From linusmines - accept no substitutes:

[kyburg]

I never imagined it would come to this. Back in early March, less than a week into the trip, I was sitting around a campfire with 10 men on top of Tray Mountain in Georgia. Eight more people were crammed into the shelter, either sleeping or cooking dinner from the warmth of their sleeping bags. It was so cold that there were no other options; it was fire, goose down, or freeze. We woke up to a foot of snow and frozen boots the next morning. Three people quit at the next road crossing. In fact, nearly all of the people on Tray Mountain that night would drop out; however, for the moment, we were suffering but hopeful.

As I nudged into the ring of people surrounding the fire, a man who went by the trail name Stix spoke up. Stix was a 40-year-old former cocaine addict from Texas who had failed two previous attempts to thru-hike. “They say that men get skinny out here,” he said. “Well, I ain’t got much to lose.” He looked at me from across the fire and laughed. “But women just get thick. Why, Déjà vu, honey, you got nothing to worry about. You’re already thick.”

The men looked at me. I stared into the fire, embarrassed and hurt, but unsure of what to say. Finally, Easy Rider, a 24-year-old Yale-bound graduate student, broke the silence.

“Stix, that was out of line,” he said loudly across the fire from his spot next to me. Turning to me, he added, “Déjà, I think you’re sexy. If you were the last woman on earth I would sleep with you. Actually, if you even make it to Pennsylvania, I’m gonna poke you.”

Disgust took my breath away. I turned from my spot in the circle and walked to my tent. Just before I was out of earshot, I heard another man say, “Naw, they don’t get thick so much as they get mean. The guys get skinny and the girls get mean.”

Inside my tent, I tried to sleep, but I could only think about how I was going to deal with this humiliation all the way to Maine. At that point, I didn’t know that neither Stix nor Easy Rider would make it. I didn’t know that I would out-hike every man there. I only knew that I wanted to go home.

*sighs*

I had books to give western_slope because I used to do the backpacks, back in the days when Cliff could still do them. I did the BMTC class the Sierra Club used to do, back in the day - I say that now, because it doesn't exist anymore. Liability did them in.

I've done snow camps, know how to use an ice axe and a whole bunch of stuff nobody uses outside of mountaineering. I have snow jackets rated to -90 in my closet.

Y'know, I'd never considered doing anything like a coastal trail, stem to stern, alone. That was one of the cardinal rules - you never did anything alone. Finding a good hiking partner was often the difference between a good trip and a disaster. Buddy system and all that.

Part of me is going "why should this be an issue if you're female?" - and the other part is going "If I wanted to be alone that bad, there are a LOT of other places, much less well-marked to predators than a hiking trail."

Predators. Yeah.

Read, and weigh for yourself. Frankly, the whole reason this is an issue at all is pathetic.

Comments

[forestdweller.livejournal.com]

Jeezuz.

I've daydreamed about walking the trail myself but that is just SCARY. I'd want to have a posse with me...but then we'd be hiking OUR hike.

Wow. I can't believe that she had to go through all of that. No, actually I can and it sickens me. I just didn't expect to see that kind of behavior on the trail though I should have.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm.

I agree with the idea that such an extensive hike should not be done alone, but then I'm saying it should not be done alone. I'm quite used to going on hikes and outings all by myself, and I have a very good time.

Why?

I'm enjoying things on my terms, at my pace and on my whim. Doing it with someone else, while entirely practical, would probably drive me right up a wall. Mainly because whenever there's two or more people in a group, the talk never ends. It's a constant stream of chatter, and I often hear people coming for many hundreds of yards before I ever see them.

That's not how I operate. When I'm in the woods or on the water, I'm silent running. I am a predator, I am prey, I am a ghost. I don't want to be seen or heard, I want to see and hear.

I think from that point of view, I can definitely sympathize with Deja' Vu.

As to the behaviour of the people on the trail?

I'm not surprised in the slightest. I have met very, very few "outdoors" people that I would classify as "gentlemen/ladies". Most "outdoor men" I've met seem to devolve a few hundred years the second they hit the trees and I half expect to see them start swinging from the branches or start plucking a banjo. And anything that can be even remotely considered "friendly" coming from the opposite gender is an automatic invitation to make like an octopus.

Of the "outdoor women" I've met, they were either "accessories" to their men-and treated as such-or rock-hard and experienced Deja' Vu types, with few folk in the middle-ground. Which is disheartening, because there's a lot of good women I know who would LOVE to get serious about the outdoors, but they know that doing so exposes them to the "skunk apes" out there.

The rare few are those with strong personalities and a medium-to-low tolerance for bullshit. It looks like Deja' Vu went from medium to negative numbers, but that was just survival.

As for the whole "predator" issue, I believe in being "tried by twelve" rather than "carried by six".

Uncle John would have seen the muzzle of my Walther PPK.

Stowaway would have been introduced to Mr. 380 and buried along the trail.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I never knew I'd been so spoiled. I mean, I hung with people who were also doing Sierra Singles (want to hike? want to date? HEEEEEEY!) and also in the 100 Peaks section. I mean, we're talking people who taught, expected you think and so on.

