He Who Endures to the End Shall Be Saved

Kind friends, I hope you will celebrate with me today as it is the 4 year anniversary of the completion of my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine. It probably goes without saying that it was an amazing experience, and half a decade on I still don't know how to adequately summarize it. (Indeed, in pure "joy is in the journey" fashion, I never journaled about my Katahdin summiting or attempted to pen meta-thoughts on the walk, because I knew I could do justice to neither.) So, though I won't wax philosophical about it all, I will bust out some dirty stats:

(10) Bear sightings

(26) Snakes, (1) face-to-face after tripping over a rock

(2,175.5) Miles hiked, from Springer Mountain Georgia to Mount Katahdin Maine

(1) Bout with Giardia

(6) Days off because of it

(0) Linear inches of official white-blazed trail skipped

(28) Days of rain in May

(dozens) Shin splints, cuts, scrapes, bruises, etc.

(40) Miles on Mothers Day, to get to the next town to call Mom

(10:15) The time at night I arrived there

(9) Days of hiking with my dad

(1) Psycho threatening to bash people with tent poles in the Maine woods

(100,000+) White-blaze route markers passed. Kissing the very last one in the photo above

(4) Pairs of shoes

(10lbs) Weight of backpack-- including everything except food and water

(6,000) Calories consumed per day

(1) Magical, life changing moment in Front Royal, Va (although unbeknownst to me at the time)

(14) State lines crossed

(many) Homesick nights

(100s) Of friends made

(1) Textbook anti-lightning positions assumed

(5,000,000) Steps

($2,500) Dollars spent on food, occasional hostels, more food, etc.

(3) Weak moments of truly hoping to break my leg so I could go home without being a quitter

(10) Days spent just chillaxin' somewhere

(1) Large peperonni pizza, easily consumed, whenever I could find a Pizza Hut

(loads) Of instances of Trail Magic-- displays of charity towards hikers by townspeople

(1) Times serendipitously receiving Trail Magic from a former hiker who'd received it from me years before

(1) Online photojournal in the works

(100s) More stories

(1) Heck of a time.

To borrow from St. John, writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit-- "There are also many other things that [happened on that Blessed Path]. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."

I Am In Constant Pain

I am in constant pain; I am always hungry; I am never clean; I can never have whatever it is I want; the wind is always against me; I am in constant pain. Now you’re expecting me to do the X-treme Gen-X thing and end with “…and I love it!”, but I can’t. I don’t “love” this. There are very senses in which I am “enjoying” this, and virtually none in which I’m having “fun.” But it is a challenge and doubtless a life experience, so I will continue to drag myself uphill and North along this white-blazed straight and narrow until torn ligaments send me home.

I must not dishonor the family name.

Gosh,.. here I am getting all cute and quasi-positive when I really just wanted to complain. I felt like rubbish at the end of a girlie 20 miler, and mentally I was out of it even though it was a right pretty day. And it still feels like there’s no end to this thing. Well there is, but it’s all the way in Maine.

See What Living Like This Does To You?

… I had the Bo Jackson hip flexor thing going on with my left side today, which interests me. My right shin only hurt a little though. I guess at this point it’s not if you’re in pain but how much and where. So it was good to remember the words of [local legend skater] Craig Cassell-- “I don’t like the idea of my body telling me what I can or can’t do.”

I say that my stay in Kent [CT] was only “fair” because it was not without its disappointment. I did 30 [miles] yesterday and got there at 5pm, and I went to the hostel straightway to see what the deal was but I could find noone. Seeing that my knocks on the various doors were finding no purchase, a man looking not unlike G. Gordon Liddy came to help. It turns out that he goes there [it’s a church], though he says things like “I was thanking the Lord that I got the damn thing started.” It is an Episcopal church. So he wants to hike the trail when he retires in a couple years, and since he liked talking to us he invited Ranger Rick and me to shower and launder at his place and then go out to eat. This is all well and good, but you have to understand that heretofore it had been a crappy day and all I wanted in town was to get Oreos and milk and to sit down and read. That and that alone was my reason to keep moving, keep taking that next step.

You’ve already figured out what happened.

