Some (almost accurate) Stats

For those keeping score...

Start date: March 25
Finish date: Sep 4

Importance of calendar during thru-hike: unimportant
Number of days: 164
Average daily mileage: 13.3
Average daily mileage, minus zeroes(1): 14.4
Number of zero days: as many as it took--12
Odds of completing AT without zero days: ZERO

Overall Appalachian Trail level of difficulty: red zone/highest

Mileage covered running: 3 miles (due to mosquitoes or lightning/hail)
Longest mileage day: 39 miles (Day 32)
Shortest mileage day: 3 miles (Day 112) (I did six or seven 4-mile days)
Days without seeing anyone else: 2
Mosquitoes killed: 12,987, all female

Favorite trail town: Hot Springs, NC
Least favorite town: Hiawassee, GA
Honorable mentions: Damascus, VA; Boiling Springs, PA; Hanover, NH; Rangeley, ME
Dishonorable mentions: Pearisburg, VA; Duncannon, PA

Weight before hike: 161lbs
Weight after hike: 161lbs(2)
Height before hike: 6’ 1”
Height after hike: 6’ (the spine realigns with time)

Average estimated load carried throughout: 24lbs, food/H2O included (=15% of my mass, though there were brief periods when I carried just 6% of my mass)
Calories ingested: never enough
Honey Buns ingested: a sickening amount
Cavities created: five or more

Money $pent (incl: ALL [newly purchased] gear, travel to & from, mail, food, donations given, hotels, etc): $2,455 (=$15/day)(3)

Hiking poles broken or worn beyond repair: 2
Pairs of shoes used: 8
Total cost of shoes: $98
Number of blisters: 5 (entirely due to rain)
Increase in foot/shoe size: none whatsoever

Wish I carried but didn’t: a cheapo poncho
Wish I didn’t carry but did: my backpack and all its contents
Real regrets: none whatsoever

Epiphanies incurred: 0

Books read: 12 (A practicing insomniac, I spent evenings writing, reading and above all, thinking)
Songs written: 7 (some are posted within this blog)
Words in this journal: far too many

“Eco-terrorist” misdeeds acted out: I’m not at mercy to say. Let’s just say Hayduke Lives!

Obstacles in path: the path is the obstacle

"Foot"note 1: Minus zeroes?!

"Fat"note 2: Though I didn't lose any weight, I grew thinner and more sinewy throughout, shedding fat for muscle. For a while I had lost weight, only to gain it all back in the last two weeks, thanks to the extra food I carried and the many zero days in Millinocket.

"Funds"note 3: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS! I am one of the cheeeeepest bass-turds uh-round, as friends and frenemies will attest. I used Ruth's flight miles for the travel; already owned almost all my gear (purchased primarily from thrift stores); ate mostly oatmeal and rice and other cheeeep grains; raided hiker boxes often; wore cheeeep shoes and recycled socks; and generally avoided hotels and hostels. My dumbest expenditures?...The Half-Gallon Challenge; the guidebook (no, really); Eat, Pray, Loathe; and one erroneous, extraneous mail-drop.

Onward

Friday, October 4th, 2013

It’s been a full lunar cycle since my stroll came to a close. The one along the Appalachian Trail--the trail that eats its young...and old. My feet are still sore. Still and sore. Too sore, still, to walk unshod on anything harder than a wrestling mat. I wrestle with this; I’m now forced to wear thick, squishy shoes everywhere I head, except for bed, where the only footwear I sport is stilettos, but never mind that. I’ve even been left with no choice but to don a cheap pair of foamy flip-flops (aka Hawaiian snow boots) when in the shower, brief though those rinses may be.

Most this is normal.

What’s not normal is to be back in a much crazier world--society, we call it; Denver, specifically--after walking for five-plus months through the serene scene that is the Appalachian Mountains. I feel like an impostor in this doomed default world, a tourist lying to myself. I try to cope with it all--not adapt--but it is an unfair fight, for I am alienated and outnumbered. I’m not endowed with the necessary coping mechanisms to accept American society for what it is, or what it’s becoming: unbecoming. And so, as it tends to, my fight-or-flight response has veered back toward flight. Still no more.

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will...

~Robert Service

Since I know no hearts to break--no kith or kin, or friends or relatives, or relative friends--I’ve already obtained a one-way airline ticket to upstate NY. It was to there I wired funds for a new/used motorbike, sight unseen. I plan to ride across the US the remainder of this month and into the next, conditions cooperating. A decompression party.

Naturally, I’ll go out of my way to pay homage to the AT when crossing it, since it left me feeling crossed many times. (Spit? Piss? Crap? Drain the engine’s oil?) Ruth and I have also made reservations for a round-trip flight to Central America. I wasn’t allowed to book a one-way international ticket, but I may well use half the scheduled flights, before walking and hopping trains north. Or south. Alone-ia to Patagonia?

In any case, old habits die hard. The adventure lingers. The beat don’t stop; the feet don’t stop. A continual disappearing act, I am bored by societal sameness. Routine is the death of the soul! Sure, this behavior’s a bit impetuous, but re-entry, as we thru-hikers (we naturalized citizens) call it, is especially tough on me. The Return to Civilization!, the second sequel, starring the fiddle-footed wanderer. (To the wanderer travel is a homecoming, an itch that must be scratched.) I am a nowhere man and though I may be nowhere near the trail, I’m still on it. Homesick for somewhere I’ve never been, I miss being elsewhere, always.

I miss being elsewhere, always. The traveler’s credo. Longing to be long gone. Destination relocation.

“I haven’t been everywhere,” said Susan Sontag, “but it’s on my list.”

“...a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here,” said Steinbeck.

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere,” wrote Kerouac.

“Without end,” wrote Funnybone.

~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for following along. I’ll tell you once more before I get off the floor: if, for whatever reason, this journal inspires you to grab your backpack and head out to hike the Appalachian Trail, I suggest rereading it in detail. Lastly, if you enjoyed this blog, SEEK HELP IMMEDIATELY.