Well, I’m at “One down and two to go!”  I just got back from California’s capital, Sacramento, where I spent two days with a team of junior high kids from our Awana Club–they were competing with teams from all over northern California and Nevada.  Next weekend it’s a more local competition (only northern San Francisco Bay Area) with the 3rd-6th graders, then the last weekend back to Sacramento again for the high school level competitions.

Our junior high kids were totally AWESOME!  They have worked so hard, and they left every other team “in the dust” in the Bible knowledge competition, then went on to a solid 3rd place in the Games.  It is a wonderful thing to see hundreds of junior high kids all gathered together and so focused and so determined.   They’ve learned through Awana training how to have a good attitude in all circumstances, be good sports and live to honor God in everything they do.  I love these kids, because I can still vividly remember being a junior higher myself, and the incredible challenges of being that age and making decisions that will literally impact the rest of your life. 

No kidding that attitude is important!   And one place where I think I can almost say “Attitude is everything” is thruhiking the PCT.  When Bill White Beard and I did the PCT in 2005, we were amazed at some of the attitudes we encountered in other hikers.   And by the end of the trail, I think it’s safe to say that our conclusion was, “If you need to be all jazzed/pumped up/motivated to do something, then you won’t finish the PCT;  if you are inclined to pityparties and want “time for ME”, you won’t finish the PCT; if you depend on other people being WITH you to keep you motivated, you probably won’t finish the PCT (unless you are lucky enough to find a buddy);  if you are easily demotivated by difficult circumstances, you won’t finish the PCT……well, you get my drift!

We were amazed at how many people who started at Campo vowing, “Canada, here I come!” had quit by Warner Springs (only 100 + miles into the trail) and a bunch more quit at Idylwild.  Others quit at Horseshoe Meadows or Tuolemne Meadows.   One lady I talked to (who ended up quitting at Idylwild) said to me, close to tears, “I thought I was ready for this trail.  I really trained.  But this is way tougher than I thought.”   We were sitting by the trail up on the Desert Divide at the time; it was horribly hot and we were very short on water (my husband Bill and her husband had gone down to Apache Spring to get water–we weren’t even having to make that steep, rough scramble down to the spring, then the steep, hot climb back up; we got to sit in the bit of shade of some bushes and commiserate, while our gallant husbands took on the REALLY tough stuff).  I tried to encourage her with “It’ll be OK–pretty soon the trail will level out, the sun will be lower and it will be cooler,” but she was too far gone in misery to be encouraged.

Two years ago, a hot, drought-stricken, forest fire year in California,  Bill and I were in Horseshoe Meadows acclimating for climbing Mt. Whitney.  It was Ray Day, June 15, and there were a lot of  PCT thruhikers taking a break from the trail by coming down from Trail Pass, then returning by way of  Cottonwood Pass.   I have to say,  it was a depressing experience.  Many of the hikers were in pityparty mode, and I heard that later, many quit.  they complained of the heat, the fires, the lack of water, of being dirty for days on end.  They were taking every opportunity to slackpack or even totally skip parts of the PCT if they got a chance.   When you get into that kind of mentality,  your days as a thruhiker are definitely numbered.

We noticed that the people who FINISH and make it to Canada are the ones who are steady, determined, generally cheerful, able to “pick themselves up” if they become discouraged, and are not overwhelmed by what Ray Jardine called “the avalanche of adversity”.  I myself had days when we did the PCT when I was desperately tired, horribly hot or cold, being driven nuts by hordes of mosquitoes, dealing with very sore shoulders, or being terrified by a river crossing or trail-on-the-edge-of-a-cliff.   There were times I had to ask Bill to wait a few minutes so I could sit down and cry.  Then I would pull myself together, hoist pack, and head on, still sniffling a bit, till I was OK again.   Bill had his own issues to deal with–awful blisters, plantar fasciitis, stomach troubles, etc.   But we kept going, knowing that eventually whatever the problem was, we would (with God’s help, many times) figure out a solution, and all would be OK.

One of the reasons I encourage people to have a disciplined training program (which I described back on January 1) is because you are not just toughening your feet and legs and shoulders for the trail–you are also toughening your ability to keep on hiking no matter what.   So far this year, since we started training,  it’s pretty much been in the rain and mud and cold every time we went out.  But that’s good!   It helps build our MENTAL strength for the trail.  Back in 2005,  we had no idea how to really train; I remember one day we spent in Sugarloaf State Park carrying our packs up and down every hill in the place.  By the end of the day we were totally worn out.   I remember sitting exhausted by the side of a trail in the late afternoon and saying to Bill, “The PCT could not possibly be as tough as this.”   Hah!   The PCT was WAY tougher!! 

But the PCT is also a trail where every single day brings a new adventure (some wonderful, some scary, some beautiful, some challenging) and that’s what often kept Bill and I going.   We’d get up in the dark early in the morning, when it was cold, and be saying to each other, “Well, I wonder what the adventure will be today?”   Once it was barely light enough to see the trail (and sometimes, in the desert, while it was still dark), we’d hoist packs, and hug each other and pray, “Lord, walk with us today,” and off we would go, genuinely looking forward to whatever the day might bring.

And it always brought something wonderful, because the PCT is one incredible trail!