Date: 2008-04-04
To: I May, I Might, I Must
Miles today: 0.0

If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I thenwill tell you why I think that I can get across it if I try.                     - Marianne Moore   I¢ve had a powerful idea brewing in my head, almost continuously, since September 5th, 2007. It is a romantic notion that I have been using as a means of keeping my spirit alive throughout the doldrums of my everyday world. This all-consuming thought of mine is to hike the Appalachian Trail. I know that I will not discover the meaning of life on this journey, but I know that I WILL discover something that it is not accessible to me now. There is something missing in this life of mine and it is not in my nature to simply accept what is around me and be content with it. I am not so na ve to believe that hiking this trail will fix my life and rid me of my unhappiness, but I do believe that we should make every attempt to discover the things that give us purpose and meaning and happiness in this world, and I know that I am not finding these things in the life I am leading now. At the very least, I know that this journey will provide me with new challenges and a host of powerful memories, give me a new vision of the world, and allow me to see what kind of strength and potential I hold inside of myself.       The funny thing about this grandiose idea of mine is that I have never been backpacking before! Details, minor details, I say¢¦      It was July 4th, 1998, when I made my first (almost impromptu) trek up Tuckerman¢s Ravine on Mount Washington), dressed in a cotton T-shirt and jeans shorts. It took nearly four hours for my friend and I to reach the summit, and after enjoying our first bowl of Mt. Washington chili in the summit house, I quietly sat at the table, collecting my energy for the four hour trip back down the mountain. Erik said he had never seen me so still before. Towards the end of the hike, we took a break at one of the bridges, climbing down the bank to sit on some rocks in the middle of the river. Erik had taken off his glasses and splashed water on his face and I handed him his flannel shirt to dry off, not realizing that he had placed his glasses on his shirt! They were quickly swept away with the current and suddenly we were faced with the reality of not knowing how we were going to get home! I could not drive his '66 Chevy, three-on-a-tree pick-up, and he could not see anything without his glasses! He did have his prescription sunglasses in the truck, but how would he see through them in the pitch dark? We stuck our hands in the water and moved them along the bottom of the icy stream, hoping beyond hope that we would somehow find them- that maybe they had been caught on a rock and had not been able to cascade downstream...With a magnificent stroke of luck, one of us had actually found them! What an escape!    Maybe a year or two later, while driving east on the Massachusetts Turnpike. I looked up at an overpass and saw a small sign across the bottom of it, labeled ¢Appalachian Trail.¢ Erik informed me that it was the same backpacking trail that extended through the White Mountains. Interesting.       We had enjoyed our Mount Washington hike so much that it would become a yearly tradition. Over the years, we would scale several other peaks for a little variety (Mount Adams and Lafayette to name a couple), along with Mt. Washington. And every year, I was reminded of the Appalachian Trail while hiking in these mountains (a place that would soon feel like home to me). Perhaps, I, too, would like to try my hand at this challenge. I love to exercise. I like the feeling of working hard. I love a good challenge. However, the idea of doing this trail was fleeting. The impulses came and went as quickly as my two-day hikes, as I became caught up in the demands of my everyday world. But every time I returned to the Whites, the idea revisited me.       During our stay at Pinkham Notch in 2005, the after-dinner movie happened to be a documentary about the AT. It was filmed during a year of intense and drawn-out rain. Day in, and day out, the hikers lived in dankness- steeped in wet clothing and gear that had not a chance of drying out. Their feet festered with blisters, and their spirits sank with the gloom around them as they continued to trudge north for the next 5 or 6 months. I learned that the hikers went through an average of four pairs of boots on the trail, and my mind boggled. This endeavor would cost a lot of money! (Money, that I did not have.) I accepted the reality that this life was not the one for me. I could live without being continuously wet, miserable, in pain, and eaten alive by blood-thirsty insects. I would simply be happy with my annual trip to the Whites, where I would enjoy a hot meal after the day¢s hike, as well as a warm shower. I would happily sleep in a comfortable, quilted bed in the lodge¢s rooms, complete with a cute nature name on every door.      But two years later, I would have the chance to talk to a real thru-hiker, and everything changed. In previous years, I found that the thru-hikers liked to keep to themselves in the dining hall at Pinkham Notch. They looked so different from me- from their woolen clothes to their long beards and hair done up in dreadlocks. But this thru-hiker was traveling alone, had a much more clean-cut appearance, and had joined the long indoor picnic table of day-hikers where I was seated, waiting to be served a family-style dinner. As soon as I found out he was hiking the entire distance of the AT, I began shooting questions down to him at the opposite end. With a bemused smile, he very politely answered each and every one.       As we returned to our room, I immediately thought of several more questions I wished I had asked. Luckily, he was in the dining room again when we walked in for breakfast. We talked about trail names and what our itineraries were for the day, and then he was off to climb Wildcat mountain, while we headed up Lion¢s Head and down Bootspur.      With sore quads and calves, I returned home for a thirst for more information on this trail and its hikers and not too long afterwards, discovered Trail Journals. What a wealth of information and source of entertainment this site has provided me! Reading other hiker¢s experiences and looking at their photographs became a daily addiction¢¦