Paul's AT blog

This week finally feels like spring. The day after a hard rain in Maryland I walked through carpets of wildflowers and saw my first redbud tree in full bloom as I descended into Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Here in Front Royal, VA, at the northern end of the Shenandoah National Park I took a zero day with Alison and hiking friends Jan, Jim and Chuck and enjoyed a warm summer-like day doing laundry, restocking food, and making some modifications to my gear. Chuck is joinimg me to backpack the 100 miles of the park and the others are doing day hikes with us for a couple of days before heading back to warm dry homes. My thoughts this week as I passed the 400 miles mark drifted into various plot lines and scenarios for possible stories inspired by the weather and the woods - story lines that maybe I'll develop into short stories in the months after I finish this hike. I passed the time walking alone in the woods letting ideas like this bubble in my head.... A thousand centu

Most of this past week was a long-planned break from the trail to attend a talk by Margaret Atwood (she is brilliant!), a concert by Carl Palmer of ELP fame and maybe the best pure drummer I have ever seen, and the wedding of our close friends’ son who is like a nephew to us. Since I did few miles this week ("nero" is trailspeak for "near zero" miles), this post is a reflection on the idea of a long hike, not on the actuality of one. It may help explain why I am doing this. My long hike on the AT is a gift to myself. Simultaneously self-indulgent and self-denying. It is one of those “periods between the parentheses” separating my past world focused on career and community from my future world whose focus I hope to discover. It is an opportunity for me to strip life down to its barest bones devoid of nearly everything that comprises so-called normal life. No TV, refrigerator, or microwave. No bed, recliner chair, sofa, or dresser full of clothes. No plumbing. N

Interesting week on the trail. Several inches of snow on Tuesday, nearly 90 degrees on Friday and Saturday, then cold wind, fog and drizzle all day Sunday leading up to Sunday night's frigid downpour. I'm pretty sure that Mother Nature is menopausal. Walking through her mood swings is fun. It's easy to adjust clothing and outerwear to whatever disposition nature may be exhibiting. But camping is another story. Cold, windy rain is just not fun to camp in no matter what gear you have. With a little luck Mother Nature's emotional status may stabilize now and we can get on with real spring and summer weather. Just as interesting as the temperamental weather are the odd goofballs, malcontents, rebels, and other characters you meet on the trail. Overhill is trying to do the entire trail in 100 days - that's 22 miles a day with no rest. Peanut Butter and Jelly are a young couple who started in Georgia on January 1. They are taking it slow and enjoying the towns and count

I've hiked only about 150 miles so far but in that little bit of the AT, I have walked on snow, ice, mud, and swampy muck. I've scrambled up and down knarly boulders on all fours. I've beaten my boot soles over miles of sharp rocks. And, oh yeah, every once in a while I have walked on soft, dry, flat trail. One constant I have learned about the AT - no matter what you are walking on, it will change abruptly and often. So I walk on the steep or rocky or muddy trail happy to know it will end soon. And I speed along the dry, flat trail fretting that it will end around the next bend. One of the beautiful things about hiking long distances is finding that place in your soul where you live totally in the moment. I'm obviously not there yet. But I'm getting close. Most of the time, my time horizon is down to a few minutes, just around the bend or over the rise. Eventually I expect I will quit thinking about how the trail will change up ahead and learn to just take whatev

One last (I hope!) comment about hiking in snow. Walking through a foggy forest blanketed in deep snow is an otherworldly experience. There is no color - the background is all whites and soft grays; black trees fade into the fog in all directions. There is no movement. Visually, it invokes thoughts of Grimm Fairy Tales or ancient Viking sagas of a time when few people walked the planet. But it is the sound that is most profound. Or the lack of sound. It is a deep silence that presses on me like water, so physical that I can almost reach out and grab a handful. In fact, it is a silence that is more than merely lack of sound. It is negative sound. As if the snow and fog pull sound out of the world - a black hole accreting all sound and sending it to another dimension. I stop and feel the silence of the forest. I close my eyes, slow my breathing, and listen. Then I hear it. The soft thrum of the planet. Maybe the music of the orbs. Quiet waves rolling in and sliding back to some ancie

When the universe clearly doesn’t like what you say, it’s time to reframe the conversation. So, as opposed to previous announcements indicating my AT through-hike started on March 21, I now declare April 4 to be the official Opening Ceremony for my hike. That means everything I have done so far is just the warm-up, pre-opening event – like the mixed doubles curling competition in Pyeongchang. This logistical sleight of hand changes my perspective 180 degrees. Instead of feeling like I am already behind in my goal to hike 2190 miles, I am happy to say that I have finished 99.5 miles of the trail before I even officially start. I’m WAY AHEAD despite the Winter That Won’t Go Away. They say that finishing the AT is ten percent physical and ninety percent mental. Fortunately for me, my mental strength is in mid-trail form. If you have not hiked the AT in the northern end of the Delaware Water Gap NRA, I highly recommend you do. But I also highly recommend you wait until the snow melts