A photo from a hike I went on with my dad in October to test out my gear (the subject of a future post).
As many of you already know, in late March 2014, I’ll be quitting my job and hiking the full length of the Appalachian Trail. I am incredibly excited, and cannot stop thinking about it. It’ll be a roughly 5-month journey, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine – about 2,185 miles. I’ll be keeping a blog on here so my friends and family can keep up with my progress as I hike; it’ll be updated maybe once or twice a week once I get going. I’ll set it up to shoot a status update over to Facebook when I update it, but take a look on here if you want to see all my entries and photos as I go along.
If you live near to the trail, and either want to join me for a couple days or meet up in your town (maybe share your warm shower? 🙂 ), let me know! I would love to see as many of you as I can along the way!
Why?
The biggest question I always hear when I tell folks that I’m hiking the trail is “why?” There are a lot of reasons, and I’m not sure I can really articulate all of them. I just know that I feel the urge to go, and I need to follow that.
For the adventure: I’m an outdoorsman; I feel happiest and most relaxed in nature, whether sitting out on a lake or exploring new countryside. I’m also active with CouchSurfing; I love travel and exploring everything I can find. For the past few years, I’ve been thinking about either bicycling across the country (I do 100-mile rides regularly anyway), or hiking the Appalachian Trail. Eventually the AT won out. I’ve heard so many amazing stories from thru-hikers whom we hosted at my undergraduate fraternity at Dartmouth, and I want meet more people like them. I want to experience the forests, mountains, and small towns. I want to walk into the unknown.
To escape the city: I’ve been living in New York City now for about a year and a half – but I’m a country boy. NYC has been a good place for me for the time I’ve been here; you can do anything here. But it’s time to move on, to greener pastures. I miss being able to take my bike out, pick a direction that looks interesting, and be able to assume that I’ll have safe roads to ride on. I miss being able to walk down the sidewalk and have people say “good afternoon” back to me. I miss woodworking, blacksmithing, contra dancing, and good beers that cost less than 6 dollars.
To find myself: This is probably the biggest reason for my journey. I feel discontent; I feel like I’m not doing what I want to do, but I don’t really know what that is. I’ve spent too much of my life as the shy and somewhat awkward nerd trying to fit in and do what society wants me to do; things like my undergrad fraternity and, more recently, Burning Man have helped me break out of that – but now I need to figure out where that leads me. I want to make a difference in the world, to make it a better place, but I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what that means doing.
Practical matters
I’ll be starting out with a couple friends – one from my undergraduate coed fraternity, Ben, and one of his childhood friends, Isabella – and then joined partway through by an additional friend from my fraternity, Hannah. My pack will weigh about 21 pounds, plus food (up to 10 pounds, depending on when my next restock is). I’ll buy most of my food in towns, which I’ll encounter or be able to easily hitchhike to every 4-7 days or so, though I’ll supplement occasionally with mail drops. There are shelters (usually lean-tos: three walls and a roof) every 5-10 miles, which I’ll primarily stay in, but I’ll also have a small tent with me. I will be carrying my smartphone, but it will be off most of the time and only used for emergencies on the trail; I’m looking forward to being more disconnected. In towns, I’ll also use it to check voicemails and do blog posts. I will be hiking no matter what the weather, but starting in late March means that I shouldn’t encounter many times below freezing. And no, I’m not worried about bears.
After the Trail
So what am I going to do after the trail? I have no idea, and I like it that way. There are a few options I’ve been thinking about. Australia and New Zealand both attract me and make it very easy for engineers to get work visas. My current job has sent me out to the west coast a lot, and I’ve fallen in love with Portland, Oregon especially. The most interesting CouchSurfer I’ve stayed with was a girl in Portland who had hiked the Appalachian Trail in order to escape Georgia. She met someone on the trail who told her about Portland and she liked what she heard, so she moved there and has really liked it. Maybe I’ll encounter someone on the trail who will change my life. Actually, I think I can count on it. It’ll be an amazing adventure!
Bounce in the Woods 