2,162.4 Miles To Go

I walked 17.6 miles on the Appalachian Trail (AT) on Sunday from Long Hill Road to US 9 in New York and I feel like I failed. In fact, I am a little depressed about it. 

The plan was to walk some 46 miles or so to NY 17 near Tuxedo, or a little more than half of New York’s 88-mile claim to the AT. I would take NJ Transit back home from there. But after that first 7 hour and 40 minute day I couldn’t - or more accurately - felt I shouldn’t - continue. (See Matthew 26:41 - http://biblehub.com/matthew/26-41.htm) 

Hiking alone, I had to promise my family that I would not go forward unless I felt it was safe or, better, that the risk of injury was within reasonable bounds. There is never a guarantee of safety and after hours of conversation about bears, cliffs, marauders, dehydration and starvation, I knew better than to make unreasonable promises to them.

At about the 10 mile point, I fell and badly scraped my leg below my left knee.

But that is not why I quit. My leg healed quickly and the pain was more than bearable.

I quit because I could not promise myself that I would not fall again and with more severe consequences. I suspect that falling is part of the game on the AT. I do not really know. I am not an expert. I did not have the right shoes. I did not undertake the right training. I was not prepared. And I was alone. After falling and a half a dozen near falls that followed, I just assumed I would fall the next day. Acquiring new shoes and better training overnight was not an option.

I am impulsive, but I try really hard not to be stupid. So I quit. And I am depressed.

It had long been my “dream” (feel free to insert “hope” “whim” “goal” “desire” “fantasy” “ambition” “yearning” or any like word of your choosing) to hike the entire length of the AT - all 2,180 miles of it from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. 

Like so many other boys, it was a dream hatched in the canvas tents of Boy Scout camping trips to Bear Mountain and Onteora Scout Reservation, both nestled in my own childhood “wilderness” in and near the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York. 

It was dream nurtured by countless hours reading Gary Paulsen novels like Hatchet; Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain; virtually every personal adventure Appalachian Trail book written like Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods and Earl Shaffer’s Walking With Spring; and a huge heaping of Les Stroud and Bear Grylis on television.

But time has a way of getting away from us. So one marriage, six jobs, three children, two grandchildren, scores of weddings, too many funerals and so, so many wasted hours soon saw my biological clock rapidly approaching sixty. A “through hike” was out of the question. Not because I did not - perhaps foolishly - think I could do it, but because I was not willing to be that selfish - to spend that amount of time away from my family and work. Even at a “male maturity age” closer to 25, I could not be that selfish.

So I compromised and decided upon this 60th birthday present to myself. I would attend my family reunion in early August near Poughkeepsie and “walk back to New Jersey” on the AT. That would be enough. That would be an accomplishment. That would be a few moments of a lifelong dream fulfilled or in “Family Man” terms, a “glimpse.” I told everyone. I spent weeks planning.

Instead I walked 17.6 miles. In a day. Probably too fast and too unprepared.

THESE 17.6 miles:  http://walkmeter.com/5b6c87730a9918df/Walk-20140803-1013

That is what I did. And for the most part, it was a blast. There were others, but not many. I met a few through hikers - maybe a dozen or so - like "Blueberry Bear" who is way older than me and started in Georgia on March 11th. I told each one of them how much I admired them. I did not tell them how very envious I am of them.

But mostly I enjoyed the serenity. The leaf-blower-jet-plane-light-rail free wilderness. The absence of that constant suburban drone. And I enjoyed the adventure of it all.

Now I have vowed to try again next year, with a new plan, with companions, better prepared and most certainly with better shoes. I will be ready and I will still be sixty.

And after all, I already walked 17.6 miles. Only 2,162.4 to go!