Having made our big decision to hike part of the AT, some 550 miles of it, which is nearly exactly 1/4 of the total distance the trail actually covers, starting next April and, knowing we needed plenty of experience and a moderate amount of gear in the 11 months until our departure, our first stop was, of course, the library.
Among the books on how to backpack and what to take and cooking in the backwoods and defending camp against bears and skunks, we scored Bill Bryson's book about hiking the AT, A Walk in the Woods. We started it on the way to hiking at Buck's Pocket last weekend and have made many slow drives to Dollar General, the mile taking an easy 20 minutes both ways so we could listen to it more. Upon reaching the last disc in the van, the kids brought it inside to start it all over again from the first disc. It's just as funny the second time, though I have to say, I feel more trepidation AFTER hearing him describe his hike, made at the age of 44 with no more prep than reading a little and buying a ton of gear he seemingly had no idea how to use. He just...got on the trail and started walking North.
I will be heading toward 38 when I finally get on the trail. I have longed to hike it since I was 12. I was given a stack of Backpacker Magazines ranging from 1980 to around 85 by the school librarian and I was not without one of the issues for at least a year. I memorized the whole vocabulary-always, always my favorite part of doing anything new are the words you can bandy about that are exclusive to that activity-then made gear lists, made lists of hikes I wanted to do, bought wool socks at the thrift store because they were best for hiking. I got $50 a month in allowance starting at age 14 and I used it to buy hiking boots, a pack, fleece jacket, water bottle and a poncho, accumulating gear over the months, the whole while knowing neither of my parents would ever, ever take me backpacking.
That summer, my mother went to Greeley for the summer quarter, a college just north of Denver. She bought tickets for me and my older sister to fly out and we spent the next 3-4 weeks driving in her tiny car all over the Rockies, hitting the Tetons, Yellowstone, we drove into Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, camping in a minuscule 3 man tent she bought at JC Penney for the main reason that it popped up and required barely 90 seconds from taking it out of the trunk to crawling inside. On the way home we went through Kansas and stopped at St. Louis and rode the arch cars all the way to the top. I was hooked on camping travel.
The summer I was 16, I took a job with the forestry service and mowed grass all of June to pay for a ticket to fly to Missoula, Montana the first of July and I lived in a small tent with a girl from Denver for 5 weeks while we hiked and chopped trail out of the woods along the Continental Divide. I wrote Matt the whole time I was gone and he NEVER ONCE WROTE ME BACK and years later when I got back in touch with my old tent mate, she had trouble believing we were actually married as everyone thought I made him up. hahaha! But that's how long we have known each other-over half my life and then some. Longer than we haven't known each other. But not as long as I have wanted to hike the AT.
