:28
I stay married to a man who is wiling to work 12 months a year so I can play!! My adjustment is to be a very good girl, attentive and loving, the months I am home. Then around late winter I get the puppy dog eyes going and start mentioning trails, hiking. Then books start arriving in the mail, I leave them lying around... By Spring I'm openly stating where I'll be hiking this summer. When I hear or feel resistance I just ignore it... it will pass!

Colorado here I come!:clap Hammock Hanger

chris
03-04-2004, 10:53
I'm trying to make a transition to this sort of life style and am finding it difficult. If you get a job in non-research academia, then you'll get most of the summer and part of the winter off, which is a fair amount of time. A masters degree is all you need to get a job at a community college. Getting such a degree can be fairly easy if you find a subject you like and find a program that does not require a thesis, only coursework. In math, you can be done in a year, a summer, and a semester if you have a reasonable background.

You do not need a large income to do stuff like this. Weathercarrot has an article on hiking the AT for less than $1000. So, if you can spend,say, 5 months a year living on something like $2000 without expenses back home, you don't need to earn that much in the off season. Of course, when you think about it there really isn't an off season to the outdoors, just different weather. Some people work temporary park and forest service jobs in the summer, ski jobs in the winter, and spend the spring and fall out doing what they really like. Remember, though, that this means that you won't be on health insurance most of the time and won't be saving for retirement. Ponder these before making the jump.

Rain Man
03-04-2004, 12:05
I stay married to a man who is wiling to work 12 months a year so I can play!! ....

Where do I find a man like that?!!! LOL

Rain Man

.

DebW
03-04-2004, 13:01
Where did this concept of working until you're too old to do anything else come from? How about reverse retirement - have fun when you're young and pay back the debts when you're old. Or intermittent retirement - work 4 years and take the 5th off. Or midlife retirement - work til 50, enjoy 5 years of retirement, then work for another 15-20 years. I might try the midlife option pretty soon.

okpik
03-04-2004, 15:23
I had this friend that was my sisters roomy in college.
We ended up friends and then dating over a couple of years and then/now married 23 years. Come to find out after I got married, she's from money.
Never was obvious and she don't flaunt it but I teach and work when I need to for self worth and when the time is there to hike/fish/camp, As long as I take my son and teach him non city stuff, I'm golden.

Only drawback is she has a VERY larg family and when they say we are getting together, I must drop all. It hasn't killed too many weekends in 23 years. :sun Oh yea, she makes me go on business trips with her once in a blue moon so I suffer in places like Miami, Nawlins', LA, DC....
I'm a kept man.

Hammock Hanger
03-04-2004, 15:35
Or intermittent retirement - work 4 years and take the 5th off. Or midlife retirement - work til 50, enjoy 5 years of retirement, then work for another 15-20 years. I might try the midlife option pretty soon.
With the girls raised and our feeling burned out in our jobs the intermiitent retirement was sort of what we did. Of course we worked along the way... at a friends restaurant in Aspen and at another friends youth camp in the Adirondacks. Both jobs were fun and seasonal, leaving us time in the Spring and Fall to travel and play. We had to count pennies and utilize campgrounds but it all worked out. Like I said earlier, we had a wonderful time. We homeschooled the last kid as he was only 15. The plan had been toi wait until he graduated, but we just couldn't wait. I think it was a wonderful learning experience for him.

My husband has been back at work now for 4 years, he plans to quit again in about 6 years. I can't wait.

Sue/HH

Bonehead
03-04-2004, 15:37
I'm a kept man.

Does that mean she gets on top and makes you go down to the bottom?

smokymtnsteve
03-04-2004, 17:06
another good job is to get a class A commercial drivers license.

after just a little experience you can get jobs at will...work a few months and then take time off...winters are good for trucking jobs that are in 'bad weather"
frieght that is going across the nothern section of the country and westen canada and "just in time" deliveries like I used to do in the NE...just like Jerry garcia said 'chicago ,detroit, new york and there all on the same street"

ah, PA in the winter....interstate 80 won't give me no sleep just a winking and blinking with a stinking load of sheep.

you don't rent or keep a home (or rent/lease the one you own now) and live in the truck. take your backpacking stove with you and fix most of your foods and coffee and such to save bucks...no car needed and or car insurance along with no utility bills ....you can truck hard for 4-6 months out
of the year and actually do ok.

there is a lot of summertime work in AK for class A bus drivers, along with working white water in season, (bus shuttle drivers)

Moose2001
03-04-2004, 19:45
Nothing like 23 years in the military to make retirement seem worthwhile. I'm going to draw their pension until I'm at least 100!! And hike every chance I get!

flyfisher
03-04-2004, 20:09
Nothing like 23 years in the military to make retirement seem worthwhile. I'm going to draw their pension until I'm at least 100!! And hike every chance I get!

