OMG 10 More Days!

I’m starting to freak out a little bit, like a 13 year old girl on the way to a Backstreet Boys concert (or Jonas Brothers, One Direction, take your pick). 🙂 Two years of dreaming and planning and it’s right around the corner.

It looks like it’s only going to be me and Kristin making the drive to Maine. Google Maps says 12 hours but I’m hoping that’s more like 10 hours at Wade speed. We have to be through the gates of the park by 8:30 pm so it’s going to be an early rise for us. We’re planning to leave from my Mom’s house in Taneytown because from there Google Maps takes you up through Pennsylvania. If we left from our house, we take I-95 up through Philly, New Jersey, and right around New York City. No thanks!

Once I begin my trek south no one will hear from me for 7-10 days. The first town I reach is Monson, 110 miles after Katahdin and that’s the first place that has cell service. The first 60 miles of the AT after Katahdin is actually as flat as it gets. The next 50 get much more strenuous but still nothing like Katahdin. I’ve already started walking to prep my feet and legs for this much movement. I’ve walked 20 miles in the last 3 days and the goal is to be walking 10+ miles every day next week. For grins, I’m going to guess that I’ll make Monson in 7 days. We’ll see how that works out, but that’s my guess.

I’m picking up a Samsung Galaxy S5 tomorrow so my pictures should be awesome. I’d have preferred not to spend the money but for only $100 (and I can resell it later) it’s worth having awesome pictures. They never capture how amazing the scenery is in person but at least they will be quality additions to my blog posts since I want this to document my odyssey. The Moto E I have takes mediocre pictures at best.

Only 10 more days! Crazy!

Making Final Preparations

We’re back from Jamaica and yesterday was the first week day where I would have ordinarily had an alarm set to go to work but I don’t any longer. It feels really weird, almost like I’m forgetting something. Now that our trip is over all my attention is turned toward my departure two Saturdays from now. In that time I need to get all my gear prepped and ready, including any weight shaving I might do, make sure all my insurance and financial loose ends are tied up, and get all of my responsibilities associated with normal life into the simplest form possible for Kristin to manage over the next four to five months.

Some of this stuff is simple, but important, and other things are not as simple. It’s things like having a bunch of cat litter and cat food on hand, and making up a calendar with all recurring events on it like trash, recycling, etc. I typically take care of all that stuff and I want her to be able to take care of all those things as easily as possible. We also simplified the credit card situation so we’ll both be using the same card and only that card. That means one bill each month (we pay them off every month) instead of three or four. I manage our finances as well so I want that as simple as possible as well since she’ll need to take some of that over while I’m gone. I’ve automated most of the bills but there are a couple that will still need manual intervention. She won’t be able to pick up the phone to ask me questions so I’m trying to get every one of these things into a simplest, final form that leaves no questions in my absence.

As part of my preparations I have also decided to walk about 10 miles as many days as I can between now and July 2nd. This will help toughen up my feet and get my hips, knees, and ankles used to that much movement. I don’t expect that two weeks of this will eliminate all the pain I’ll experience when starting my hike but I think it will go a long way in minimizing the worst of it. With any luck this will allow me to travel a further distance each day than I would without a “break in.” I walked 11 miles today and my feet and joints are definitely feeling it. My running shoes are shot, thin in the forefoot, so this is helping to simulate the toughness of rocks on my feet all day.

These last two weeks are going to go pretty quick. I’ve made lists to make sure I don’t forget anything but I shouldn’t have any problem getting it all done as long as I stay on top of things.

I’m Going Anyway

Recently I was reading a thread on a forum I frequent and someone commented about most of us having “the one that got away.” When I read that I thought of my own life and I suddenly realized that I don’t have one of those. All the things I’ve truly wanted, I put in the work and I got them. There was absolutely some luck involved at times, but I also put myself in position to reap the reward because I did the work, even though it wasn’t always fun. I thought about my future self twenty years from now. Maybe I won’t be as able bodied as I am now. Maybe kids and other life dreams will have crowded out my thru-hike dream. If I don’t do this, or at least start it, would this be the one that I’d say got away from me? I’m right here on the edge. I’ve done all the preparation. For the past two years this dream has been one of two that has occupied my mind.

