
A man who went on a hike and never stopped - cscurmudgeon
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/03/hiking-walking-nimblewill-nomad-mj-eberhart
======
tsunamifury
At the age of 21 I took four months and an assignment from an outdoor magazine
and traveled Minnesota and southern Canadas state and National parks. I
backpacked for long periods of time, mostly alone, and photographed for months
on end. I was somewhat depressed, but also hopeful... in a way that lead me to
believe over the next horizon here would be some place or someone that would
make me happy. I met a lot of strangers along the way and almost died twice. I
even had the FBI track me down for questioning due to my extensive periods
along the border (I later learned they tracked hiking registries fairly
regularly).

Ultimately there was no lesson or grand realization I had out there -- just a
rich set of experiences and unique people that I draw on from time to time. I
learned my limits and probably pushed them at the prime of my life and I'd
like to think I'm better off for it. I learned that I liked people, even
though I am often uncomfortable around them. And even though I am slightly
different, I'll still survive and be ok.

Ebheret seems to be doing the same and there isn't really and need to assign a
motivation to it. Sometimes we wander for vague reasons we can't quite
explain. Maybe life isn't quite enough or maybe our bodies just want to return
to our pre-city state. But ultimately it just ends up being something new
that's maybe worth adding to the canon for human experiences, or just you're
own story worth making.

~~~
dfee
Thanks for posting this. I (all of us?) try to shoehorn our wanderings into a
narrative similar to the hero's journey.

Your shared experience was anticlimactic, and yet rewarding to read.

------
emptybits
I like this perspective. Eberhart takes it to an extreme but it seems worth
reflecting on:

"Shaving down one’s pack weight, he said, was a process of sloughing off one’s
fears. Each object a person carries represents a particular fear: of injury,
of discomfort, of boredom, of attack."

~~~
vijayr02
Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home
and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and
someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough
to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous
thing.

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

------
justinator
"He also held a dogged belief in personal freedom, including the freedom to
pollute the atmosphere with fossil fuels."

Hmm. Perhaps other walking people could use a good look at. Check out, John
Francis who started walking (and stopped talking!) after watching an oil spill
happen near San Francisco.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Francis_(environmentalist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Francis_\(environmentalist\))

[https://www.ted.com/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth](https://www.ted.com/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth)

[http://planetwalk.org/](http://planetwalk.org/)

~~~
seiferteric
Ya really, why stop at the atmosphere? Why not freedom to contaminate the
water supply? Or salt the earth? What kind of logic is that?

~~~
aaron695
Did you really think the article is about some kind of oracle for you to take
life lessons from?

It's just a story about someone people find interesting.

------
cperciva
I find it interesting that the author repeatedly emphasizes the toenail
removal. For ultramarathon runners, this is not particularly unusual
([https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-
fitness/heal...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-
fitness/health/you-wont-believe-what-extreme-runners-are-doing-to-their-
toenails/article9545613/)).

~~~
brianwawok
Toenails are a pain for runners. Do they have any purpose with shoes? I dont
think so...

~~~
pagnol
I have been running happily for years without shoes or with only minimal
footwear and initially transitioned to doing so because I suffered from pain
in my ankles. Perhaps if you're a runner and your toenails cause problems, you
might want to give it a try, too.

~~~
ghthor
That's my hypothesis about toenails as well. If your shoes toebox is smashing
up your toes, well duh, your toenails are going to get fucked up.

My partner is a marathoner, she's close to finishing a marathon in all 50
states. I transitioned her to minimalist shoes, lems primal, at the beginning
of this year. She went from killing her toenails about every 2 weeks to zero
toenail problems. Also pretty cool, she's stopped feeling the need to take
painkillers during her races.

It's really sad the amount of misinformation exists regarding the minimalist
shoe and barefoot movement. They've helped me overcome foot, ankle, knee, hip,
and back pain. Thyeve helped my mother overcome knee pain, she's got really
stronger feet and ankles now. Xeroshoes are making great products right now
and doubled their revenue from last year, so proud of them! Luna sandals are
also doing quite well despite all the negative information. Here's to hoping
that in 30 years were all wearing shoes actually designed for our feet!!

~~~
pcunite
_Here 's to hoping that in 30 years were all wearing shoes actually designed
for our feet!!_

Same here. I found Altra shoes on my journey towards foot and knee health.

------
Mz
I love this attitude:

 _Earlier, I had asked him if he was afraid to die. He shook his head. “Nah, I
don’t think so,” he said. He told me his grandfather had died in the woods (of
a heart attack while hunting), his father had died in the woods (of a chainsaw
accident while gathering firewood), and he was “working on it”._

------
2845197541
"He also held a dogged belief in personal freedom, including the freedom to
pollute the atmosphere with fossil fuels."

Didn't see that coming.

~~~
Aron
It's the _freedom_ to, not necessarily the goodness of doing it. He's just on
the conservative/libertarian side of things.

~~~
TomMarius
Libertarians usually follow the NAP - Non-Aggression Principle - which forbids
polluting the atmosphere, since you harm others doing it.

~~~
Aron
We are all polluting the atmosphere every day.

------
Powerofmene
I believe that for him personal freedom was not about the contents of a bag or
even the journey of thousands and thousands of steps. Freedom for him was the
ability to cast off the trappings that most in society allow to define them.
For him, personal freedom was the ability to lie down at night and know that
he had done exactly what he wanted to do that day and he did it to the best of
his ability. Freedom meant he could think great thoughts or he could just be;
he dreamed; he appreciated the beauty of the world around him as the rest of
us did what was required of us rather than what enriched us; he formed a
relationship with his God; rather than just having faith, he lived his faith.
Freedom is different for each of us but maybe it was what Shakespeare was
saying when he said "To thine own self be true."

We all seek personal freedom, I just define it as dreaming, creating,
building, nourishing, challenging, changing and pursuing...freedom is not the
ability to do these things, but actually in doing them.

------
CamperBob2
_As we walked, Eberhart recounted his travels thus far. He had begun 46 days
earlier at the southern terminus of the Continental Divide trail. From there,
he headed east, through the blackened badlands of New Mexico, through the
gateway city of El Paso, and on to an endless spread of dry dun plains. The
traffic consisted almost entirely of semi-trailer trucks surging past every 10
seconds at speeds of a 100 miles per hour (sic). He had learned to take
shallow breaths through his nose, so as to not inhale their fumes. The sound
was meteoric._

Where exactly is this highway where trucks do 100 MPH on a regular basis? Most
of them are governed to 65+epsilon MPH at double precision, as anyone who's
had to wait for them to pass each other can attest.

Even on the 85 MPH-posted roads in Texas, a large truck doing 100 MPH is going
to attract both the attention and the interest of the state police.

~~~
cperciva
I'm guessing it's 100 km/h and got mangled when crossing the Atlantic.

~~~
rubyn00bie
It's just hyperbole.

The English use miles per hour there's literally no reason for it.

Also having driven the one road in Texas with speed limits that high, semi-
trucks do not go 85mph. I was not passed once, nor had a semi-truck gain on
me. It's simply not fuel efficient for trucks to go that fast (nor cars
honestly). ~75mph maybe... to make up time but faster than that and fuel
efficiency is surely so bad they lose time having to refuel.

Towns are also so sparse and far between the danger of running out of gas is
real with moderately poor planning.

~~~
ehnto
"Flew past at 100 mile an hour" is a common turn of phrase here in Australia,
and we use kilometers for everything.

But Australia is quite the mash of cultures in most respects.

------
bobosha
Run Forrest Run

~~~
Aron
I'm kinda tired now.