:banana :sun :jump

Dittos. I reach 20 January 30, 2005.

I start the AT 1 March 2005.

Miss Janet
03-04-2004, 23:14
" how you went about adjusting your life to accommodate hiking and what do you do to raise/save money in the "off-season".

I started adjusting my life to accomodate "Hiking Season" about 7 years ago... and I am not even a hiker! The first year I saved all of my vacation time and then some leave time to be able to help hikers out when they came through Erwin. The experience was life changing to say the least. I had already learned that THE CAREER that I had thought I wanted was getting in the way of raising my 3 girls. Then I learned that I was happiest around goal oriented people that were LOVING what they were doing = Thruhikers!! I found a way to help people, spend more time with my children and make a living doing it... well, at least part of the year. I take a JOB to make it through the rest of the year. We have learned to do without some of the extras that a salary and benefits might afford us but what we get back from the hostel business makes us far richer!

Nightwalker
03-05-2004, 00:03
All I had to do was blow a gasket in my brain, then the government paid me a small amount per month to keep me away from normal people.

Now, I can hike cheap and have fun, set home, make maps from my data--that I gathered while hiking--and have fun (forgetting that I'm broke) or set home, be broke, watch the news, and be bored.

The first two are what I usually prefer.

Frank

peter_pan
03-05-2004, 09:06
I'm with Hammock Hanger. Find the love of your life. Make it work first and foremost. Love like heck and play hard. Some times together. Sometimes as individuals. Bert and I are married 35 + (yea, some call me Ernie). Retired after 28 year in the Army. Now enjoying the life of a kept man. Did I mention that my wife, Bert, is a MARY KAY senior director?

My true montra is, "Happy Wife...Happy Life".

Last year I spent 121 days on vacation; AT,AT, AT, motorcycling, visiting friends and family, enjoying the beauty, pagentry,and comradie of Mary Kay Seminar in Dallas, and Career Conference in Atlantic City ( 8,000 women 800 men. It is almost as great as the seemingly endless vistas of the AT).

Life is good...Praise God!

Spirit Walker
03-05-2004, 12:01
I do the "intermittent retirement" thing. I hiked the AT in 1988, hiked it again in 1992, then the CDT in 1999 and the PCT in 2000 and we're planning to go out again in 2006. I work as a secretary, a job that is very easy to quit (the hard part is staying until it is time to go.) I'm very good at saving money. We have a house and a little retirement savings, but still manage to get out and go hiking every few years. You can have both worlds.

Lilred
03-05-2004, 18:32
I stay married to a man who is wiling to work 12 months a year so I can play!! My adjustment is to be a very good girl, attentive and loving, the months I am home. Then around late winter I get the puppy dog eyes going and start mentioning trails, hiking. Then books start arriving in the mail, I leave them lying around... By Spring I'm openly stating where I'll be hiking this summer. When I hear or feel resistance I just ignore it... it will pass!

Colorado here I come!:clap Hammock Hanger

LOL You use much the same strategies as I do. I am a new convert to the hiking world but with a husband willing to let me go and a job that offers a paycheck while I'm off in the summers, it just works out well.

chief
03-06-2004, 02:00
there's a reason that habitual hikers look like homeless people. they're practicing up for their future lives.

smokymtnsteve
03-06-2004, 09:17
what is the difference between a hiker and a homeless person??


gore-tex

chief
03-06-2004, 23:27
choice usually, but not necessarily.

steve hiker
03-07-2004, 00:06
what is the difference between a hiker and a homeless person??
A homeless person smells better.

flyfisher
03-07-2004, 13:02
what is the difference between a hiker and a homeless person??


The miles walked in a day--or the miles between campsite last night and tonight. The breakpoint is probably around 6 miles or 10 km.

retread
03-09-2004, 02:03
This was told to me by Bucky (as in Bucky and Bearcharmer) and I beleive it was told to him by either Paw-Paw or Wee Willie, Prince of Whales....

Long distance hikers are just bums with a purpose.