After my third shakedown hike I was weighing this question against all the questions I raised in Failing Forward. By the time I went to work this past Tuesday, I’d had several days to think about everything. As the weekend ended I found myself considering two positions. If I didn’t hike, I would keep working. If I didn’t keep working, I would hike. At the center of my doubt was the fact that I planned to give up my high paying career and never return to it. If I was unsure of whether the thru-hike was something I really wanted to do then perhaps now was not the right time to pursue it, given how much money I would be giving up to make the attempt. Monday night I was discussing my dilemma with a good friend of mine. As I explained all of this to her  she told me that I had quite literally put a price on my dream. I knew quitting work now meant forgoing additional income but I hadn’t thought about it quite like that.

Within an hour of arriving at the office Tuesday morning it was once again crystal clear that I could not work any longer. The burden of being stuck at a desk has become like a bag of concrete sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe. How easy it is to forget that when you’re climbing a mountain in 90 degree heat and pushing yourself close to your physical limit. My return to the office was like having a tuning fork rung in my ear, refocusing my attention. By mid-day Wednesday I was beyond certain that I would indeed quit my job and I felt foolish for thinking I could sit at that desk for another 6-9 months.

So I’m hiking, it’s that simple.

 

Failing Forward

Thursday night Kristin dropped me off at the trail head off I-70 and I set out for Annapolis Rocks to camp for the night. I was carrying mostly new gear with me. New shoes, a new pack, a tent, sleeping pad, and top quilt. All gear changes made over the past week courtesy of REI and Wilderness Logics. I planned to hike north into Pennsylvania for the next four days, stopping somewhere on Memorial Day. I reached Annapolis Rocks with a good hour of sunlight left and hung out for a while just taking in the view. It started raining a bit, enough that I opened my umbrella to cover my pack so it would stay dry. I refilled my water from the spring nearby and found an empty campsite to set up in. It was a warm night. This was the first weather I’ve been out in that will be similar to Maine in July. The overnight lows for the area were forecast to be in the mid-60’s, and at elevation I figured it would still be about 60 degrees.

It took me a while to fall asleep, as the sleeping pad was new to me, but I felt much more comfortable in the tent than I did in my hammock. I awoke Friday morning and figured it must have been 8 or 9 am, though I was still pretty tired. I figured this was due to waking up several times in the night, but then I looked at my phone and it was just before 7:00 am. No wonder I was still tired! I’m rarely up that early during the work week. Amazing how daylight will automatically wake you up. I slowly packed things up, knowing the earlier I got started the earlier I would need to stop. I had my second MRE, a breakfast one with a scary looking sausage patty and a pancake. I chewed the gum afterward just in case, Paul!

I was moving by 8:30 and I had covered about 6 miles by noon. Around 2:00 pm I hit an exceedingly difficult climb, 600 feet of elevation gain over half a mile or so. My energy levels were on empty, and it was the hottest part of the day. I knew I needed more calories but my stomach felt full from all the water I had been drinking to stay hydrated. By the time I reached the top of the climb I was wondering how in the world I was going to climb Katahdin on my first day. Katahdin is over 4,000 feet of elevation gain over 5 miles. It would be the equivalent of the the climb I struggled to make 7 times over. My legs were capable by my heart was not; I’m not as conditioned as I should be. I stopped at least three times during that climb because I could feel my core temperature rising with my heart rate and I knew continuing would mean fainting or possibly a heatstroke.

I was completed gassed after the climb. My mind was thinking nothing but negative thoughts and I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. It was at that moment I realized the irony of my position. I thought a thru-hike would be a great way to experience freedom but here I sat feeling like I was imprisoned. I couldn’t teleport myself somewhere else; I had no choice but to keep going. It actually felt claustrophobic because all I could see was the woods. I was completely surrounded by tree canopy, no open sky anywhere. In that moment, my time in the woods felt exactly like my time at work and that notion of freedom was shattered.

