Post-trail update on this blog

Well, I'm here in Seattle, in the heart of civilization, with the trail behind me and done. (Well, until I go back and grab all those sections I missed due to fire or otherwise, but that's for another time.) And I admit the ending of the blog is rather anti-climactic, but as I said to Apocalypse, the terminus itself is pretty anti-climactic, but it's still pretty awesome. And I will say that, after having made my peace with the blog and defining it as part of the trail for me, I feel that writing an entry for every day on the trail is as much an accomplishment as finishing the trail. They're both grinds that wore on me day after day, and they both had their times of put-your-head-down-and-get-it-done, but also their times of sheer wonder.

But now that the trail is done, what's the future of the blog? Well, thinking about it some, I have ideas! First, I figured I'd do a question-and-answer thing: let folks (i.e., y'all) submit questions, then answer them in an entry. So: if you have any questions about the trail or about hiking in general, send them to:

    justgoingforawalk.blog@gmail.com

I will collect, and then endeavor to answer, them all in a big post (just because I tend to be wordy in general). Hmm, let's say I'll answer all questions here on the blog that are submitted by, say, October 8. (And if I receive questions after that, I'll probably still answer them here on the blog, just not in as timely a fashion!)

As for the blog itself, there are some logistical things I want to work out. I took a lot of photos on the trail and will be post-processing those over, gees, probably the next few months. Those will be going up on my Flickr and Instagram accounts (Instagram = just.going.for.a.walk), but I intend to provide links to those from the blog. I have this idea of creating an index page on the blog, with days and mileage, and links to the blog entries, and links to the photos on Flickr, and links to the photos on Instagram, and maybe even some extraneous stats too. Yeah, an "idea"! It'll take me some time to figure out how to do all that--I've never investigated the full features of this Blogger platform, so that needs to happen--but essentially *pictures*!, will be coming in some form.

And then there's the writing: will I keep doing it? And after thinking about it some, yeah, I think I will. There's a phenomenon of post-trail depression that a lot of hikers struggle with but doesn't get covered much. So if that happens to me, I think it would be good to document it, and I'll keep writing in case it does. But also, I wasn't joking when I said that writing every day was as big an accomplishment as the trail itself, and while I can't keep hiking the trail, I can keep writing. Granted, not every day--Heather once said that a day on trail was like 3 months in real life because so much happens!--but now that I'm off trail, a day's just a day again. So updates will be there, but at an even slower pace than they were before. Oh, and once I'm in southern California I'll resume my Saturday day-hike habit again, and I'll document those on this blog as well.

But don't feel obliged to read all that! As I mentioned in an entry a while back, I'm writing more for me--the keep the habit and ideally improve over time (hey, a guy can dream, can't he?)--so if you don't want to read all the rest, then please don't feel obliged to! I'll add the PCT label to all PCT stuff, and with the aforementioned index will try to make it easy for readers to navigate to just the PCT stuff.

But if you have read up to here, well, thanks for reading! I hope it has been at least somewhat interesting. A lot of people have mentioned that they appreciate hiking the PCT vicariously through the blog. To which I say, first, I'm flattered: I've tried to write the blog to capture not just the stories, but also some of the feelings of the hike (which admittedly sometimes got pretty negative--but that's the way it was), and I think the latter maybe contributed to that vicarious-ness. And to which I say in the second: if you liked it, then I recommend you see it for yourself! My words--and eventually my photos--don't do justice to many of these places, don't quite capture the scale and size and magnitude of them. And a lot of these places are actually not that far: they're a day-hike away from a trailhead. Cutthroat Pass?: not 5-miles from the Rainy Pass Trailhead just of Highway 20. The lava fields of Oregon?: you can literally drive to the middle of them on Highway 242 to McKenzie Pass, go up Dee Wright Observatory, and look out over them--with North Sister looming in the background--with your own two eyes. (And hike through them a bit if you're so inclined!) Fuller Ridge?: drive up to Fuller Ridge Campground (go bug that friend of yours with an SUV), and head up just to the top of the ridge--no need to go all the way to the top of San Jacinto--and just look out over all of southern California and into Mexico. You don't have to hike the PCT to get to these places, you don't have to live in a tent for 5+ months and dig catholes, you just have to go. And walk--but you've been doing that since you were 2!

So, yeah, in short:

* I'll be doing a question-and-answer, so submit any questions you might have to:

    justgoingforawalk.blog@gmail.com

by October 8th and I'll answer them in a blog post.

* I'll be post-processing and then adding my photos, a process which will take a few months (photo-processing, for me, takes a lot of time).

* I'll be continuing this blog, with some post-PCT entries, but also starting to document my Saturday day-hikes, once I resume them.

* If you found any of the places mentioned in blog interesting, why not try looking them up? They may be nearer than you think!

And that's the update! Thanks again for reading, hope you enjoyed it!

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