Date: 2018-06-03
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Partway through my hike I prefaced a remark to my friend Moore, a previous thru hiker, with ¢when things get back to normal.¢  He responded that things will never get back to normal after the hike.  At the time I thought he was exaggerating, but he was right, of course.  I learned so much from the hike, and I changed.  It¢s not that I¢m a different person.  I¢m more the essential me than I was before: I¢m more like the person I was at age 18 than the person I was at age 50.  My life is open to all sorts of possibilities that I never would have considered before.  My life feels large, open, and expansive.Obviously, I learned a lot of hiking and camping skills: how to plot a way up steep rocks, use my knee as the first foothold and crawl up a rock when the lowest foothold is too high, use all parts of my body, even my head, to brace myself into position for a climb, use a tree to help get up or down a steep place, etc.  I can also set up my tent in no time and take it down just as fast.  I now have the presence of mind not to panic when I¢ve lost the trail.  And, much as I hate being cold or wet, I now know that I can tolerate either for quite a while without losing my sense of humor. Recently I was hiking in the woods with a friend and came to a stream to be crossed.  There was no easy way to get across without just wading in.  My friend agonized for a long time trying to figure out a way to cross without getting wet.  I quickly realized that I¢d be home and able to get dry socks and shoes in a few hours and just waded in.  Before my AT hike, I would have been on the bank with my friend trying my hardest not to get wet.  But the most useful things I learned were things about myself.  I discovered that I¢m far stronger, both mentally and physically, than I ever imagined.  I¢ve overcome some of my fears of hiking in steep places, but the most important thing I¢ve learned is that I can do things that really terrify me.  Knowing that makes life easier because it makes fear less important.  I now look at my body in a whole new light.  Whereas before my body image was based on how I look, I now care more about what my body can do.  I love my feet and my legs - they're so strong and work so well.  I no longer automatically put on makeup in the morning.  And, unless I do something that makes me sweaty or stinky, I generally shower only every other day.  Before I started hiking the AT I had no aspirations to be a long-distance hiker.  I only wanted to hike the AT.  I thought that achieving this goal would get it out of my system.  But it didn¢t.  It made me want to do more long trails.  I started thinking about the Pacific Crest Trail.  I also want to hike the Allegheny Trail in West Virginia and the Camino de Santiago in Spain.  Being on the trail with hikers in their 20s and 30s made me acutely aware that the length of time in which I can do difficult hiking is limited.  So I plan to hike the most difficult trails first, while I still can, and save the easier ones for later. Hiking with the same small group of people - in essence, living with them - for the whole trail gave me the feeling of being in a family.  It was a real wrench to leave them at the end.  Leaving them made me realize how much I¢d like to live near my own family.  So, after spending 38 years in West Virginia I¢ve decided to move to Madison, Wisconsin to be near my sister Diane and her husband and children.  This is probably the most surprising fallout from my thru hike.  I¢ll miss my friends and the mountains terribly, but I now know that I can make a new life elsewhere even though moving scares me.  Because I¢ll be  leaving West Virginia soon I¢m hiking the Allegheny Trail as a farewell tour.  Starting day is June 13.  I'll be journaling here.  Check it out.