The Next 550 Miles
To look back, and see an actual trail behind you, which you have been meandering along, step by step, for 463 miles, is an experience unlike other memories.
I have 550 more in the state of Virginia alone. Do I feel disappointed? Like, 'what have I accomplished in three states?' No. It's elation that comes over me. There's this rush, when my feet are quiet enough to ignore, and I'm comfortable, and fed, of pure joy. It's simple joy, but energizing. I feel like a balloon filled with champagne bubbles. I talk miles a minute, feel like anything is possible. Sort of a moronic mania.
I've been enjoying pondering how, everyone here, around me on this trail, thought about hiking it, some from as far back as 1968 when at Dartmouth the AT was officially celebrated as a national and complete single trail, and then set out to hike it. We all made the dream, made the plan, and left. Not many people get to do that. And many who can, don't. I'm not saying we're better than people who dream about a thing but don't risk their job and security to follow it. I'm just saying to have that in common adds to the solidarity of our group. We all know each other, by two degrees of separation at most. We know everything about everyone. We support each other. We're in it for one person alone but we're in it together. Damn I'm corny.
So I've completed 20% of the trail. I may finish in August. I may finish later. It's more to go than I can fathom, and I've already walked more in the last 5 weeks than I'd ever fathomed. Because although I planned to hike 2,200 miles, it was not a number that related to anything in my previous experience. It was a scale beyond. My expectations were fiction. The last 5 weeks are a curious blend of hardship, body-breaking and muscle-building (I've gained weight and lost inches), that culminate daily at the shelter.
Like when I call home or a friend, and all I have are simple, children's words for my joy (love, awesome, cool, amazing), despite the fact that I'm nursing an aching and swollen foot, I gush. Gush with that mania. Like residual endorphins. Or a release of seratonin and adrenaline after merely remembering what it feels like to hike. And every night when I sight the shelter 100 yards ahead, though I've walked alone all day long, there are my friends ahead of me, and we smile to see each other, and we cook our food and talk about our aches and sing songs and fall asleep joyfully. All the roughness, the shit around the edges when you trip over 20 roots and curse the trail for being organic or get soaked feet, those feelings pass. Triumph takes its place.
So the next four months must be held as a mystery. Because although I have done 463 miles, and after a month my body has finally started complaining, but not badly; another 1,715 is a whole other can of worms. Who knows what misery and glory awaits?
I have 550 more in the state of Virginia alone. Do I feel disappointed? Like, 'what have I accomplished in three states?' No. It's elation that comes over me. There's this rush, when my feet are quiet enough to ignore, and I'm comfortable, and fed, of pure joy. It's simple joy, but energizing. I feel like a balloon filled with champagne bubbles. I talk miles a minute, feel like anything is possible. Sort of a moronic mania.
I've been enjoying pondering how, everyone here, around me on this trail, thought about hiking it, some from as far back as 1968 when at Dartmouth the AT was officially celebrated as a national and complete single trail, and then set out to hike it. We all made the dream, made the plan, and left. Not many people get to do that. And many who can, don't. I'm not saying we're better than people who dream about a thing but don't risk their job and security to follow it. I'm just saying to have that in common adds to the solidarity of our group. We all know each other, by two degrees of separation at most. We know everything about everyone. We support each other. We're in it for one person alone but we're in it together. Damn I'm corny.
So I've completed 20% of the trail. I may finish in August. I may finish later. It's more to go than I can fathom, and I've already walked more in the last 5 weeks than I'd ever fathomed. Because although I planned to hike 2,200 miles, it was not a number that related to anything in my previous experience. It was a scale beyond. My expectations were fiction. The last 5 weeks are a curious blend of hardship, body-breaking and muscle-building (I've gained weight and lost inches), that culminate daily at the shelter.
Like when I call home or a friend, and all I have are simple, children's words for my joy (love, awesome, cool, amazing), despite the fact that I'm nursing an aching and swollen foot, I gush. Gush with that mania. Like residual endorphins. Or a release of seratonin and adrenaline after merely remembering what it feels like to hike. And every night when I sight the shelter 100 yards ahead, though I've walked alone all day long, there are my friends ahead of me, and we smile to see each other, and we cook our food and talk about our aches and sing songs and fall asleep joyfully. All the roughness, the shit around the edges when you trip over 20 roots and curse the trail for being organic or get soaked feet, those feelings pass. Triumph takes its place.
So the next four months must be held as a mystery. Because although I have done 463 miles, and after a month my body has finally started complaining, but not badly; another 1,715 is a whole other can of worms. Who knows what misery and glory awaits?
posted by Sara Haxby at
1:32 PM
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