Date: 2015-09-15
From: The White Mountains

To: Katahdin
Miles today: 298.3

I summited The Great Mountain of Katahdin on September 4th, 2015. I arrived back home to Blue Ridge, Virginia three days later. I have been delaying writing the final journal entry ever since I returned home. What does one say about a monumental task such as completing a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail? I don't even know how to put my AT journey into words that reflect my life for the six months that it took me to complete it. Honestly, I'm not sure I even want to. Until you¢ve hiked it yourself, you can never know what it's like or how you would feel. It might be selfish to say, but I really believe we thru-hikers belong to an exclusive club. I want to share the experience, but in some deep personal way¢¦ there is a part of me that doesn't want people to understand unless they have earned it by doing it themselves. I have something that's mine, and everyone else should go and find a piece of their own. Am I supposed to write about how physically and mentally grueling it was? Oh, it was that... much more than I ever expected it to be. I had read several books that ¢told me¢ how it would be¢¦ those books did not do the trail justice. I went to the gym and considered myself to be in really good shape for my age¢¦ and still, it was at times beyond tough. Should I write about all those days when I literally thought I couldn't possibly hike any further? Somehow I found the strength to hike on. What other choice did I have? I mean that's what one does. You can't just stop. Lord knows there were times that I wanted too but no one is going to hike the miles for you. To get to Katahdin you must continue on. Or quit...the word quit was NOT an option for me. I had thought long and hard about that before I even left home to begin this hike. After I completed I asked my son if he thought I would finish, to which he replied, ¢Dad, I knew you would either finish or rangers would have been carrying your body out of the woods in a wire basket.¢ Am I to write about relentlessly endless hunger pains that go to your sleeping bag with you at night, you wake up with them and they are with you while you hike all day. Or maybe I should write about the swarms of bugs that seem to want to eat you alive? The blood and mud caked legs and arms that come from not only the bug bites, but also from falling down, sometimes as many as 4-6 times a day. Granite rocks do not make for a soft landing. Or I could write about the never ending aches and pains? Your feet and knees take a terrible beating¢¦ the descents are so very hard on the joints. There is no way I could possibly make you feel the pain of having to hike on legs screaming with shin splints. The ascents, are at times so hard they completely zap your strength and drain your energy. If I didn¢t choose any of those things should I write about the feelings of homesickness? How could I possibly convey to you the empty feelings of desolation I felt when thinking of my wife back home, taking care of all the things that I should be taking care of. My craving for her touch and embrace weighed so heavy on my mind, every day. Three months without seeing your loved ones and pets was almost more than I could take at times. Add to that how it feels in the morning to have to put on cold, wet boots and clothes, sometimes several days in a row. Or how it feels to have to cook and eat ramen noodles again, and again, and YES again. I can¢t even try to explain how I would have paid a small king¢s ransom for a cold coke over a hundred times a day. You can never possibly explain the heartbreaking feeling of seeing a cooler of ¢trail magic¢ up ahead¢¦praying that it's not empty. As you get closer and lift the lid your heart literally sinks to see that you are too late this time, it's empty. Or worse yet the feeling that the shelter you think you see is just ahead and you would soon have a brief rest only to find the shelter was just a mirage. In the 2189.2 miles that make up the AT they don¢t count the bonus miles¢¦like the water supply that was .5 off a blue blaze which means and additional mile out of your way. When you add that to 24 miles you have already hiked ¢¦ it¢s not a warm fuzzy feeling. Alright enough about the rough parts, and yes they were rough. The good times,they were magical. I can go on and on about the good times. I want you to know that above all else the good times far outweighed the bad. Like those times when the trail magic did indeed have something left for you. The cool breeze at the top of the hard fought mountain, with only a few remaining miles to hike before the end of the day. I have to tell about the mountaintop views¢¦ like the ones you see in travel magazines that seemly go on forever. The views that a person cannot witness without putting in the effort to hike there. The views that no one driving in a car will ever be lucky enough to see. The views if you are granted an opportunity to see, like the wildlife. Seeing a moose lift his head up out of the water and shake off the water spray. Or seeing a full grown bear running through the forest. The doe nursing her new born fawn. The grouse who acted like she was hurt¢¦ so you would concentrate on her instead of her four babies. Or the things you take for granted while not on the trail¢¦ The wonderful sensation of a hot shower washing away ten days of blood, mud, sweat and tears. The wonderful feeling of a clean dry pair of socks. The taste of a big fat juicy trail town cheeseburger. The deep, and I have no doubt lasting, friendships that were made within days. I once read that when I reached Katahdin that I would forget all about the bad and only remember the good. I must say I liked that but in many ways it has been both the difficulties and challenges that made reaching Katahdin so much more rewarding. There is a famous Bill Bryson quote from A Walk in the Woods. He writes "I had come to realize that I didn't have any feelings toward the AT that weren't confused and contradictory. I was weary of the trail but still strangely in its thrall; found the endless slog tedious but irresistible; grew tired of the boundless woods but admire their boundlessness; enjoyed the escape from civilization and ached for its comforts. I wanted to quit and to do all this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again." This I would say sums up my feelings. If the Appalachian Trail has taught me anything it is that the world it is still a good place, filled with good people and if you let your guard down, open up your heart and mind, and return it in kind, the good is all around us and there for the taking.Now go find a piece of your own. It's out there. Go get it!