Happy6 and I have hiked a lot of lonely sections. We’ve hiked a lot of trail people aren’t enthusiastic about.
But usually there would eventually be people. This trip it was starting to look like we were not going to have the people.
In the past, even when there weren’t people the trail was full of new things and the tread was great.
For example, I loved the Great Divide Basin on the CDT. It is stark but it was new.
I’ve realized that I’m suddenly not having new experiences. Suddenly it is more of the same but also unpleasant to experience often.
That “unpleasant” includes facing sketchy trail and bears and rerouting.
At the same time I still enjoy getting out. We both still enjoy camping and getting out.
For example, our recent visits to Arches National Park and to Nevada and the Great Basin National Park were both great. We loved that.
I’ve been reflecting on https://pmags.com/backpacking-and-car-camping-two-tools-in-the-timebank-kit. PMags really enjoyed his long trails but now he mostly does shorter exploration.
So it looks like we will be rethinking how and where we will be hiking. Less punishing hiking. More fun exploration.
This all came up as Happy6 said she was tired of the route we were on the CDT. We got to talking about the why.
Some of it is conditioning but we were covering our goal mileage or better every day. Sleep was good. Our conditioning could be better (like it was for the PCT) but it was good enough.
It was lonely, but we’ve done lonely before which got us to talking about what was different. It wasn’t really conditioning or the loneliness or the unpleasant tread but the combination of those things with the lack of something new.
It is definitely something to absorb.