Day 37: Mile 433.1 - 444.2
Could I have made today a bigger day? Well, kinda. So today I did about 10 miles, from my campsite in what was effectively a large ditch by the side of a dirt road (which was a great spot, my description notwithstanding), to the Acton KOA, about 10 miles away. In theory I could have stopped by, grabbed my resupply package, packed up, and headed back out. And that was the original plan. But it turns out the next campsite is another 10 miles from here, so if I had done that I would have needed to make it a big day. But I didn't do that.
But I had a good reason! I had hiked down from my campsite to the North Fork Ranger Station--the next water source--fully intending to get water and go, but who should I meet there but Mark (Friend of Pokey)! And so we got talking, and then he headed out before me, but then I caught up with him and we got talking again, and so on, all the way down to the Acton KOA (well roughly: as Mark pointed out, a "down" on the PCT invariably involves a lot of "up" then "down"). And when I reached here, I was still considering just resupplying and going, but I needed to charge this phone, and I wanted to sort the resupply, and it was later in the day, so I stayed.
So a shorter day on the trail today, but some good conversations, so I think that evens out. Two big ones on the day:
First, I met Ron, the trail angel at the North Fork Ranger Station. Ron's a volunteer, maintains the water cache there, and also provides sodas and chips/cookies. Ron has a straight deadpan sense of humor; delivers jokes where you have to rely on context rather than facial expression to get it. He told the story of how he did the PCT (back in the day), then rested for all of a week, then bought a bike and biked around the perimeter of the United States (!), then came *back* and did the PCT *again*. (There was a woman involved for the second PCT run.) (Isn't there always, he deadpanned.) And after he told that story, he turned to me and said, for folks like you, my advice is, after you finish the PCT, go home, sell all your gear, and go back to work, forget all this trail stuff, because we can't have hamburgers costing $50. And then without missing a beat he turned to Mark (who's older than me) and said, and for you, after you finish the PCT, get back out there, do another trail or some other adventure, because that PCT body is going to go away real fast, so take advantage of it!
(What Ron didn't know was that I'm actually the age he was when he did the PCT-bike-PCT thing. So "my age" isn't quite as young as he thought!)
It turns out Ron's basically done every long trail you can think of, and a variety of trails around the world that you haven't, like the GR11 and GR12 in Europe around Spain (which he recommended). He's also a really nice guy (even for a trail angel): when Mark wondered aloud about his blood pressure, Ron said wait right here, went back to the cabin, then returned with a little blood pressure cuff kit. Pulled it out (never been out of the box before, he said), let Mark check his blood pressure right there. Now *that's* service: forget the clean water and cold sodas and bags of chips, you can get blood pressure measurements? That's just above and beyond!
I'm not sure of his background, but Ron also had some interesting organizational advice, which he came up with. Here's two: 1) old Chinese proverb, he says (not an old Chinese proverb, but people listen up more when you say that, he said): movement isn't progress; 2) you gotta know the pink shirt on Tuesdays. Do you know about the pink shirt on Tuesdays, Ron asks, of course you don't, he immediately replies, because I made it up. So: Bob (say) works at a company, and every MWF he wears a white shirt and every TTh he wears a blue shirt. And he watches all these people get promoted around him, some qualified, some clearly much less qualified, than him. And he doesn't understand, so finally he goes to his boss and he asks: why haven't I been promoted? And his boss says, because you don't wear a pink shirt on Tuesdays. Wait, what does that have to do with performance? What does that have to do with *anything*? Absolutely nothing. But every organization has these unspoken rules that need to be followed to move up, and they're rarely laid out, and they're often absurd. But that's the way it is. Figure out the pink shirt on Tuesdays, advertently or otherwise, and you'll advance. Don't, and you won't.
Ron also had some great hiking stories (of course!), but he really should write a ook from those so I'm going to omit them here. Mark advised him to get a ghostwriter: Ron can tell the stories, and from the way he does seems to love doing so, he's just not interested in writing them all down.
But, Ron, *we* want to hear them!
