I'm finally hiking the Appalachian Trail!
Picture of a frozen lake in Algonquin Park from my adventures this winter... Not the AT (yet)
After 5 years of dreaming about it, I'll finally be hiking the Appalachian Trail! 3525 KM and 6 months of adventure. I'll be leaving the second week of March. It's been a long time coming, and a ton of work. I sold my condo (profitably) in a down market. I sold, donated, gifted, or pitched nearly all of my worldly possessions, minus a small storage locker in Etobicoke for souvenirs. I've found accommodation for my dog for 6 months, got a visa with no FX fees, scouted health insurance, and planned how to store my car. I've spent thousands of dollars on ultralight, ultradry gear, which I've practiced with repeatedly through early summer thunderstorms and late winter snowstorms. I've moved from short term rental to short term rental since I sold the condo, packing up my whole life, and dog, into the RAV4 over and over again. I've conferred with my work to take a 6 month sabbatical, planting the seeds in my bosses mind for this potential adventure when I was hired years prior. I've planned out, month by month, how far I must be along the 3500 KM of the trail, week by week the major towns and resupply points. It's funny how years of effort can be so succinctly condensed into a short paragraph.
All of this, and way, way more, so that I can go beat myself up for 8 - 10 hours a day hiking through the harshest terrain I'll have ever encountered. It sounds like a very strange endeavor to most, but for the crazies like me it's the adventure of a lifetime. An adventure of growth, transforming my body, mind, and spirit through the process.
Backcountry always has highs and lows. Dreary rainstorms. Injuries slowly accumulating. Freezing nights. Blazing hot days. Long periods of swarms of bugs following you around at head height. Being wet with no way to dry for days on end. The ceaseless pain of hiking up unending switchbacked peaks. These are just some of the pain that must be endured for the visceral beauty and grandeur that comes with the territory. Starry nights so dark and bright that the purple of the Milky Way galaxy begins to fog out the glimmer of distant stars. Windswept peaks staring out to rolling mountains for as far as the eye can see. Wildlife up close and personal, like a moose crossing within meters to drink at a stream near your cozy campsite. The unstoppable beauty of a mountainous lake. A serene flowery pass in between peaks. To get the great parts, sometimes you must go through the rough (or very very rough) parts.
And of course, let's not forget the deprivation. This part I always look forward to. The amazing taste of real food after a week of freeze dried backcountry meals. The infinite pleasure of your first warm shower in days. The decadence of sleeping in a real bed rather than an inflatable pad. To be truly warm again. Deprivation, and the rewards it brings, will be a big motivating factor on the hamster wheel of pain and pleasure that I will be experiencing on the AT.
To be honest, though, probably the biggest aspect I'm looking forward to is the decompression. Anytime I'm on an adventure, whether it's a quick overnighter or a two week haul, all of the problems and stresses of daily life fade way. When you're totally disconnected and far from civilization, you start to just focus on the next problem. Getting through this uphill section. Making it to the next water source. Finding the next fork in the trail. Surviving this storm. Building camp. Eating food. Life becomes simple. You solve one problem and then the next, over and over. Day in and day out. There is no worrying about your mortgage, or the economy, or your job, or all the shit you have to deal with family and friends, or how fucked up you are with all your own emotional baggage. That's not relevant. What is relevant is finding a nice spot to eat lunch. Or a place to clean out your sore feet. Or simply grinding on to the next milestone. I guess it counts as a form of escapism in one way. In another, it lets one get some space from their problems. Sure, taking 6 months to hike every day as a hobby might seem to be running away from your issues. I'm sure this is true for some people, especially those serial thru hikers that seem to be packing up for a new trail every year. For me though, this is my first ever attempt at a thru hike of this scale. And I believe the distance and decompression from my problems will aid in the mental and spiritual transformation I aim to have on my trip. I hope that I will gain some much needed perspective in a lot of spiritual dimensions such as this.
And, of course, I hope to lose about 100 lbs too if I'm lucky :)
Can't wait for March!