Date: 2011-04-04
To: Post Hike #4-Final Wrap-Up
Miles today: 0.0

I was fortunate, I think, when I arrived back home that I could ease myself back into the mainstream rather than suffer total changes in what had been my daily routine hiking for 7 months. My tenant's lease on my condo didn't expire until March 2011, so I moved to my summer cottage. My daughter came back to Chicago with me and helped with the move even though she was stiff and sore for a week after her Katahdin climb. As I wrote in one of my prep entries, staying at the cottage is like luxurious car camping. I have a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, electric, stove and refrigerator, but there's no running water or heat or air conditioning. I carry water from the well about 250 feet away; bathroom and shower is about 1,000 feet away--both of which paralleled my routine on the trail. I bought a car shortly after arriving home but would walk 5-7 miles round trip several times a week to town for supplies until the winter weather moved in. I caught myself watching an awful lot of television and movies at first but that tapered off. Hiker hunger went away in a couple days but portion control was an issue. It was hard at first to not order two full meals at a restaurant like I used to do when I was hiking. I weighed 137 at the end of my hike. By January 1st, I had gained 20 pounds so joined a health club and started working out 5-6 days a week. That put a stop to the upward weight spiral but still puts me about 12 pounds over my ideal weight. Went to my doctor for a physical shortly after I came home. My high blood pressure, which untreated was 180/100 pre-hike, was now 140/90 post-hike. Significant improvement but I still have to take daily medication to keep it at or below 120/80. My pre-hike high cholesterol dropped 110 points; "good" cholesterol significantly improved. Resting heart rate pre-hike was 72; post-hike 54. I do have a small tear in the cartilage of my right knee (most likely from one of the more than 100 falls I took while hiking) but it's not serious enough to warrant surgery at this time. When I was hiking, I developed a bump on the top of my right foot above my arch somewhere in Massachusetts. X-rays showed a poorly healed stress fracture which means I walked several hundred miles with a broken foot. At my age it's not worth the surgery to get rid of the bump and it doesn't bother me at all anymore. My tenant wanted to renew her lease for another year. Post-hike, my requirements for living space are decidedly minimalist so I renewed her lease and rented a room for the winter, albeit a very nice room in a very nice house in the suburbs. I'll move back out to the cottage in the spring but will start looking this summer for a small house or year-round cottage as my permanent residence as I'm starting to miss my "stuff" that's still in storage.In November, I took a month-long road trip going to Knoxville to pick up all my financial paperwork from my brother who had been so kind to handle it while I was hiking. Then went to north Florida for a delightful weekend reunion with Cahoda and Wild Poodle, both still convalescing from their hiking injuries. We all felt so fortunate to have met and hiked together and I'm sure our friendship will be lifelong. I'll see them again at Trail Days in the spring. Then went to Miami to see my daughter and get my grandchildren "fix". Sort of a vacation from my 7-month vacation.I had a couple opportunities to speak to Boy Scout packs about long distance hiking. They were fascinated with how little in the way of gear with which I was able to make do and asked lots of really good questions. I've already written about what gear worked and what didn't but I guess I should touch upon what I overall liked or would do differently if I ever thru-hiked again.   I liked that I didn't have a cast-in-stone itinerary. I had no problem sleeping in shelters or tenting nearby; however, if I had to do it again, I would not make my day's goal be to get to such-and-such shelter, but rather to simply do approximately "X" amount of miles or hike "X" amount of hours no matter whether that put me at a shelter or had me camping in the woods that night.I'm happy I took the time to see some of the sights even if it meant going a short distance off-trail, and wish I hadn't skipped seeing the Gulf Hagas Gorge in Maine. I had a lot of mail drops and they worked out well for me. I planned them predominantly at towns that were convenient to the trail. Would definitely send more of them to outfitters or hostels and less to post offices in the future so I wouldn't have to worry about making it to town before the weekends. Also, I would have put fewer lunches in my mail drops and instead bought lunch items at grocery stores so I could cater more to my cravings which changed from week to week on the trail. I would bring an I-Pod and music. I went back and forth on this decision before my hike and chose not to bring music so that I could be really present in my surroundings. However, there were a number of not so good hiking days where the distraction of music would have been welcome.At the beginning of my hike, I saved a couple of days by skipping going into Franklin and Gatlinburg, which I'm happy I did, but had to carry six days of food each time. That made for a really heavy backpack. I tended to resupply every 4 days after that even though it was hard at times to do an "in and out" of towns without staying. Glad we did a one-day slackpack at the beginning of the 100-mile wilderness so we could shave a day's worth of food off of what we needed to carry. Also glad I did a small resupply at White House Landing (about 70 miles into the Wilderness) to save having to carry another 2 days of food through that first 70 miles.I would pack fewer hot breakfasts so I could get quicker starts in the mornings. Could never get into the "energy bar and go" mode but a cold breakfast of cereal and dry milk would have been quicker than firing up the stove each morning and also would have saved me a few ounces of stove fuel each week.Some of my nicest days on the trail were the "clean underwear and clean sock days" which were the halfway points between town/laundry stops. Many times I'd hang my hiking clothes outside on rainy nights so they'd get rinsed. It wasn't always pleasant putting on wet clothes in the morning, but they felt cleaner and my body heat would dry them within an hour of starting to hike each day. Best advice I was given before my hike was to set small goals--celebrate when you hit each 100-mile mark and cross each state line. Celebrate at the quarterway and halfway points. There's great truth in the saying "hike your own hike". You will exhaust yourself if you try to keep up with faster hikers and get frustrated staying with slower hikers. The ebb and flow of the trail will have you meeting up with people again and again no matter anyone's hiking speed. I was afraid of everything when I started my AT hike last year, but, you know, you just deal with it. I felt very incompetent at first, but I watched the efficiencies of more experienced hikers doing their camp chores and packing up, and I learned quickly from doing it myself every day. It took until I got to Connecticut to get over my bearanoia. One night up on Schagticoke Mountain shortly after climbing into my bag I heard a bear nuzzling around near the campsite. I clapped my hands together a couple times and said in a loud voice, "Go away, bear--I'm not in the mood!" It crashed through the trees to get away from me. And I rolled over and went back to sleep. The point is that you DO gain a comfort level out there and a self-confidence that is priceless. When I'd get creeped out walking through a dark, overgrown section of the forest, I'd simply announce out loud--to no one in particular--"Hey, I belong here. This is MY forest," and the nervous fear would go away. By the time you get up to New England, you're a hiking machine and well on your way to earning your bragging rights--just take it one day at a time. I decided to do an AT thru hike 11 months before I started on 3/4/10. The planning for and dreaming about the hike were all consuming and burned even hotter the closer I got to my start date. About a month before I started, my son asked me what was new in my life other than The Hike and I couldn't think of one single thing. So if you're considering a thru-hike, enjoy the ride--even in the planning stages. I think, for me, that singleminded focus was what got me to Katahdin. The overriding factor is plain old determination to do it and a streak of stubbornness helps too.   The entire experience was an adventure I will forever cherish.