This morning I took a packs-off break once I got out onto the ridgeline to refill my Camelbak, and, as I usually do, I turned and sat facing what I had already done, and not what was ahead of me. Besides what this tells you about how I live the rest of my life, it set me to thinking about the larger frame of what I've done.
What, then, have I done? I have walked. I've put countless miles under my boots and pitched my tent countless times. I've crossed paths with thousands of people, and I've told, heard, and been a part of many stories and many lives. I've camped at sea-level, and at 14,000 feet, and at every elevation inbetween. I walked there. I've hiked up and down and flat and North and South and East and West. I've seen the sun rise over the Atlantic and the Appalachians, and I've set it over the Rockies and the Gulf of Mexico. I walked there. I've hiked in rain, sleet, hail, and snow, in biting winds, blinding fog, and blistering heat. I've packed on a boat, a bike, and a horse, but never further than on my own feet - I walked. I have drunk deeply from the mountain springs and eaten fruit straight from the wild vines. I've spent anywhere from two days to two weeks on the trail. I've hiked in the daytime and at night, on marked trails and sometimes made my own. But no matter when or where or for how long, I walked. My pack has followed me through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. My boots have carried me across Utah, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. I walked. I've hiked knee-deep in tropical swamps and wild rivers, over desert plateaus and Appalachain balds, and through thick forests of pine, oak, poplar, and aspen. I've been on peaks where I could see for miles in all directions, and inside clouds that left me blind. I walked there. I have looked down on lightning storms, and looked up at roots and worms. I've been bitten, stung, burned, frostbit, sunburned, heat stroked, stabbed, and cut more times than matter, and to me, taking the wrong fork and getting lost just means I've got that much more trail to hike. And through it all, I walked. But for all the miles and all the stories, until this weekend I had done nothing.
Before this weekend, I had never hiked alone. It was always with the troop or my family or two or three other guys, but this weekend, I finally got up there by myself. Sure, there were plenty of people coming and going all along the trail, even a few camping at the same site, but it was still different. That feeling that you are utterly alone, that no one is around for miles and no one knows where you are, is something I had never experienced. Even though my mileage was down from usual and I took my time, and went to a stretch of trail I know better than my own neighborhood, it was intensely powerful. As soon as I got off the trail, I wanted it again, but in a different way than that thought has ever come. I'm going to do it. I have to do it. Even if I have to section-hike it two or three weeks at a time, I'm going to put that trail under my boot, mile for mile, step for step.
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