Date: 2014-09-01
To: Looking Back
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

This post looks back on my thru-hike after having had a few days to gain perspective. The last post, coming next weekend, will talk about my reintegration process and plans for the future.When I first got serious about doing the AT, I thought I'd hike southbound. Later, I changed my mind and decided to be a NOBO, which in retrospect was absolutely the right decision. The most important aspect of the AT for me was the sense of community I felt at the shelters, campsites, and in trail towns. Though I spent perhaps 80% of the time hiking alone on the trail, at mealtimes and during the evenings I was almost always with others. The fact that I damn near killed myself racing through Maine, averaging 20-mile days through a particularly rugged state so I could catch and summit with "my bubble" after having fallen behind due to my shin injury, reflects the degree to which I value my trail friendships.The quality of the people I met during my thru-hike was off the charts. You would expect that, during a 2185-mile hike, which I knew would be tough, but which turned out to be much tougher than I had anticipated, you'd hear a certain amount of bitching and moaning. I heard none of it. Instead, almost every thru-hiker I encountered was universally upbeat, even during the most trying circumstances. In fact, it seemed that the more difficult the situation the more upbeat my fellow hikers would become. On my summit day, I met 66-year-old Reset, who tore the meniscus in his right knee in the Whites and continued to power his way through Maine to Katahdin. I felt privileged to hitch a ride with him back to Millinocket I left for Atlanta in April with no bug spray in my backpack. I promised myself that when the bugs got bad up north I'd buy some; no sense in carrying extra weight until necessary. I ended up breaking the promise to myself and never used a drop of repellant during the trip. There were only three or four days during which the bugs become so intolerable that it nearly drove me insane: through several swampy sections in New York and Massachusetts, at which point there was no opportunity to buy bug spray. In entering Vermont, where the elevation increased and weather cooled, the bugs vanished. They returned briefly during a heat wave in the Hundred Mile Wilderness, but at that point there was no bug spray available and no way I was going to resort to using it anyway.Another thing absent on my flight to Atlanta was music on my iPhone, which I'd bought just a week before the trip so I could write this journal. I was too busy learning its fundamentals to have time putting music on it. Thus, with the exception of the week when Anders joined me in the Shenandoah and would play music through his phone's speaker so I could hear, I listened to no music while hiking, even though I love music, particularly the good stuff from the 60s and 70s. One of the songs Anders played, at my request, was Janis Joplin's Me and Bobby McGee. For some reason, that song came back to me in Maine, running through my head almost continuously for two weeks, perhaps to mask the extreme effort I was putting in to catch my bubble. During Labor Day weekend in Connecticut at Helen's house, the same Helen who drove with Tor to visit me in Roanoke, VA and who dropped off and picked up Anders the next two weekends so he could hike with me through the Shenandoah, she brought out her MacBook and played that famous Janis Joplin song. I closed my eyes and was immediately transported back to the Hundred Mile Wilderness. A wave of emotion hit me again, and I now know I have a means to return instantly to the AT on demand.On the morning after completing my thru-hike, I had breakfast in Millinocket with ABear and Daisy, AKA Vintage, who asked what was the most important thing we learned from our thru-hikes. I answered that I developed a stronger faith, not in the traditional religious sense, but rather related to the mantra, "The Trail Provides." Though much of the credit for completing the AT goes to dogged determination and hard work, I benefited greatly from the support and generosity of others. I received countless acts of trail magic from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people along the way. As a result of connections made through this journal, I twice stayed in people's houses for the night and enjoyed hot showers, meals, comfortable beds, and warm conversation. The email I received whenever someone signed my guest book constantly buoyed my spirits. The rides I got while hitching into and out of trail towns were always greatly appreciated. And the sodas, honey buns, and fresh fruit that unexpectedly appeared at road crossings was akin to reaching an oasis in the desert. There are simply too many people to thank individually here, but there's one person whose support was invaluable to me and deserves special recognition: my loving wife, Tor. Her effort in keeping the household running, working two jobs, and taking care of her elderly parents, all while enthusiastically encouraging me to fulfill my dream, is a gift for which I'll forever be grateful.