Last night I decided to have a look at TrailJournals to see the reaction of current AT hikers to the doom ‘n gloom “get off the trail” message of the AT Conservancy.

I looked at a lot of journals, and discovered that the responses fell into one of 3 categories. 1) Fear: these hikers were scared or even terrified at the thought of getting covid-19 and also very worried at the thought that there would be no ridgerunners or rangers out patrolling the trail. They have quit and gone home. 2) Oh well–I’ll just wait a couple of weeks These hikers have done just that–gone home temporarily, while continuing to do training hikes to stay in shape. 3) Ain’t nuthin’ gonna stop me, no way: these hikers are just continuing on, with the reasoning that “I’ll have way less contact with other people if I just stay out here on the trail.”

Fixit and I are in category 3. As far as “no rangers, no ridgerunners”, we are not a bit concerned. On the PCT in 2005 (before the movie “Wild” came out) we would often go for days in very remote wild country without seeing another human being. People would ask, “Ooooh, isn’t that scary?” And we would raise an eyebrow and wonder, “What’s scary? It’s really nice to have the whole backcountry to yourself!” And no rangers? Some rangers are helpful (like rangers who looked for better places to cross roaring whitewater and marked them for the hikers) but many others are just annoying, like the ranger lady Fixit and I met one afternoon, on the PCT north of Tuolemne Meadows in Yosemite. Of course she wanted to see our permits, but then she demanded, “Where did you camp last night?” We said, “Tuolemne Meadows” (which was about 18 miles behind us). The ranger lady frowned. “That’s not possible”, she said. We replied, “We are PCT thru hikers. Our minimum mileage per day is 25 miles, except when we were in the southern Sierras and it dropped to 19 or 20. We do 30 mile days if the trail is good. Yes, we really DID camp at Tuolemne Meadows last night!” She frowned again, mumbled an OK and headed on.

That’s the kind of ranger we DON’T like to see.

Fixit and I have been having lots of practice lately in facing down tough situations. Here in Sonoma County, California, the last 2 years have thrown one stressful thing after another at us. First there was the awful fire in Santa Rosa (we know several people who lost everything in that fire); we were working with the Salvation Army to provide all kinds of things needed by the survivors. (I about wore myself out on that one and learned a good lesson about working in disasters: Take care of YOURSELF, too!)

One year later came the “Camp Fire” that destroyed the town of Paradise and even our home town of Petaluma was inundated with smoke for weeks. Fixit actually deployed with the Salvation Army (he is a sergeant) to help run a center for evacuees in the city of Chico.

Then this last fall, ANOTHER wildfire and 100’s of thousands had to be evacuated in our own Sonoma county. Plus vast areas had all their power shut off. Our own town of Petaluma was mostly shut off (our house was OK; we were in a little “island of light’ in the middle of a sea of darkness at night), and even the evacuation center where we deployed with the Salvation Army was running on generator power.

So we’ve had one tough, stressful event after another. Facing down this kind of thing is not fun, but wow, it sure gives us the opportunity to rely on God and not on ourselves. One of the biggest lessons we have learned on our three thru-hikes is that God really does care about us. One of the “colorful characters” of the PCT is Joe Anderson of “Casa de Luna”. He lets hikers camp in his large yard (the “Magical Manzanita Forest”) and he and his wife Terri feed everybody, too. We were hanging out with Joe & Terri and the other hikers in 2010, when Joe said, “Lissen up, you guys! I get to hear a LOT of your ‘trail magic’ stories about how amazing things would happen when you needed something or you were in trouble. Well, lemme tell you–don’t give me that BS about ‘magic.’ Give credit where credit is due–it’s GOD. Because He really does care.” Fixit and I cheered a hearty “Amen, Joe!”

So we are still packing boxes and training every day, and we still do plan to hike the AT!

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