By the time we got done with all those things everything was closed and I couldn’t get my Oreos and milk. It put me in such a bad mood that I didn’t even call home. See what living like this does to you? It makes you want and crave the simplest things, and it makes you inordinately upset if you don’t get them-- so upset that you don’t even want to call home.

Seeking the Angelic Loaf

...These states coming up-- NJ and NY-- are all about urban sprawl and domesticity. This is of course a double-edged sword, so I shall wield it with due caution.

… This is certainly a first on this hike, and I don’t think I like it one bit; the contrast is quickly becoming too much for my thinning frame to handle. I’m talking about the fact that “trail towns” now consist of car audio stores and shopping malls filled with “Fashizzles,” and are populated by dudes who park their decaled and foreign cars at angles across four spaces and chicks who wear jerseys and gel their bangs. No good.

… [While staying at the famed Graymoor Spiritual Life Center] I would love to be able to say “Graymoor… Monastery,” but I guess even that taxanomic anti-climax is fitting. See, I’ve been anxiously awaiting this day for years (which is plenty of time to form grandiose expectations), and yet here I am walking away without even an AYCE* dinner, much less a frock or the stigmata. I did get to converse with Fr. Fred, but it bummed me out that he was in street clothes instead of a totally sweet brown habit. But he did say that this place was but a “twig” on the Franciscan tree, so I suppose I’ll have to journey towards the trunk for the real experience. (And the tuniced friar minor will open the door thinking that I’m in need of bread, but I will say, “Truly, I come seeking that angelic loaf which does not spoil,” and he’ll let me in, and I’ll get stigmata.)
So after spending two hours in the bookstore reading and drinking coffee (which was great), I’m out here camping on the ballfield. Today was pretty fascinating in that I got to cross the Hudson river and walk through a zoo—the animal and people kind. The trail weaves along-side the Hessian lake, which is apparently where all the very “New York” people go on sunny weekends to grill out and braid each other’s hair. Then, as if to legislate a rudimentary knowledge of “nature” and “the outdoors,” the park path and trail runs directly through an actual zoo.
It was neat, but I felt so guilty walking through there because I knew those caged animals could see and smell in me that wilds-borne freedom for which they so deeply longed. One mom was amazed as she watched a coyote track me along the length of the sidewalk, and when she pointed it out I looked and could see that burning desire in his eyes—the kind that cries, “take me with you.” But I couldn’t, because most hostels don’t allow coyotes.

*"all-you-can-eat"

… I’m daily experiencing as stark reality the inexorable march of time; every day is the same, and the unchanging background of trees serves to dimensionalize this fact. If I get bummed about walking so much—meaning, the fact that I’m out here instead of sitting somewhere with friends, being dry—all I have to do is remember that if I just keep walking eventually I’ll get somewhere and it’ll get dark and I’ll sleep, and then I’ll wake up one day and that many miles closer to sitting at home with friends, being dry.

Mud and Bears

[From the journal of my 2003 Appalachian Trail hike, Went, Told It on the Mountain. More to follow.]

Past Mountain Shelter

Q: How many A.D.D kids does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Hey, let's go ride bikes!

With two black eyes Nature's now told me twice. I woke up pissed cus I did it again-- I camped on dirt and it rained and the splatter [into my tarp] got all my stuff muddy. When am I gonna learn? But I guess since I'm here to foster a dependence on skills and knowledge instead of gear that these kinds of experiences are valuable. So I was in a not-so-capital mood to start my rainy 27 mi. day, but as it's happened a few times already I kind of instantaneously snapped out of it-- the wind blew and just carried it away.

But throughout the day I tended towards negative thoughts and more "A-->B" planning, like my actual hiking was just a necessary evil. I wouldn't say I've got the "Virginia Blues" [scroll down slightly], but I am ready to be out of here. The next two months will be cool if only for the fact that I'll be going through a new state every week. Maybe that'll break my mental/spiritual dry-spell that's come of late. It's nothing that's not normal for a thru-hiker-- especially one that's been in nothing but rain-- but still, I feel like I'm falling short in terms of my reason for being here. I don't know.

I saw two bears today at different times. One of 'em was real close to the trail, and when I got close-- about 20 feet-- he tried to run away but he kept slipping on the wet rocks and grunting. Scared, he stopped, turned, looked at me, and then finally managed to run off.

I laughed out loud.