I trudged on for another couple of miles, reaching a side trail for High Rock. By this point I was questioning everything I was doing. I wanted nothing more than to call someone and leave but I knew doing so meant it was likely the end of my thru-hike aspirations in their current form. I was at a loss. I had been building this dream up for the last two years and I was having to face the reality that it might not be what I thought it would. I took my pack off and just laid in the middle of the trail for a while. I texted Kristin, explaining my predicament. No one could reach me for a few hours anyway so I figured I’d hike the 3 miles to Pen Mar. Perhaps I would come to my senses and I’d camp for another night. I could wake in the morning feeling like it was another glorious day. Somehow I accidentally took the side trail and ended up at High Rock. The view was stunning and there was a paved road, a big parking lot, and an open area with shade. I decided I’d had enough and told Kristin to come get me. I’d packed a book for this trip so I spent the next two hours reading while she made the drive up. By the time she reached me it had cooled considerably and I felt much better than I had just a few hours earlier. Still I threw my pack in the car and we drove home.

They say the ability to complete a long distance hike is 90% mental. That is no frickin’ joke! It’s amazing how you can experience such a range of emotions just walking through the woods. I still haven’t made up my mind about what I’m going to do but here are some of my thoughts.

A Bum Knee
In January 2014, my left knee gave out in a volleyball game. An MRI was inconclusive. The doctor said there was some minor evidence of an ACL tear, but he wasn’t certain. Based on my symptoms I strongly suspected it was. Unfortunately, there are only two remedies to an ACL tear. Surgery, or exercise to strengthen all the surrounding muscles in the knee. Over the last year I have not been very active. My desk job provides no exercise and my initiative outside of work has been lacking. This is entirely my fault. On my hike two weekends ago, I tweaked something in that knee again and the problem still lingers. The level of pain comes and goes but it raises the question of whether hiking 15-20 miles a day for days on end is even possible.

Overly Ambitious Timeline?
I know that my pace will improve after the first few weeks as I become more conditioned but I’m questioning if I have been too ambitious about how long it will take me to complete the hike. Five months would have me finishing at the end of November. That means moving through the Smokies in the middle of November, which carries the risk of winter weather that can cause significant problems. Really I had hoped to finish in four months. Most thru-hikers would tell you this is a very fast pace, but many folks take a bunch of zero days. I had planned to take just enough to do what I needed to. Without knowing how my lingering knee issues would play out on-trail, I question if it was unwise to have my timeline running right into winter. An earlier start would have left me extra time with fair weather. Instead, the longer it takes me the higher the risk is that I will face winter weather, the right combination of which could end the hike altogether.

This One Goes To 11
To compound my knee problem, I seem to only have one hiking speed and that’s GO! It’s something that happens subconsciously and I don’t tend to think about it until I notice my body starting to tire. The problem with this is that I’m not currently fit enough to hike 10-12 hours at that pace. Using Friday as an example, I probably should have stopped at the first shelter after that monstrous climb but it was only 2:00 pm. What was I going to do with the last 6 hours of daylight once I was there? My dream of thru-hiking does not include being bored half the day. You might think a little boredom wouldn’t be a big deal since I’d been active all day long but the combination of hiking at a speed that is physically taxing and constantly having to concentrate on where you are stepping means your mind doesn’t have the chance to wander. So for the last five hours I’d already been mentally idle. I craved mental stimulation by that point, which leads me to the next concern.

Being Alone
I thought being alone during a thru-hike would be nice, a chance to think and separate myself from civilization for a spell. What I didn’t realize is that too much of it feels maddening. I didn’t feel lonely so much as I missed the ability to use my brain by communicating with other people. The number of Southbound thru-hikers is only 10% of the number of Northbound thru-hikers. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I do need some social interaction to keep my sanity, even if it was only at the end of the day before going to sleep. With just limited experience, I can already see how the pull of a group could be so strong during a hike. The absence of mental stimulus all day would only serve to make the reward of communication and camaraderie that much more powerful. I now seriously question if I could hike for 120 days continuously without some type of mental stimulation on a regular basis, whether that was in the form of a hiking partner or simply hiking among enough people that you knew most nights there would be someone to talk to at a shelter.

