PREPARING – PART 1
OK, I’ll begin – to blog that is.
The trail? I began that 60 years ago when I suggested to my boarding school roommate in 1956 that we hike the Appalachian Trail that summer. It never happened. And then real life took over and I never thought of it again. . .until it returned to my conscious mind in 2006 as age 65, like a mist-shrouded mountain, loomed out ahead. Ever since, year after year, I have threatened to close my office by year-end to start the AT in Georgia the following March and head northbound 2,189.2 miles to the northern terminus of the AT – KATAHDIN!
Since that re-emergence, Theo, my Golden, and I have hiked 410 mountainous miles preparing for this adventure, including the most difficult, northern end of The Long Trail in The Green Mountains of Vermont. In September of 2012, we finished 170 miles southbound from the Canadian border to the point where the trail meets the AT near Killington Mountain. We spent the night at The Inn at The Long Trail where the waiters count years of service by how many times they have served patrons for Saint Patty’s Day at McGrath’s Irish Pub within. The next morning, I drove westward on Vermont Route 4 to catch the New State Throughway home. The sun was rising in the Eastern sky behind me bathing The Green Mountains in a golden glow. I looked back at them stretching northward and thought, “Those mountains suck the life right out of you – and you love them for it!”
Now, as I approach 75, it appears that the AT is going to happen. On November 12, 2015, I hand delivered my termination notice to my law-office landlord of 18 years and committed myself to the single-handed effort of moving out of my life on Duke Street and into an exciting and uncertain future. At home, I cleared out the garage, the basement, my closet and, with Bonnie, my wife, made all the choices converting the garage loft into and office demanded – and I couldn’t be happier. The time has come. My youngest son said, “Dad, you better do the AT soon or you’ll be the first person to do it with a walker.”
When Bill Bryson’s book, A Walk in the Woods, came out in 1998, the number of thru-hiker starts on the AT increased by 45%! When the movie came out last year, I imagined the trail would be inundated with inexperienced hopefuls and I wanted to get a jump on the usual start dates of March 1st, March 17th and April 1st. I would start in February.