Date: 2008-10-21
To: I'm finally ready...
Miles today: 0.0

I started this account awhile ago but have never felt like I have the right thing to say to stat this whole thing off. Today a summit journal was posted of a trailjournal that I have been following a long time now. If you haven't read Certain's journal, it is well worth the read for her honesty on all aspects of trail life and real life. I was so moved by it, that I feel ready to actually start this thing. Not that it is a real commitment, but it feels like my first real step toward starting my thruhike next year. So an introduction:How I met the AT: My first clear memory of being on the AT was in Mt Rogers on a backpacking trip with a then boyfriend. He spoke of it with reverence. I was so whupped from walking, I barely noticed when we moved on and off of it.In high school I heard about the mountain to sea trail and decided I wanted to hike it. It really held my attention for something I want to accomplish in my life. I knew of the AT but never saw it as something I would feasibly ever do. How I fell in love with the AT: During my sophomore year of college, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do during the summer. I wanted to do something useful but not a job or an internship moving down the career path, so I decided some sort of volunteering would be the way to go. Poking around the internet, I was looking at going anywhere--especially some sort of exotic foreign local faaaaar away from North Carolina. I found the appalachiantrail.org site and saw the volunteer trail crews. It sounded like a good time so I applied to do as many weeks as I could in Maine even though I knew nothing at all about trail crew and honestly had never been north of the Mason-Dixon line at the time. The ATC contacted me back and recommended I should do the second part of their season with konnarock crew. I thought that sounded great--plus it was an easier drive from my parent's house to the base camp. I had an excited nervous anticipation of it. I committed myself for a long time with no clue really what the hell I was getting in to. Luckily, I found myself very well suited to trail crew and quickly learned to enjoy it. I met some great people that really affected me in a time of change in my life. The trail also deeply impacted me. I knew I had to hike it. Fast forward to now: I'm at a crossroads in my life. And if I am going to thruhike before I retire, now is the best time I can do it. I don't have any student loans or debt. No car payments. No real obligations to anyone but myself. I started a thread on whiteblaze a couple of months ago because I was curious about everyone's reasons for taking up a thruhike. It has been enlightening to see a bit of why everyone feels compelled to go through with such a long, mentally taxing journey. Here is what I shared on there: My biggest reason is is that the Appalachian Trail has shown me everything that I like about myself. In thruhiking, I hope to find a me I like outside the trail as well.Also, it has been an obsession for long enough. I want to just get it out of my system and get that hike out of me! Because the trail is there, I want to see it, hike it, love/hate every inch of it.I am currently stalled at a huge crossroads in my life. But I am not going to figure out which fork to take yet, I'm going to take the access road to Springer. Anyway, I hope to get some more prep entries going on here. I've got a good chunk of my gear already, and will be getting rest for Christmas. Now, all I can do is work away the hours to make the money cash to make this hike happen. And every time work gets to be unbearable, I think about how in 6 months time I will be hiking and none of it will matter.