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Here is a journal entry I wrote about a week after finishing the AT:
Last night I flew back across the country over all that beautiful land, but it was enveloped in darkness. My usual plan when I get on an airplane is to try to get the most out of the ticket price by seeing as much as I possibly can. If I don’t wind up with a window seat I beg and plead with my row mates, and if they don’t yield I crane my neck over them and the adjacent row to maximize my view. Darkness drastically reduces my plane experience unless there is a full moon, so last night, instead of my usual face plastered to the window I had my nose in a book all the way back to California, missing all those glorious peeks and canyons.
It feels SO good to be back here in the west. I have lived on the Appalachian Trail for the past 3.5 months, but it was never HOME. The AT was the only trail of my Triple Crown where the “embrace the brutality” mantra was necessary for me. Up in Maine it felt like the trail had been by planed by someone with a massive inferiority complex. The white blazes would lead me past mellow saddles and tree covered slopes out to the rockiest points and ridges, up to the summit of every 3000 ft tree covered knob they could possibly hit. The worst part for me was getting up to the “summit” and looking out at the endless green bumps and lakes. I felt claustrophobic and disoriented at every peak- where the heck was I? Where was I going? Why was I going […]