Appalachian Trail Appreciation Post: 10 Year Anniversary of Start
I really don’t want to be that annoying person who keeps bringing up and repeatedly posting about the same life event-like my AT thru-hike, but today marks 10 years since my start on Springer Mountain. So, I’m gonna embrace the annoyance and allow nostalgia to overtake me.
It seems as though I appreciate the hike more as time passes. Maybe it’s because I’m not doing much in my life right now (ie. pandemic) and I’m nostalgic of a time when I was out adventuring and going after my dreams. Maybe it’s because I met cool people and laughed a lot, and I miss that. I find that I am still processing the hike and reflecting upon the experience. I appreciate the courage I had as a 23 year old to take my first step on the trail without ever having been backpacking before. The commitment to reach Katahdin even when I suffered. And nowadays whenever fear about getting out of my comfort zone creeps in, be it traveling solo somewhere new or undertaking a physically arduous task, I remember my hike and know I can do hard things. Nowadays I romanticize the trail, which is what I was ardently against doing immediately after finishing. Back then when I talked to fellow thru-hikers who only remembered the good times, I interjected with memories of walking in the rain for days on end, the pain in shoulders and feet, the hunger, the bugs… I could go on. But that’s what time does, it softens the memories; flashbacks are remembered in a hazy glow. Struggles and pain are suppressed and hidden.
I’m also still rooting out my motivations for hiking long distances, since it seems to become a lifestyle once you complete a thru-hike. Most become addicted to the feeling: the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling of freedom, the feeling of escapement, the feeling of authenticity that the trail embodies. Back before my hike when I wrote a letter to friends and family I touched on motivations such as being outside, simplicity, and the like. But now through self reflection I have found there are much deeper drivers directing me toward that lifestyle. Which is why I wrote a whole other article about the topic that I hope to publish sometime soon titled, “How Long Walks are Like Pressing the Restart Button”. I won’t go into it here but some of those deeper motivations touch on accomplishment as worth, exerting control, and pushing oneself in order to be broken down.
As I get older I cling to the memories where I feel like my truest self. Not that I don’t feel like that in my daily life, but I think it’s fair to say that we’re not always headed in the direction we hope to be progressing towards. It’s normal to get caught up in the busyness of the everyday, focusing on making money, worrying about what the future holds, keeping up with politics and culture. Fast forward a few months or a year and you feel as though life passed you by while you were just another cog in a machine. Our dreams get pushed further and further away to be pursued at a later time, and we settle into a lifestyle that doesn’t fulfill our spirit. Which leads to the age old question, what would you do if you could do whatever you wanted, if you didn’t have a family to support, bills to pay, and no obstacles in your path. The answer to that would be the dream. The answer would be you living your most authentic life. And for me, it’s not too different from how I’ve shaped my life now, exploring, traveling, challenging myself, eating lots of ice cream, laughing with friends around a picnic table….And that looks a lot like how it was when I was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail.
