Date: 2010-03-22
To: What, me worry?
Miles today: 0.0

After two delays to my original timetable, after historic snow levels that lingered and slowed springs arrival, it appears that my amended start date of Monday, March 29th will happen. In what I hope is not a foreshadowing of days to come, I mailed off my first two maildrops this morning in a torrential downpour. Whether it¢s an El Nino or La Nina season and which means wet and which means dry I can¢t recall, but here I go. As in my past hikes beginning, I¢ll hop on Amtrak this Sunday for an over-nighter to Gainesville, Georgia ¢ no easier way to get to Springer Mountain if you live on the eastern corridor than Amtrak.What I remember most about those first days on the trail is how I didn¢t remember how many rocks and roots the AT has. Those little things that annoy in the beginning of a long distance hike fall to the status of insignificant when the bigness of the endeavor is achieved. The good day memories layer in front of the bad. With the abatement of snow, we can refocus on the most unnerving of foes during a long distance hike, lightning. Scientist tell us that the speed of lightning is the same as the governing laws of light itself, thus cloud to ground lightning strikes at an estimated 186, 000 mph. Impressive indeed, incomprehensible really and is only rivaled by the speed in which the driver behind you will lay on their horn after the light turns green. They say the last place one should hunker down in a thunderstorm is under a tree. That¢s sort of impossible to achieve when hiking in a mountain forest. At least they are taller than we are. I heard recently that we all have a 1 in 576,000th chance to be struck by a bolt while outside in a storm. The good news is that it¢s a 1 in 2,320,000th chance to be killed, so things are looking up. The odds are worse for golfers and those fishing though ¢ activities that involve holding long rod like objects that just love to interact with the positive-negative electrical currents that surround us all. For those of us backpacking it may be even worse, although not many have studied and published their findings, because when we go out we put a lightning rod like object in BOTH hands rather than just one. Gulp! Now for those of you who know that men get struck four times more than women, I think its safe to say that won¢t apply to female hikers since that statistic, historically, was based on men spending more time outside than women ¢ thru-hikers are all equal in regards to lightning ¢ Quite democratic of it. Actually, odds of having a really bad fall are much more against us than lightning (22,666 to 1). Additionally, for all those fretting over bear encounters, the odds of being bitten by a mammal other than dogs and humans is over four million to one. Isn¢t it funny that the odds get worse when being bitten by a human?And that only is eclipsed by the odds that any of us hikers will get bitten by a shark is an astronomical 300 million to one, not too many great whites in the water sources of the Appalachians. Thank goodness.At times, I¢m sure the odds of lightning finding us get worse since we get to stick our heads up into the thundering mess when it catches us on a summit, what a joy it is to hear BOOM BOOM BOOM coming up from behind on a climb. Well, actually, any time. Although lightning is possibly the most dramatic of events to give us pause out on the trail, we might be better served keeping our guard up on the more mundane ones. Statistics show that we have a much better chance of dying by choking on food, 370,000 to 1 or by meeting our maker in a car accident while hitching in, 18,500 to 1 than visiting the Pearly Gates from lightning. So fret not and take comfort that the odds that the far more destructive force that a meteor will crash into you at an AT shelter is a glorious 182,138,880,000,000 to 1. Hike happy, the odds are with you.