Date: 2004-12-07
To: why?
Miles today: 0.0

The summer day in 2003 I quit the AT in Glencliff, New Hampshire I left it a wrecked man. At 142 pounds I'd lost so much weight that there wasn't enough body tissue left to keep my hemorrhoids from popping out. My knees were so swollen that neither leg could bend back much past 90 degrees and each act of sitting down was a painful event. It would be two months before that swelling went down enough to get my Levis to slide past my knees. This is what the trail had done to me--or more accurately, what I had done to myself on the trail. I am a pro at doing really stupid things: logging multiple 30-mile days, trail-running for hours at a time with a pack on knees I had damaged months before and ignored, masking the pain with handfuls of Ibuprofen and Nuerontin. There were even a few Hikin¢ on Vicodin days when nothing else worked.That same day I also set the target of April 2005 to re-attempt thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Frankly, it has become an obsession and a part of my life. A day hasn't gone by in the last 16 months that my experiences on the Trail and upcoming re-start have not invaded in some way. For the first four months back home I couldn't close the windows to my bedroom at night regardless of the weather. I mentally sort everything I own into what is a necessity and what is a luxury and find myself giving away the luxuries. My book collection, some volumes I've had since the fifth grade, went to the Salvation Army. Also dumped: my CDs, tennis rackets, extra computers, and every piece of clothing I hadn't worn in the previous year. I consider how much everything weighs, even if it's only going into the back of my truck. I have not bought a single item of clothing that is cotton other than socks. I find myself comparing the ingredients label on food items for calorie counts, even though I've regained 35 pounds. I've stocked up on New Balance 806s for this hike and beyond ... to the tune of 18 pairs. And on and on.In less than four months I'll be standing on top of Springer looking north once again, a slower and hopefully smarter, more informed, more observant, more patient hiker. I will be doing something for the second time that many, many, many people dream for a lifetime of doing and never do once. How lucky is that??My friends think I'm nuts. Some of them ask me why I don't just pick up where I left on in New Hampshire and finish the last 380 miles. "Why do you have to start in Georgia again? Why are you putting yourself through all the pain, the rain, the sweat, the hunger, the mosquitoes, the rocks, the snoring, the SMELL of it all again??" My boss said to get over it and move on. He said, "This is a done deal. Let's go do something else like climb Everest."WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.Because it's truly living, every single day, with an intensity few people ever know. There are valleys and mountains on the trail that have nothing to do with geography and that one will never travel without walking the walk. Ask a thru-hiker for a list of the 50 worst and 50 best days of his or her life, and 40 of each will have been inside of those few months of their thru-hike. The crappy foggy days are always matched by days of incredible clarity and astounding beauty. Some of the most pleasurable moments in life are on this trail only because it follows many hours of pain; the simple act of putting on clean, dry socks is joy impossible to imagine until youve lived in wet, cold ones for a week. The best-tasting Coke, beer, and hamburger you will ever have in your life are all on the Appalachian Trail--because of what you have to go through to get them.Things I want to do different this time: No deadlines, no time constraints, no trail-running. No 30-milers. I would like to eat better this time around. I want to take a lot more pictures. I want to pet the wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands instead of running by them. I'd like to take my shoes off and have a nap in the bright sunshine on Max Patch. No Blue or Yellow Blazing. I dropped about 100 miles in 2003 and felt justified and righteous about it. This is a different year and another hike.Also, I want to make this journal something you folks will enjoy and look forward to reading. I tried and couldn't even finish reading my own 2003 journal. It sucked... It was a log of the miles I made, the food I ate, the weather, and elevation totals.The thru-hiking experience is inherently a very selfish pursuit. I am going to make an effort to write less about me and more about that experience instead. I'm going to try to journalize in a way this time so that you, the reader, become the thru-hiker.