So. Spoiled.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm...

Sierra hikers, hmmm?

I haven't met many outdoors folk from the West Coast, but those few I have were all Good People.

I've always thought that East Coasters are a little too tightly wound for their own good...

[moropus.livejournal.com]

When I used to have knees and I was going to do this I was going to take a Rottweiler, and some of the biggest knives you've ever seen. Maybe its just as well. I'd hate for my dog to get food poisoning biting one of these freaks.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*dies*

[bigbigtruck.livejournal.com]

Her disappointment at "turning mean" made me sad - that's not meanness, that's following your gut instinct and refusing to be manipulated. That's a GOOD THING.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I'd be dissapointed that that Life Lesson had be gained in doing something you'd always wanted to do...was such a sacrifice to do...and you had to deal with Stupid in the middle of it all.

I mean. Really.

If that's Mean, then I'm the meanest bitch on the planet. Honestly.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

*hisssss* They's stupid! We HATES stupid! HATES IT! HAAAAATES IIIIIT!!

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

You already know my feelings on guys like that. But then, I've always been less of a "proper outdoors type" and more of a "hey look at this beautiful awesome amazing world type". ^_^

[joggingguy.livejournal.com]

I read that story. Talk about sorry excuses for men, if you can call them that. Some other noteworthy quotes:

He looked at me as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He waited for me to explain more, or possibly to take it back. “I can’t believe you,” he said finally, with a genuine look of hurt on his face. “You’re ditching me. How can I hike like this?”

Like this? You mean without your Mommy? Didn't she raise you better than that?

“Riff is right about the girls out here,” Uncle John said. “You’re all dykes or whores.”

“If you screw me over again, I’ll have to drop off the trail and go home a failure,” he said intensely.

Too late, you are already a failure. Why did you even bother to make the trip? Don't let the evil woman hold you back! GO HOME NOW!

Before he turned and walked away, Stowaway said that he planned to quit his hike and go home.

One of the thru-hikers raised his eyebrows. “Geez, Déjà. Way to drive a man off the trail.”

Like she had anything to do with it. Sorry Mr. Stowaway, you are not a man. The lack of a spine pretty much proves it :-O

I hope I don't come off as a prick but...

[dudemungus.livejournal.com]

I gotta say, and I know this sounds awful and forgive my insensitivity--but she had some pretty poor judgment there. The trip as she describes it WAS an lesson in how screwed up and damaged the human race is--herself included.

One of the fellows she mentions being "disgusted by" in the first hunk of the article? The pig guy who says he's going to have sex with her? she winds up sleeping with the friggin' guy later on!! Kind of ruins her credibility when she sleeps with the villains in her story AFTER they reveal themselves to be villains.

The man bragged in front of her and a bunch of men at a firepit that he was going to have sex with her. Then he DOES have sex with her. Then she is disgusted to find out he was bragging about it to his comrades along the trail! Like, did she think his misogynist, piggish, ass hole-ish digusting behavior a ruse, hiding a "poet's soul" or something? For someone walking alone in the woods surrounded by crazy men, she showed remarkably poor common sense.

The Uncle John guy was just pathetic. It's sad that we can read our own genders well enough, but we can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to the opposite sex--bet most men could have pegged "uncle John" as a nutjob five seconds into a conversation. Actually, around the point where a guy asked me to call him "uncle", I would have had a pretty accurate gauge of his mental health.

We should have information exchanges or something--men teach women the warning signs of a crazy man, and vice versa.

I think I can ascertain from this article that a good percentage of all people who decide to take six months off work to walk in the woods alone have serious issues and make for poor company.

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

Ok, yeah, those guys were creeps and need to be taught manners if nothing else... but jeez, whine much? Waiting for people who don't know her to defend her? Her parents should be slapped for not teaching her how to handle herself before letting her go on the trip in the first place. And getting mad because you've gained a rep as the trail slut when you've slept around on the trail and then hid til you ditched them because you decided the guy was a creep is kindof like getting mad because people call you blue eyes after you've bought blue contact lenses.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I saw that; someone is going to have to clarify the whole "slept with" thing for me, because the last time I checked, you had sleeping bags and that's it.

Someone that focused probably didn't think other people thought any other way, or had any other motives. I'd have to say the level of *snerg* at the end would be more indicative to that, wouldn't you?

In the end, the guy who can't take no for what it is? Is worse than any naivete she might have had.

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

You can have sex in sleeping bags... in one bag, if everyone involved is on the smaller side.

Ok, if we assume she just didn't think people would think of it that way - then she's a slow learner, cuz she found out between "sleeping buddies" and yet she kept doing it.

Not understanding no means no does trump everything else, I agree... but she didn't make it any easier by saying no and then going back again. You can't play wishy-washy with men, it's not smart and it's no fairer than them being pushy.

So all-in-all - major fuckups on all sides :)

[jiesa.livejournal.com]

I went and read the whole article, and must say that I can relate. And I don't even hike. Sometimes it's really scary to be the only female in a world of males. "Pink blazing" happens in the real world every day. And as a female in the sciences, I've gotten mean, too.