Date: 2010-01-28
To: Is hiking northbound uphill?
Miles today: 0.0

It seems so, doesn¢t it? If you gain in latitude, doesn¢t ¢gain¢ mean going up, as in stairs? And if North is at the top of the globe and South the bottom, doesn¢t that also prove that a northbound hike means always climbing? If you look at a map of the U.S., aren¢t you always ascending from Georgia to Maine? It sure seems it would and supposedly many non-hiking types do as well. Countless times, a Towner trying to be cute will cackle ¢I¢d hike south if I were you, that¢s downhill.¢ Yuk Yuk, they¢ll laugh in their Jay Leno brilliance. I try to be polite, but a few times my retort has been, ¢Yea thanks, and remember your meds need periodic adjustment with your doctor. Enjoy your day.¢ That usually gets a puzzled stare.Of course, many of you who don¢t hike, always feel that hiking South would indeed be walking downhill ¢ Come on, admit it. I can assure you it¢s only a perception. Moving north can actually be downhill and moving South can be uphill ¢ nutty isn¢t it? Let¢s not even talk about how north is often east or west or even moving south at times. And moving south occasionally means moving in every direction other than south. It can be psychologically daunting early in the hike, say¢¦ in the Nantahala Wilderness area where we turn east, then west and south ¢ this feels like the most ¢bass ackwards¢ way of getting to Maine in the north. Of course, there is a short cut, but that¢s the topic for another journal entry I¢ll write later entitled, ¢When to know your thru-hike may be in jeopardy.¢Since hiking trails are not highways (and without the same budgets to plow through mountains, thank goodness), they wiggle around the topography of the land (and property lines) to find their route. As a result, this thing called the Appalachian Trail at times looks nothing like an idyllic, meandering trail of well-worn pathway through the birdsong filled forests that¢s so easy to visualize. Acknowledged as the toughest of America¢s three long-distance trails, The Pacific Crest and Continental Divide Trail¢s being the other two, the AT sends its followers periodically up rock scree, across boulder fields and through collapsed granite labyrinths that resemble fallen Jenga games rather than storybook footpaths. Hikers do get lost occasionally, usually missing a turn rather than making the wrong one by not seeing the white double-blaze that says to pay attention, a path change is coming.On an up note, moving north does seem to be a positive, optimistic thing to do. ¢I¢m heading north,¢ sounds empowering, that you¢ve got your act together and a bit more reassuring to others than acknowledging, ¢I¢m heading south,¢ or ¢I¢m going downhill.¢ Yikes, that doesn¢t sound good, does it? So heading north, although it sounds more difficult is not without its emotional benefits.It also should be stated here that heading northbound does in fact mean going uphill fairly regularly. An end-to-end journey of the AT involves over 470,000 feet of accumulated ascent. Said another way, walking from Georgia to Maine it¢s like climbing Mt. Everest over 16 times in a single season ¢ yea, I¢d say that was going uphill. But who goes up must also come down, so lots of downhill too. And of course, many of you think going downhill (physically, not emotionally) is much easier, right? Jeez, don¢t get me started¢¦