The second conversation I had was with Mark as we headed down to Acton KOA, and this conversation was mostly about, well, work. Mark's a program manager with extensive experience developing instructional programs, and has managed several projects, always on time and on budget (he's very proud of this point) (as I would be too, if I had that track record) (I don't), and has developed a lot of insight into how to run, well, projects. And it was interesting to see how my ideas on how to get things done, based on the experience of a line engineer in the trenches, lines up with some of his principles on the same, coming down from management. Many of his concerns are the ones I never liked to do: scheduling, padding, how to make sure there's enough time for testing, rough ideas of how spend and completed-work-percentage need to line up. Where our experience intersected, though, was in how to get people to work together. For him, it was about getting people together, all in the same room, at the very beginning, ideally with the customer there as well, so everybody gets an idea of the scope. For me, it was about working across groups, and how to get people invested. I'll tell you my trick: I tickle the inherent curiosity of the engineers I work with, hoping that they'll think *with* me on problems. For both Mark and myself, a key is understanding the constraints that the other people themselves are facing, then taking those constraints into account when formulating your own solutions. For me, that certainly has to be the case: I can't ask someone else to respect my constraints and what I can and can't do in my realm, without first doing the same for them. I can't just throw my hands up and say, well you have to do this because that's your job: this can get someone to do what you want once, but only once. Instead, I need to understand whether what I'm asking for is easy or hard and, appreciating that, adjust my proposed solutions in future. If I do that, there's a chance they'll do the same for me, and that we'll work together. It's not guaranteed, but without that, I think it's a really tough road to hoe.
(I think there's a word for my method, and I think it's "empathy", but that's a big word and it's much simpler than that.)
There's more of course--there's a reason people build careers on advising companies about this stuff!--but there's only so much room here (and I need to go to sleep eventually!).
Anyway, Mark and I talked about this for quite a way down the mountain. He laughed at one point and said, I guess I have more decompressing than I thought; he thought he had left all this behind once he got on the trail. Perhaps I'm a bad influence; getting people to think about non-trail stuff while on the trail. Because I certainly don't do that for myself!
Regarding that trail stuff: once we got to the Acton KOA, we promptly ordered pizza with a bunch of other hikers. Because a lot of people were either there already or showed up: Tiger Blood and Runts and Kimo (already there), then Nikki and Sebastian "Yardsale" and Gazelle showed up, then Candy Corn and Michael Be, then Honeybee, then Mike and Jackie, then still more people whose names I don't remember. Towards the evening, sitting around the picnic table outside in the oncoming dark, I got talking to Ray-Jay, who'd hiked much of the PCT previously and was filling in some spots he'd missed for one reason or another. Quiet guy, unassuming, you'd miss him as soon as you'd see him, but he'd been with the Forest Service for 30 years in Colorado, retired, and seemed to enjoy being on the "user side" now. Of his forest service work, he was quite proud of a research program he'd done to reintroduce the Canadian Lynx to the parks in Colorado--bringing back a native species--he'd felt pretty good about that. As for his time spent on paperwork and sitting in an office and the low pay, well, that stuff he could do with less of! That's always the funny thing about joining the forest service: you do it because you like being outdoors, then you find yourself at a desk the whole time!
And that was most of the day. I'd had some thoughts to myself in the morning, thoughts I imagined were profound and important, but were likely half-thought and pretty boring. Anyway, if I get a chance, maybe I'll indulge those more tomorrow. But today was about talking with other folks, hanging out, and the fewer miles, well, that's a consequence, but not an unwelcome one.
-- Campsite > North Fork Ranger Station > Acton KOA
-- Gazelle is from Japan--Osaka region specifically--and needed to get some medications. But Gazelle's english is only so good. So Sebastian basically took him under his wing. Sebastian arranged a ride into town--there's a trail angel, Jim, who's the night guard at the KOA but will provide rides into town during the day--got both of them to CVS, picked up the meds, did some other shopping, then brought them both back. And I think that's very natural out here: if someone needs a hand, often you'll lend the hand. Partially because you know that eventually you'll be the one needing a hand, and partially because, I think, it's the right thing to do.
-- There's a pizza place that delivers here. And I think every hiker who comes through here orders a pizza. I went in on a large Hurricane with Mark (Hurricane = supreme, basically) and the pizza was pretty hefty. But down it went, heft notwithstanding!
-- Oh, another thing Mark and I talked about: Mark had been a river guide for a while, and did educational programs. He recalls that for kids, he would do this thing where they would go down the river, then he'd stop at a bank, split them into groups, and give each group a bucket and a section of the bank. And then he'd tell them to make a river. However they like, just make a river. And they'd play for 45 minutes or so, making a lake up top, then a channel, then decorating with little trees or other landscapes built from whatever was around. Then he'd come around and let them explain their little diorama, then they'd pour water in the lake and watch the river. Then Mark would point out, see, that there, in your river, that's a cut bank, see how it forms? Then he'd look up and point and say, and see, how in this river, that's a cut bank right over there, see how it looks similar? And that's how he'd teach river principles, like why rivers have pools and rapids, where the river flows fastest, various geological features like cut banks and sediment deposits. And when explained this way, from play, to building your own and seeing things happen, to connecting that with an actual river, Mark felt that that really locked in the learning, that those kids wouldn't forget those lessons for a long time. Oh and, he said, it works on adults too!
Comments
Post a Comment