I Love My Wife
I thought I wouldn’t have a problem being away from Kristin for four or five months. I would miss her but this was a dream that I really wanted to accomplish. Spending a few nights in the woods, devoid of conversation with anyone, and preparing for 120-150 days of this really drives home what it will feel like though. I found that what I thought and how I felt were an ocean apart. There is very much a part of me that would like her to share this dream with me. However, just because it is my dream doesn’t mean it is hers. I proceeded without her because the transition in our lives right now was the perfect opportunity for me to go, but not for both of us to go. Given a choice, I absolutely would prefer to take in those magic moments with her. I now wonder if having her with me to experience those moments is even more important to me than realizing this dream without her.

The Distraction of a Larger Dream
When I finished the thru-hike, I was to begin the process of building our house in North Carolina. As much as I am enamored with the thought of accomplishing a thru-hike, that dream doesn’t hold a candle to my North Carolina dream. I’m always thinking about North Carolina, more so than the hike, and I wonder if this distraction will prevent me from really getting what I wanted out of my experience on the AT.

…….

All of these questions, doubts, and realizations have me wondering if I haven’t set myself up for failure. It’s also possible that the dream is only one I wish to do, instead of actually doing it. I must consider that, given that I haven’t hiked from dawn to dusk with 30 pounds on my back prior to preparing for this adventure. Perhaps all this preparation has yielded information that makes it clear that I shouldn’t pursue this now. The Appalachian mountains aren’t going anywhere and a hiking partner and a stronger knee would probably give me a much better chance of finishing the thru-hike. The goal after all is to finish. If I simply wanted to get away I don’t need to quit my job and upend my life for that. The goal is to walk all 2,190 miles of the Appalachian Trail.

I find myself at peace with the thought of delaying the thru-hike if what I’ve learned means making me more prepared (adequately prepared?) and stronger for a future thru-hike attempt, perhaps with Kristin along with me. I am also okay with realizing a thru-hike is only a dream I wished for. All dreams begin this way and it is only upon pursuing them that we can find the ones that are so important that we must achieve them. If I pursued all my dreams with the passion I’ve had about this dream there would be a wasteland of discarded dreams around me. But I wouldn’t think of it for all the dreams I’d have accomplished. I simply wish to say thank you for sharing in this journey with me, whether I decide to head to Maine or if this has instead been a valuable life lesson and a stepping stone to greater things.

I Resigned

Edit: A comment made me realize this information conflicts with a recent post where I talked about delaying my last day until after my vacation. Thankfully over the weekend I woke up and realized this is what travel insurance is made for, so I’m covered.

Today I officially gave notice that June 10th will be my last day. I’m a little uncomfortable with the fact that I had to resign before my first multi-day hike, which will now be over Memorial Day weekend but there’s nothing I can do about that. My team leadership has known about my aspirations to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail for some time now and they have made it clear that if it doesn’t work out I am welcome back. I am happy that door will remain open because you never know. Injuries happen.

I find that with serious decisions like this I have conflicted emotions, debating the various points internally, until the decision is made. However, once made I am at peace with whatever decision I chose. One of my friends asked me how it felt and my answer is, “Odd,” because I feel almost nothing. That’s the peace working for me, when I guess you’d expect there to still be all these emotions going on.

The more startling aspect of the decision for me is that I’m leaving the workforce with no intention of finding another job, and I’ve been working since I was 16 years old. I think this would feel much more strange if I wasn’t laser-focused on my hike. Moreover, it is my hope that I’ll never work again beyond hobby jobs. That’s a story for another day, though, and there are a lot of miles between here and there.

I am glad that I chose to document this journey, not only for the journey’s sake, but because it is capturing a huge transition in my life, and I think it will be great to be able to look back on this years from now and share it with my children and grandchildren.

I hope everyone has been enjoying reading about my journey as much as I have been writing it.