Considerations

I did my first 12-mile day yesterday. My knee has been doing quite well so far, but yesterday it protested a bit, which means that probably 10 miles a day is going to be my maximum average sustained speed. That's consistent with last time, when it was also after I started to push beyond 12 that the knee really began to give me problems.

Which raises some considerations. Plan A was always to do this as a single through-hike, and that's what I'd still like to do. But there's a math problem: I have 2,053 miles left to go. Taking a single day off each week, which is a necessity for me, I will average 60 miles per week. Assuming that nothing else went wrong (unlikely) and skipping my planned extended break at home, that would still put me at Mt. Katahdin on October 24th--too late.

Also, there's another issue that I was hoping to avoid by starting so early, but not so successfully. There are already a LOT of people on the trail. I've had a couple of nights with 8-12 people at a shelter, and the season hasn't even really started yet. Once the dreaded "bubble" comes along, I'm told that there will be 30 or 40 clustered around a shelter built for 6, trash everywhere, privies destroyed, human waste and dirty t.p. on the side of the trail, and a general spring break atmosphere among the college kids who are out here. Not what I came out to experience.

So I may have to turn this into a section hike, and finish it next year or maybe even the year after. I'm going to wait until I get to Damascus, Va and see how my pace, my knee, and the crowds are doing before I decide. That's still 332 miles away, so by then I should know for sure. At that point I'll decide either to finish the whole thing this year, continue to my house and finish next year, or stop there and divide it into multiple sections, say doing just Virginia next year.

I met a couple on the trail yesterday, very serendipitously, in light of the post I'd made the day before, and we got to talking about the rose and my reasons for walking, and they shared some of their story with me.

He was my age and she was 34 and breathtakingly beautiful. They've been married for ten years and are still completely in love. You know how sometimes you see a woman with her husband and it's just all over her face that she is happy, and loved, and in love? I hope I don't get him in trouble by sharing this, but he told me that the night before, they were in their tent, and she said that there was no one on earth that she'd rather be camped out on top of a mountain with.

Such a lovely story. It's so good to see true love once in a while, to renew your faith.

The Rose

As I walk, inevitably I am asked about the thing that I'm carrying on the outside of my pack. So I tell them that it's a rose, that I'm carrying it for the girl I love, that it's the same rose I carried through the Everglades and across the Keys etc., and I talk about her and how amazing and wonderful she is in every way.

Then sometimes they'll call her my girlfriend or ask how long we've been together, and I'll explain that she's not, and we're not. So they ask what I hope to accomplish by carrying it, and I say 'nothing'. It is simply my way of expressing my love. That love, when it's true love, is a living thing, and must be given away to remain true and pure. I love, and so I walk, and I carry the rose in its protective case, and in carrying it and caring for it, my love finds a channel through which to flow. And that gives meaning to what I am doing, and keeps me focused and inspired. That's all.

Milestones

Thought I'd share this with you, since I had to climb a beast of a mountain, plus this rickety old fire tower to get it.

I passed the hundred mile mark yesterday. Today is town day: a shower, a meal, and a bed. The Hobbits had it right.

Goodbye to Georgia

When I got back from my last hike, someone said to me that he knew I wouldn't have made it through the mountains in north Georgia anyway.

As I was walking along the highway a few days ago, on my way from the trail to my last stop in Georgia, I suddenly recalled the other side of the people of my home state: genuine, generous, kind, decent, patriotic, and God-fearing. And I also remembered that I have good memories from my childhood as well as bad ones. And all my bitterness towards this place and my past here evaporated.

And, as if on cue, the last town I stopped in, Hiawassee, turned out to be exactly all the good things I remember about the north Georgia mountains, and which I thought was long gone. Even got some genuine Georgia barbecue; best I've had in ages.

So Georgia and I part as friends.

A Better Day

A Tough Day

Cold, rainy night last night with high winds kept me awake most of the night. Then this morning I woke up to snow and frost. I started the day's hike with too many clothes in the face of a brutally cold wind, then quickly worked up a sweat. So I took off a layer, but the wind chilled me to the bone because I was damp from perspiration. I kept going, thinking that I'd warm back up with exertion, but the wind chill was too much. Ended up with a little case of hypothermia.

I walked to the next shelter which was, thank God, in a little vale mostly sheltered from the wind, changed into something dry, and wrapped myself up in my down quilts. But it still took several hours to get warm, and I lost half the day.

I'm in my hammock now, and feeling okay. A bit dispirited, though, and for some reason very lonely. Don't know why I should be; I'm not any more alone out here than I am at home. Maybe it's the absence of distractions and comforts.

Another Reason to Walk

There's been a weird thing happening, since I got to Georgia and started this.

I posted briefly before, about how people down here got under my skin. The truth is that it hit too close to home. You ever meet someone who is an exaggerated version of what you see as your own worst traits? It's especially bothersome when you've been trying to improve yourself, and then you get back around the thing you're trying to leave behind, or go back to the place that made you that way. Like a New Yorker who's realized he's rude, crass, and belligerent after he leaves the city.

So I was thinking about that, and playing with the idea that I could see walking out of Georgia as a symbolic parting with that part of myself. Then I stopped at that cabin, and it was completely furnished with things from the 70s, which was the time when I lived down here as a child. And so I am walking to leave all that mess from my childhood behind too.

And next, I'm going to be walking through North Carolina, where I spent the latter part of my childhood with my stepmother, and Tennessee, which is where I spent the darkest part of my reclusive years, and where the whole tragedy with Amanda Shires and Sewanee happened. So I'm walking to leave that behind too.

And after that, Virginia. What then?

Week One

First week completed as planned. I've spent the last couple of nights in a cabin, and am setting out again tomorrow morning. I stayed one day longer than I had anticipated, because I want to be smart this time and give my body the time it needs to recuperate. My knee was a bit wonky after coming down from the aptly-named Blood Mountain last thing of the first week.

It's very challenging: quite a bit steeper and more rugged than I'd guessed; quite a bit of it would be better described as climbing than hiking. I mean, I knew there would be some of that, but I thought it would be more like bits of steep, rugged, and rocky interspersed with lots of rolling and hilly. But it's good.

Did some pack reorganizing while I was resting here. I've got a better idea now what I do and don't need. I brought too many warm clothes; was okay on a windy 19-degree night without even getting into some of my layers. So they're going back home to save weight, along with a few other items.

Sleep is a challenge, because of my apnea. I'm getting enough to keep functioning, but only just. I think it's getting a little better, but as the days without good sleep stacked up, my body started to rebel: I was falling asleep on the trail side when I paused to catch my breath. Had one really bad day, when it felt like I was coming down with something--flu-like weakness and fatigue. But I pressed on through it and whatever it was passed.

Overall, it's going quite well, and I'm feeling good.

Some pictures:

I was fortunate to get the ones from the top of Blood Mountain. It started out as a very cold, windy, and foggy day with some snow and ice. The other guys I'd been hiking with decided to take the bypass trail around the mountain because of the ice. But I took the straight route over the top. It was a hard, freezing, miserable climb most of the way. But then just before I reached the summit, the wind died, the fog cleared away, and the sun came out, and it was all worth it.  Then, after making the extremely long, arduous, and difficult descent, I got to my first night indoors: a hot shower, a pizza, and an evening with Shrek and Princess Fiona, then a real bed and some decent sleep.

I've had the very distinct impression continually that Someone is looking out for me.