View Full Version : Changing Plans
UCONNMike
04-25-2005, 21:16
Has anyone planned to hike with a partner and then due to circumstances beyond their control must then drop out? How have you dealed with this? Knowing the whole time, planning with someone, and then find out with a little more than a month to go that you will now be forced to go solo...
This is my dilema, and I'm not sure what I am going to do. I want to complete the AT, however I'm not sure that at this late in the game I can change my mindset from hiking with my best and most trusted friend to hiking alone. Not to mention the fact that each of us have allocated different planning and actual on the trail responcibilites to each other.
I'm really not ready to throw away all my hard work to prepare myself, but I'm not so sure if a solo hike is in my future....please help with any words of wisdom/past experiences/ or general advise.
Thank you
Has anyone planned to hike with a partner and then due to circumstances beyond their control must then drop out? How have you dealed with this? Knowing the whole time, planning with someone, and then find out with a little more than a month to go that you will now be forced to go solo...
This is my dilema, and I'm not sure what I am going to do. I want to complete the AT, however I'm not sure that at this late in the game I can change my mindset from hiking with my best and most trusted friend to hiking alone. Not to mention the fact that each of us have allocated different planning and actual on the trail responcibilites to each other.
I'm really not ready to throw away all my hard work to prepare myself, but I'm not so sure if a solo hike is in my future....please help with any words of wisdom/past experiences/ or general advise.
Thank you
IMO, it is significantly harder to hike with a partner than to hike alone. In fact, I can't even fathom planing to hike with a partner the entire length of the trail.
When you first came to this site, you were very open to doing a SOBO hike. Since you were planning a late start, why don't you switch to a SOBO hike and go it "alone". You'll never really be alone, and IMO, you'll find out a lot more about yourself solo instead of with a partner.
Good luck.
Mike,
Just go anyway. Most hikers I met, during my 2001 thru, who started with a partner soon lost him. You have to look at the number of folks who start and than the number that finish. about 80 % don't make it all the way for one reason or another so, when two start together the odds are that they both won't finish anyway.
Don't be afraid to start out on your grand adventure as a solo hiker. You will meet up with plenty of others and you will soon find yourself traveling with a group of others who are hiking at the same pace as you. :) The only hikers who are alone are the ones who choose to be.
Don't let this little set back change your plans. Get started and hike your own hike.
Happy trails, enjoy life :sun You will find it good.
WHAT??? :eek: NOT HIKE???? :eek: :eek: you'll kick yourself for years if you don't go now. YOu've got the time set aside now and you may not get another opportunity for some time.
MedicineMan
04-25-2005, 22:55
on last weeks section hike from Browns Gap SNP to Big Meadows SNP over 30 miles i saw around 40 hikers....unless it is the dead of winter you will never be alone on the A.T.
i read somewhere recently that between 5 and 6 million people hike on the AT each year....it would appear that hiking alone is the challenge, not the reverse.
Dude, go for it. Sounds like a great friendship, but do your own thing. I would never have enjoyed my thru-hike with a friend from home. It would have prevented me from becoming good friends with all the ones I met on the Trail.
There are many great folks out there, and they'll become your family. Go while you have the time, money, health, desire.
max patch
04-26-2005, 09:00
Remember on Garvey's first hike he hiked with his intended partner for 30 minutes and then he hiked on alone. He never saw his intended partner again. Didn't have any negative impact on his hike.
Alligator
04-26-2005, 09:39
WHAT??? :eek: NOT HIKE???? :eek: :eek: you'll kick yourself for years if you don't go now. YOu've got the time set aside now and you may not get another opportunity for some time.
Absolutely.
If the planning parts that you weren't responsible for seem daunting, this is certainly the place to ask.
Slaughter
04-26-2005, 11:00
My hiking partner-to-be in 2003 ended up dropping out because of illness in her family about a month before we were set to leave; I went anyway and found out that we probably wouldn't have been compatible partners, given the pace that I settled into. If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have chosen to start with a partner in the first place, or at least I would set out with someone I had already spent a lot of time long-distance hiking with. The trail is not a place where you'll be lonely, unless you try very very hard. :sun
max patch
04-26-2005, 11:03
Not to mention the fact that each of us have allocated different planning and actual on the trail responcibilites to each other.
I did all my "planning" and gear purchasing at night after work over a 2 week period. This was pre-internet.
As far as on trail duties go, IF I were to plan a thru with my best friend I would still require that each of us carry our own gear. No shared cooking or shelter items. The odds that you will both want to hike at the same pace and on the same days are remote over a 5-6 month period are remote. The ONLY hiking partner I would revise this rule for would be a spouse.
I hiked alone but there were only 3 days over 5 months that I didn't see at least one other person.
Spirit Walker
04-26-2005, 15:45
Better that this happened now instead of while you are on the trail. You have time to fill in any gaps of knowledge or experience before you go. If you were planning to share gear (a mistake, unless you are positive you will stay together, e.g. married) then you have time to get what you need. You have time to separate out your maildrops - or decide not to do maildrops if that was his responsibility. (I know a group of three who had their maildrops packaged together. They split up in Virginia - dividing up the maildrops was a major hassle.) The AT is very easy to prepare for - buy a data book and the companion and go. Yes the change in plans is unexpected, but the trail is full of unexpected things. Can you roll with them? How flexible are you? Can you cope with the unplanned? If not, then don't go for a long hike, because you'll be miserable.
Sleepy the Arab
04-26-2005, 17:21
Go. Hike. You will meet plenty of folks out there in the same boat. You will make friends. And most partnerships don't last much past the first three weeks.
It happened to me. About one month before the "put in" date, I got a call from my hiking partner who relayed that the start date would need to be delayed for at least a month. For various reasons, that didn't work for me, so I decided to stick with the original date -- but go it alone.
As many others have stated, it is actually better to find someone to hike with on the trail - or just go solo during the day knowing that there'll be a full shelter ahead. I encountered absolutely no problems, and hiked my own hike.
As to my intended hiking partner, he finally got on the AT, but quit after 4 days.