Lone Wolf
03-09-2004, 07:20
Funny you should mention Wee Willy. He's at my house right now. I'm dropping him off in Hampton tomorrow. He's hiking south for a while.

Bluebearee
03-12-2004, 23:53
I'm with Deb W. That's what my husband and I did for 10 years, we both got out of college and moved out West to ski, met each other, worked seasonal jobs and travelled a lot in the off season. We had probably more disposable income than we do now working "real jobs". I was happier and healthier then too, however underappreciated in the restaurant service industry. But the summer spent in AK watching retired elderly limp around looking at the that beautiful state from a bus seat convinced us we were doing this the right way!! Problem is more than 10 years later we're still trying to adjust to a 8-5 routine and looking for new answers now that we have encumbrances like a house. We're way behind the 401k savings from where we would have been, but there's no guarantees in life that I'll even be around in 20 years.

I have a pretty good deal with my firm (CPA) in that they need less people around in the summers and fall, so they now ask me "what are your hiking plans this year?" Thing is, it's become almost more than I can bear to sit there the rest of the year, inside, watching the world go by while I shuffle papers. :(

Skeemer
03-13-2004, 08:27
As you can see from reading these posts it ranges from people who have nothing but their gear to those who have saved or have comfortable retirements. The common element is the desire to hike and the satisfaction from doing so.

Last year on the Trail I met a young man called Chameleon. He didn't seem to have "2 nickles to rub together" but also seemed to be enjoying himself immensely (except maybe the day he got hit by lightning).

The risk is always waiting until it's too late. I was fortunate to be able to retire and do it without worrying about $$. It would have been an even greater experience had I walked it right out of high school or college.

As far as being able to return and hike year after year, Baltimore Jack has got to be the poster boy for returning to the Trail and should chime in on this one.

Lone Wolf
03-13-2004, 08:42
I've been to Springer every spring since 1986. Jack is a pup.

Skeemer
03-13-2004, 11:59
Yeah, I wondered about you LW...so aside from your excellent investments just how were you able to manage it? Did you work for years and save...sponge off your family...marry money...steal from the rich...oh wait, that's what I did.

Lone Wolf
03-13-2004, 12:07
Stayed single, no children, worked winters at a ski area, few bills, no ties. It's all about choices. Now I live in a trail town so I never long for the trail.

Jack Tarlin
03-13-2004, 15:06
Quoth Wolf: "I've been to Springer every spring since 1986. Jack is a pup."

Quoth Jack: "Quite right! He's also a pup who's managed to fit in more A.T. miles in the past eight years than Old Wolf has managed in eighteen...... and THAT's what gets Wolf's goat!"

But then again, I don't spend 10 hiking days each year watching golf! That's gotta slow a man down some.

Note to Wolf: Looking forward to seeing you soon so we can bust each other's ****'s in person, which is ever so much more satisfying; catch you before long if you're not on the Trail.

Lone Wolf
03-13-2004, 15:08
Sure Jack, whatever you say. :cool:

warren doyle
03-15-2004, 19:13
1973 AT hike - From: graduate assistant/graduatefellowship/resident
assistant
To: same as above

1975 AT hike - From: same as above
To: same as above

1977 AT hike - From: graduate student/resident hall director
To: same as above

1980 AT hike - From: grad student/resident hall director/husband
To: same as above

1972-1983 (section hike) - From: all of the above
To: Folklife Center Director/Adjunct faculty/Husband/
Expectant father
1976-1985 (section hike) - From: all of the above
To: Outdoor Education Center Director/Assistant Prof./
Husband/Father/Expectant father
1979-1987 (section hike)- From: all of the above
To: all of the above expectant father - now father of two
children

1990 AT hike - From: same as above
To: same as above

1988-1994 (section hike) - From: same as above
To: same as above

1995 AT hike - From: same as above
To: same as above except now divorced father of two

1995-2000 (section hike) - From: same as above
To: blue-collar worker; divorced father of
two teenagers

2000 AT hike - From: same as above
To: same as above (son Forest finishes AT at 14 y.o.)

2000-2005? (section hike) - From: Director of non-profit program
To: Full-time assistant professor/
Remarried father of two young adults

2005? AT hike - From: same as above (hopefully)
To: same as above (hopefully)

"Out of the cradle endlessly walking the AT."

max patch
03-15-2004, 20:19
[QUOTE=warren doyle]
1980 AT hike - From: grad student/resident hall director/husband
To: same as above

Back in 1980 I was on Springer and in the mailbox (before it was placed in the rock) someone had left a typed paper listing either where they were going to spend each night or each town stop (don't recall after all these years). This was left by an educator who was leading a trip.

