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Backpacker Magazine – June 2008
The Onion vs. Mr. Magoo
On your mark, get set ... hike. Inside a 5,600-mile footrace on the country's hardest trail.
Photo by magoo vs. onion
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Tags:
- Feature Stories |
- Personalities |
- Continental Divide Trail |
The pair's final kick was made doubly weird by the fact that hiking–of any distance–is generally the least competitive of sports. Indeed, when the Onion and Magoo briefly met before starting their journeys, the two men had agreed that they might ultimately walk together. Share the trail and the glory, as it were. But that was many miles ago, and now the end was enticingly close. Put yourself in their boots: Come within a couple of hundred miles or so of being the first to do the whole shebang twice, without stopping, and who wouldn't have winning on one's mind?
"Though you started 25 days after Francis, the current projection shows you returning to the Mexican border only three days after him," a scorekeeping friend had written in a goading email to the Onion. "You kick ass!"
Mr. Magoo, meanwhile, was leaving the impression that he was staggering to the finish. "I figure that the earliest I could get there [the U.S.-Mexico border] is October 31," he wrote in an email to the Onion during the hike's later stages, at a time when the Onion believed that he himself could finish around October 30. "Daylight is vanishing …."
Thus, when the Onion polished off seven miles of County Road 603 on that October 18 morning and strode into tiny Pie Town, New Mexico, he felt pretty good. If he could average 30 miles per day–a tall request for just about anyone besides this freakish hiker–he might just catch Magoo.
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READERS COMMENTS
Ladridi's comment is understandable given the angle the writer took. Ladridi is correct that I took a job at a startup a few months after finishing the trail; however, it was a part-time, unpaid position, which I did more to help out a friend rather than to make money. If I'm a capitalist, I'm a lousy one.
I encourage those who came away with some negative feelings about the article to read my response to the article here:
http://francistapon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=47
I appreciate that Backpacker Magazine was fair and printed my short letter after this article came out. Unfortunately, the letter is not on the web, please view that link if you'd like to hear my take on the article. Thank you!
Happy trails,
Francis Tapon
I finally had time to read this well-written article. I just finished the CDT and it's hard to believe any yo-yoed that trail! An amazing accomplishment and adventure for both of them.
Quote:
"He had hit the trail for the reasons many of us seek wilderness: to quiet his mind and spirit. He had recently left the Mormon Church and had taken leave from a PhD program; he was troubled by unresolved feelings about God and his future. Magoo, likewise, was motivated by a higher quest: He was a successful MBA who had chucked the corporate world for a dream of turning hiking and adventure into money."
I may be the only one, but I don't think that a dream of turning hiking into money is a "higher quest". When you trade one money-making opportunity (corporate job) for another moneymaking opportunity (hiking/travel books), I fail to see the "higher" status of the latter. He is a capitalist, plain and simple, who simply decided he'd rather be his own boss and figured that notoriety was his currency. (Nevermind that he took a job from a startup after he finished the trip.) Calling that a higher quest is insulting to the people who actually view hiking as its own reward instead of a commodity to be mined and then spent. While I know that there are a number of distance hiking enthusiasts who have turned their passions into profits, I suspect that most if not all of them would view the hiking as the higher quest, not the business.
How do these ppl afford to do this? Don't they have mortgages and bills to pay?
How about that. When I read the article there were two negative comments directed at the writer and one positive which was directed at the hikers. Go the positive guy.
A well written article, very enjoyable.
One question, though. Does Backpacker online really need to simulate the epic journey by spreading this out over 14 pages?
The Onion is a stud! and just because he didn't do it first he did it the quicker and did it for the right reason, himself! Over all the artical was great and kudos on getting the word out and giving praise wear it's due!
Congrats to both hikers. Amazing.
A strong ethos in long distance hiking is "hike your own hike". For Tapon, this meant hike on the trail, and add some extra peak bagging. For the Onion, this meant hike any route in the general area of the Divide, including roads that shaved off elevation and distance. Both valid hikes, just different.
This article would have done better by celebrating both hikers success. "Don't count anyone your friend who tries to clip your wings."
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