Definition: Purist
Many PCT hikers consider themselves purists; to do so, one must have the ambition to walk every kilometre, every meter even of the PCT. For me, this illusion lasted for a while.
When I hitchhiked back from a town, I used to cross the road so that my footsteps would leave a continuous line between the border of Mexico to the border Canada.
In the mountains, I walked six kilometres back, under a rain storm, because I had taken the wrong path. I had still walked the same distance, on a path parallel to the PCT, no less difficult, but I wanted to have seen every square centimetre of the trail.
In many ways, I was a purist. In other words, a fool.
The deal is: if a meter of the trail is open, you must have left a footprint on it. If the trail is officially closed (due to fires, endangered species of frog, whatever...), you are allowed to move to the next open section.
Everything went off the rails after my accident. When I was alone in Northern California, the car that picked me up dropped me off at the wrong highway exit (very kindly, though). So I had a choice: spend the afternoon retracing my steps to the highway, following the autoway between power lines and ski lifts, or continue on the race to meet my friends.
I had just overcome a big injury and being back on trail was taking every bit of valor that I had, but I still, I sat on a rock for a good half-hour to realize that no, I really didn't want to do those 12 kilometres which would force me to camp near the road that night.
That I didn't need it.
That I was still a true PCT hiker if I skipped six kilometres out of four thousands and fifty.
The trail offers good lessons. I imagine this one was about letting go.
Yet I thought about those six kilometres every day back on the trail. Almost a year later, I still think about them regularly with remorse. The guilt is strong, the temptation is great to walk the entire trail again only for those six kilometres.
I did let go of something though: the illusion that I was not an obsessive person.