Any chance this was you?

warren doyle
03-15-2004, 20:57
Yes, that was I/us. The 1980 Appalachian Trail Circle Expedition - 14 people walking the whole way together without anyone dropping out made for a very powerful unbroken circle atop Katahdin.

torch
03-15-2004, 22:01
I think the key is to make sure your life is always doing something that makes you happy. If that is hiking, then as the nike advertisers say, just do it!

I was all for the "non-research" academic thing, except that once I got my PhD, I discovered I liked research enough to go to a semi-research setting. Still, that would have left me plenty of time in the summers to hike, perhaps not a thru-hike, but certainly a month every summer and a few 4-day weekends during the regular semester. Then came marriage, and now someone else is envolved in the decision making. So not every month off can be spent hiking, but then, I enjoy spending time with my wife as well, so its a good trade off. Of course, the times she comes hiking with me is now doubly better (except only going 10 miles a day is SLOW!!!).

So if you want to be a trail-native, go into academics and don't get married to a non-hiker. (Though I will never regret my decision to have done so!)

weary
03-15-2004, 22:52
For those of you who thru-hike the A.T. on a regular basis, multiple times, or who have made a lifestyle of long distance hiking I would like to know how you went about adjusting your life to accommodate hiking and what do you do to raise/save money in the "off-season".

Well, I'm an interloper here. I'm not a multiple thru hiker, but trails have been a major part of my life for several decades now. I hiked my first mountain at the age of 4, or so my folks tell me. I don't remember. I did my first backpack at the age of 14, heard the whistles signifying the end of World War II while camping on an island in the Kennebec River, and I've pretty much been doing it ever since -- either hiking, or promoting trails, wildness and the outdoors.

My serious hiking, however began about 1971 when I convinced a newspaper I was working for that I was no longer was going to sit around editing country correspondents, whose lead invariably began with "The ------(you choose the organization) met last night."

After that ultimatum I became one of New England's first reporters whose beat was covering the environment. After a few weeks of boring me, my editors and readers with the details of air and water pollution, I started doing stories about the outdoors in hopes of convincing at least a few that the environment was more than an abstraction.

I climbed every mountain in Maine -- well those that had any controversy surrounding them. I had hopes of convincing a few that Maine had mountains, comparable to most of the Whites of New Hampshire, that needed protection.

I somewhat succeeded. We managed to snatch Bigelow from the hands of the developers, recover 400,000 acres of long lost public lands, protect the Maine Mahoosucs, keep Maine's St. John River wild, call attention to the subversion of Gov. Baxter's forever wild dreams, and collect a wall full of plaques and certificates. (None of which kept the newspaper from trying to fire me) which was why I retired at age 62, ran unsuccessfully for the state senate, and in compensation walked home from Georgia the next year.

Before and since then I've climbed a lot of mountains, even a few with three kids, ranging in age from three to six -- and older -- (Kids just like older folks age a year each year,) helped our town land trust acquire 700 acres of coastal Maine, helped found the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust, oversaw 60 miles of the AT in the 100-mile-wilderness, done a lot of walking, had a bit of pig skin replace one of heart valves, maintained 3 miles of the AT system on Whitecap, and put up with silly sniping from TJ. (g)

Weary

screwysquirrel
03-18-2004, 02:13
Find you a sweet wife (which I did on the AT in 2000) who understands your addiction, be a good husband and get a little money from the govenment for your time served and you have it made in the shade. Hike whenever and however you want to.

Lint
03-20-2004, 00:42
Keep food bills low by checking out the dumpsters behind grocery stores, and curse them if they have a trash compacter. Work for awile at an outfitters so you can 'pro-form' all your gear and save tons of money. Buy one pair of Carhartt pants and wear them everyday. Live with friends in a commune type setting, keeping rent low. Ride a bicycle instead of driving that expensive car. Roll your own smokes, make your own wine, and sell that television! And get a vasectomy so you will never be dragged down by children, and you won't contribute to the overpopulation problem we face.
Alas, a job is necessary at times. Gotta build up that grubstake for the next bout of freedom. Hey, these things have all worked for me. Let someone else climb that corporate ladder, right? I can't imagine myself living any other way!