Date: 2015-10-02
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Today marks two weeks since I climbed Katahdin and finished the hike. And given the current weather and stream conditions in maine, I am very happy I finished when I did! (as an aside, I am typing this on a laptop with a broken m-key and can only do lower case. Sorry maine!). Thank you to everybody who has been following along, posting in the guest book (or not) and sending encouraging emails! That was an unexpected but very welcome part of the hike! I will do a separate gear review (or possibly more than one), but if you have any specific questions you'd like me to address, please let me know. For now, I'll just give my general post-hike thoughts, which are a bit hodge-podge.The trip home turned out to be unexpectedly cumbersome. We had only gone about an hour and a half and were 30 miles or so north of Augusta when the car overheated. Yay! It took some time for the insurance company to locate a tow truck driver who would take three passengers, but the driver who showed up was at least very nice. Even if sitting on Sasquatch's lap wasn't very comfortable for either of us, with my bony behind! We dropped the car off at a repair place and made arrangements to settle in for the night. Low Pro was with us, poor guy, as we were supposed to give him a ride to maryland. That didn't work out so well! Fortunately he found a flight from the Augusta Airport for the next day, so at least he wasn't stuck there until Tuesday like we were.The initial car repair people were pretty well useless and after determining that it was not a simple case of a burst hose or something, declared themselves unqualified to work on a BmW. You'd have thought we'd dropped off a Lamborghini. Of course all other places that might help us were closed for the weekend, so nothing happened until monday. But at least by then we were in a more conveniently located hotel and had found a competent and friendly place to take the car (yet another tow). The new place even had the required parts in stock and we were finally on our way home on Tuesday afternoon, arriving Wednesday morning at 1:30 am. Phew! Augusta is not a very happening place, I found myself regretting the car hadn't broken down near Portland, but what can you do. As far as I can tell, I haven't had any issues adjusting to 'real life' as of yet. I don't expect any either, to be honest. Because of other plans that didn't actually happen, I am not going back to work until January, so I have a nice long decompression period. So far, I have filled it with putting away gear, doing some cleaning, a lot of knitting and just general lollygagging. I am a big fan of lollygagging... I am also planning to visit friends out of town, and my family in Europe. One of my major peeves about living in the US is the lack of vacation time, so it will be nice to take these trips without being rushed as usual. A lot of people that hike the AT do so in a period of transition in their lives, and use the time to figure out what they want to do next. It wasn't like that for me and I have no big revelations to share. I had to carve out some time to do it because I had been wanting to for years. As to the why I did want to, I still don't know. I do know though that that part is crucial for completion. While it is hard, almost anybody can physically do it, if they want to. I have to admit that the least three weeks or so, I didn't want to as much as before, but by then the end was so close, it would have been extremely silly to quit! Plus, Sasquatch was coming to join me! I always planned to complete the full hike and I never really had the urge to quit, but I was also very lucky that I didn't get sick (beyond that cold in Dalesville) or injured. Luck definitely plays a role.Throughout the course of my hike, I was also extremely lucky with the weather. There were only a couple of stretches where I had significant rain (as in more than just one day) and I also didn't have many days where it was unbearably hot and humid. Sure, it was hot and humid on occasion in NJ and NY and CT and mA, but it could have been far, far worse. I think the good weather also was a significant factor that contributed to my completion. All of this is not to say that I'm not awesome, of course! (seriously, I do feel that if I can do it, most people could. I know that is not necessarily true, but it does feel that way).It took me 5.5 months and that was pretty well what I had publicly said I expected. Secretly though, I thought I'd be a little bit faster and would be closer to 5 months. When I was on the trail however, I found it fairly impossible to go faster than I did, or make longer days than I did. I like to think that age is a big factor there. I could spend about 10 hours a day hiking, but if I did more than that, I'd get cranky and not enjoy myself at all. my pace was never much more than 2 mph and in the later stretch often far less. The longest distance I hiked was from Boiling Springs to Duncannon in Pennsylvania. It is 25.6 miles and took about 10.5 hours. And while I was definitely very tired by the end of that (very soggy) day, I have also had much harder days with much lower mileage. That day, I came to the conclusion that it's not mileage that makes you tired (or at least makes me tired) but time on your feet. If you can hiker faster, you can do higher mileage days without necessarily being more beat up by the end of the day.I think at my lowest weight, I had lost about 14.5 lbs from where I started. As you may know, women don't usually lose as much as men, which on the trail was an advantage. I did find it hard to eat enough, mostly because I didn't enjoy most of the foods we can carry. (except Skittles! I loved Skittles and was very excited when I found some leftover ones in our stuff when cleaning up. I won't buy any new ones though). So I supplemented heavily with town food whenever possible. Now that I've been off the trail for a couple of weeks, I have gained some of it back already. I sort of feel like I'm on a diet though, as hikers frequently gain all they lost back and then some, and I'd prefer to keep about 5-8 of those lost pounds off permanently. We'll see how that goes! It is very nice to be back home and eat Sasquatch's home cooked food! I think it is easier to eat well on the trail if you dehydrate your own food, but I'm not sure how you figure out what you'd like to eat 3 or 4 or more months down the road. As it was, I ate a lot of tuna, mountain house meals, crackers, chocolate and bars of all sorts. And chips, which I now consider the ultimate hiking food: lightweight and high calorie!The feet are still partially numb but definitely better than before. I have a disconcerting weird thing going on with my knee, which pops up now and then. Other than that, I have no real issues, though my joints (knees, hips, ankles) were not particularly happy when I went for a run earlier this week. The feet didn't seem to care, which was a relief.And so I am settling in, enjoying my free time and being very thankful, as I look to the pouring rain outside, that I am not on the trail. I hope that everybody who is, is safe and as dry as possible!