Aftermath

... or the assimilation into a world none of us are happy with

“Addiction: a primary chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social, and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors. Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability and premature death.”

I miss the trail thoroughly and unreservedly.

I’m planning to attempt a thruhike of the CDT in 2017, but I may not ever even set foot on the CDT, a hundred things could happen between now and then. Maybe I’ll find some great job I won’t want to leave, maybe I’ll have some sort of epiphany that precludes hiking, maybe I’ll be too busy doing a book tour for my critically acclaimed bestselling semi-autobiographical novel about an international underwear model and spy who writes a semi-autobiographical novel. 
                 But that’s all a lie, I knew it the moment I wrote it. I look back at PCT pictures and read my trail journal and remember the pain and the hunger and the exhaustion. I think about the bugs and the weather and the drama but I know it’s in me now, the long trail addiction and walking another will be easier than pretending I don’t want to.

Advice To Prospective Thruhikers

if any were foolish enough to ask me

It won’t be what you think it will be, regardless of what you think it will be. It will be something unnameable and indescribable. It will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done and you’ll do it for months. It will become a twelve plus hour per day job with just 2-3 days off each month that will be spent running errands and doing chores. You will gauge distance in hours of walking, you will gauge food in calories per ounce, you will gauge water in liters per mile. Personal hygiene will be simplified to hand sanitizer after you poop (hopefully) and brushing your teeth while you walk. You will learn just how little you actually need in life.

You will learn your body in a way more immediate and raw than you will have known it before. You will feel in a way beyond the intellectual that mother nature is a nihilist and does not care if you survive or not. Like all organisms her concern is with herself. You will experience a world parallel to this one, yet impossibly far away. Your priorities will be shattered, your previous life goals will seem pointless and silly, you will feel a small yet profound disconnect between you and the friends you had before the trail. In short, thruhiking will ruin your life, but it will ruin it in a better way than television and wage slavery and consumerism.

The trail takes from you slowly, particles and atoms, a step at a time. And at the end you rip yourself away but all those parts stay. They are a toll imposed by the trail. The only way you will feel whole again is to walk another trail and pay another toll. This repeats until there is less of you offtrail than on. And then, the only outcome is staying ontrail.

Were you hoping for specific gear reviews and planning advice? I don’t know, get your footwear right, everything else can be dealt with as you go and anyway, you will need far less gear than you might think. In general, leave anything you aren’t 100% sure you’ll need with your resupply person, they can ship it to you later if you need it. If you start with more stuff you are likely to get used to having it there. If you start without it you’ll get used to not needing it (paraphrased from Larb, thanks Larb!). It’s much cheaper overall to start with what you already have and then upgrade as you go. This gives you a chance to see what is working best for other hikers and then decide if it’s worth it and besides, your choice of hiking shirt will not decide whether you finish the trail or not.

            For thorough and detailed gear reviews I recommend  Wired, she is a very experienced hiker and a very awesome human. For gear videos I watched Joe Brewer. For trail porn I watched As It Happens, more than once.

There is more to this story, of course. There is the story of Hot Mess (now Rachel) and I’s romance. How we met at mile 115, kissed at mile 1136, and spent every night thereafter camped near each other. Then there is the epilogue of that story and the lesson from it is to leave trail romances where you find them, deep in the woods. They don't translate to this default world, they involve people who don't really exist.

There are stories of all the many human dramas that unfolded between people from all over the world and from all walks of life who shared experiences in this place during this time. And there are the stories of the many incredible people I met on and off the trail

There were a hundred things that happened on the trail that didn’t make it into this writing. There were good conversations with locals, day hikers, other thruhikers. There was the unmitigated glee of coming around a bend and seeing a dog on the trail. There were more ridiculous stories, inside jokes, and belly laughs than I could fit here. There was petty drama, there were rumors and lies, there were yellow blazers we all chose to politely ignore. But here I wrote the brief moments that cut through the muck for reasons that say more about my own psyche than they do about the trail and it’s citizens.

The hike was rarely about the trail. Gazing off into the majesty of nature while walking was a sure way to bark shins, skin knees, and sprain wrists so most of the time I was only seeing the few feet of dirt immediately in front of me. Mostly, the hike was about the people and this was a complete surprise to me. I am a dyed in the wool introvert and had assumed my hike would be a mostly solitary and meditative walk through the woods, so of course it was anything but. I met so many wonderful humans, the kind of people I trust implicitly, the kind of people who offer a couch to crash on and mean it, the kind of people who would would give away their last Oreo without hesitation (ok that last one is not true, hikers giving away cookies?! Yeah, right!).

So this, the grand conclusion months in the making where and whence I'm to reveal some hard kernel of truth distilled from the blood, sweat, and tears of 2700+ miles. Sorry but I'm going to disappoint. The lessons learned are mostly of a pragmatic nature. Lessons in all the physical doings, in how to make miles and how to resupply and the like. There are things I learned about people and in doing so about myself. I learned in a very real way that we humans are a fearful and tribalistic lot. I learned that outside of a tribe, individuals are more often than not kind and generous and compassionate. The tribalistic part of me wants to intuit some sort of specialness among thruhikers but sitting here slapping away at a keyboard alone I think that probably thruhikers are, for the most part, just a cross section of society and people mostly try to be good. We fall short of that quite often, we give in to weakness and cut the switchbacks but we each, in our own way, wake up each day and we try. So moving forward from this experience I will carry the heartbreaking wonder with me and wish I had the means to really show you it, but I can’t. Anything I say will be like the photos I’ve shown, just pale reflections in a dirty mirror. Life advice gleaned from the trail? None, but I can tell you what advice I’d give myself: don’t be afraid, eat more vegetables, be kind to people, turn off the screens, don’t be so gentle with your body, go outside.

            Thanks to all you smelly hikers. I walked with you and talked with you and you truly made my hike: GBH, Iron Chef, Little Feet, Ryman and Karen, Indy, Breathless, Jackrabbit and Larb, Dawg, Tinker, Ginger Grouse, Toto, DC, BLT, Jorge, Flash, Sweetcakes, Cool Whip, KC, Eskimo and Snickers, old Snickers, Oatmeal, Horizon, Merkel, Samson, Little Brown, Willie, Keester and Hobbes, Camel, Freddie, Papa Kiwi, Goat, Chardonnay, Sodwinder, Cruise Control, Kinetic, Ninja Tortoise, Data, Klutz, Mountain Goat (fuck you), Seven, Coach, Rick, Todd, Goldilocks, Space Kitty and Goulet, Beavers, Flipper (ok, fine, David), Bright Eyes, Ambot, and anyone else I had the honor of walking with, if even for just a mile or two.

And rest in peace, Flying Fish. The trail was better for your presence and the hiking community glows less bright with your passing.