Date: 2003-05-20
From: Trail Days

To: Kincora, Bob Peoples
Miles today: 0.0

On Saturday I decided since my foot was still sore and I was not fit enough to hike onwards yet that I would sign up for the Volunteer trail work to maintain the trail with the trail crew who Bob Peoples organises and all hikers who get involved earn a Hardcore badge for thier effort, in fact its the only part of the trail maintained by thru-hikers.So I thanked Bluebearee for making it possible for me to experience Traildays and for putting the thought in my head in the first place , your a star Bluebearee !!!!So Bob picked all 50 odd of us up in Damascus on sunday morning to go and cut out some new trail for a re-route , most of the crew of 50 all seemed to have massive hangovers.We arrived at the trail and had a short briefing and then all got to work and the day was finished with a meal laid on by the TN mt club at wataga lake and afterwards we all went back to kincora to spend the night.The next day we got up early and the transport was leaving at 0900hrs to go and do another days work on the trail.It was very intresting to see and learn some of the work which goes into the trail and made all of us appreciate the path we are walking on everyday , we got a group photo at the end of the day with all our picks & shovels and returned to kincora again for a big meal cooked up by baltimore jack who spent all day the kitchen while we spent all day swinging picks !!! who had the better job ???The food was top class and we all spent the night sitting round talking about our few days of work.It has been good to meet other hikers and hear stories of thier experiences on the trail and listen to the people of the Trail and talk to guys like Weather carrot who I am sure told me he has hiked the A.T 8 times and the P.C.T which gives him nearly 20,000 miles of hiking and a guy called Siek with 16 thru-hikes which gives him 32,000 miles on the trail !!! After changing my mind a 100 times about what I was going to do after today I decided to catch a ride with T-bird up to Albany NY and then catch a bus to Dalton Massachussets to pick up the trail where I left off.I only have 19 days left until I fly home to Scotland and with 617 miles and a injured foot it is looking highly unlikely that I will finish the A.T unless my foot makes a miracle recovery in the next week then I might think about buying a new ticket for july 1st and then carry on and finish , but if my foot is no better then it is pointless for me to hang around here in the hope that it gets better when it could take weeks to do so and I do not have the time to do that this summer.Another idea I had was to do the "Long trail" which runs for 270 miles and the first 100 miles of the trail run along the same path as the A.T and then branches of at the shelbourne pass in Vermont and finishes at the Canadian border and that way I would have more of a feeling of completion at the end of my hike for this trip.Then I can always come back some other time and complete my dream of summiting Katahdin by walking all the way to the top of that mighty mountain which has been at the foremost of my thoughts for the last 4 months.Whatever happens I will walk away satisfied with what I have achived this year because I can only try my best and that is what I believe I have done every step of the way.I am writing this as I am sitting in the passenger seat driving towards Albany N.Y with T-bird (she drives like a maniac although she) and I am thinking about the miles I have covered since setting out for this trail , 1000 miles from Connecticut - Georgia on the bus and then I walked 1550 miles to Dalton MA from Georgia and then I drove 800 miles back to where I came from to go to Trail days in Damascus and now I am driving 800 miles back to Dalton MA.I am going up and down th country like a Yo-Yo....This sure is an "Awesome" adventure.