Date: 2006-09-05
To: Home Clearwater, Florida 
Miles today: 0.0

My hike is complete now. I accomplished what I set out to do and now have some explaining and catching up to do for the faithful readers. I was able to finish which is what I set out to do. My goals for the Appalachian Trail were these:1. Let my daughter spread her wings. She handled my home finances and problems pretty well and it helped her to grow up some.2. Accomplish a major life achievement, the Appalachian Trail Thru hike.3. Improve my physical fitness. Weight around 175. Not quite but still close. I started at around 262 in Florida and started the AT at 250, and finished at 183. 4. Resolve 40 years of family, work grief and stress, my mom's death last year, etc. Leave it all on the Trail. Done and done.5. Decide what is really important to me personally for my next fifty years. I know now what I want. Next some of you have noted that the dates of the journal do not match reality. If you recall early on in my Florida Trail Journal, I warned that dates would not be kept exactly for security reasons. It is not always good to have strangers know exactly where you are. After being stalked in Florida, I strongly suggest that you build in some days off extra so you are really ahead of where the journal says you are or just wait until you are done to do the journal, keeping it a few weeks behind. I actually finished as the #148 hiker of the Class of 2006, climbing Katahdin on August 22, 2006 reaching the peak at 0810 a.m.For those of you who did not know it, I have held a secret since May 28th. The evening I went 30.9 miles to Niday Shelter trying to catch up to my friend 'Dick Tracy' I sufferred a stress fracture in my right foot. It felt like a searing pain and I thought I had pulled a muscle or strained a ligament but I was limping for days. A passing hiking doctor I met at a shelter did a quick exam after seeing me limping, and thought I had a stress fracture and advised me to go off the Trail to get Xrays. A couple weeks of hiking later, I did get to a doctor and X-rays and the diagnosis had been correct. I now had stress fractures in both feet. Again I was advised to get off the Trail for a month, but I was afraid I would never go back if I did that. I was told there would probably not be any more permanent injury, just a lot of pain. So I continued in great pain for the rest of the Trail. I did not put it in my journal as I did not want sympathy or for it to be a reason or excuse for failing. Just because a journey is harder than we ever anticipated, that is not a reaon to quit; perhaps that is the way it should be. By overcoming this injury and keeping on hiking it certainly made the trip unpleasant and it took away much of the daily joy I had felt prior to the injury but it also has made me realise that I can endure anything. It wasn't too bad if I could walk flat-footed but when a rock or root hit in the middle of the foot it was excrutiating. Otherwise it just ached constantly. By putting too much weight on left foot, it developed stress fractures as well. I took a lot of Ibuprofen and Tylenol but declined the doctors offer of narcotic pain killers as pointless on a wilderness journey if my senses were to be dulled by drugs. For many weeks I was afraid I would not be able to finish at all. I did not think I could take the pain another day but did not want to quit on myself. I also found out that I had gotten Lyme Disease from a tick bite. That is what made me so sick and fatigued for much of the Trail. Post Trail Antibiotics killed off the Lyme Disease but I advise every hiker to get checked post trip. I also kept thinking what kind of example I would be setting for my daughter or others if I quit, "Got off the Trail"? Setting out I knew that hiking the AT would be a monumental task, not easily done or more people would accomplish it each year. There are many reasons to quit but I was stubborn enough to hope I could finish; and I did. "People come out to the Appalachian Trail to find out what their limits are, and when they get here find out they have none." Bare Bear 2006.Do the right thing for future generations. Teach, mentor and lead future generations to the outdoors and help them discover that they have no limitations other than those they put on themselves. Thank you for taking the time to read this journal. Please send me a note in the Guest Book and leave me an email address so that I can write back. Barry Smith, One of a great AT Class of 2006. I am looking forward to doing Trail Magic for future AT Classes at Stecoah Gap, NC just before you get to Fontana Dam every April. See you on the Trail.