Wide River To Cross

Well I find myself at home in Newtown Square after a week of PA hiking. I passed through Boiling Springs, Duncannon, Lickdale, Hamburg, Port Clinton, PA...up on ridges, through the valleys to the next ridges, across rivers, ad infinitum. Truthfully Pennsylvania has been a gorgeous state - sometimes rocky, both literally and figuratively, sometimes you're walking through beautiful farmlands on rolling hills, sometimes you're walking through old coal settlements...but I'd describe it most accurately right now as 'the middle'.

They say the first month of the trail is the physical challenge and once you're in shape it becomes much more of a mental challenge and I find myself in the thick of it - especially after having come home last weekend briefly and being confronted with all the comforts and 'stuff' from real life I've momentarily left behind. I've been hiking for two and a half months now and some of the novelty of getting to a town or a cool new shelter or the next shower or a vending machine has really worn off. Suddenly a town means spending more of the dwindling funds, the shelter means dealing with the skeeters while trying to sleep, the shower means 5min of cleanliness before the 'hiker funk' kicks back in, the vending machine means I chug the 20oz coke so I can throw the bottle in the trash before moving on - less baggage.

The hike just doesn't seem as 'fun' as it once did. The weight of the rest of the trail is hanging over me as I do the math and see I need to average 19-20mi days to reach Maine in time. I want to stay ahead of that average but it doesn't seem to pan out as such and I get anxious - probably for no real reason. The mentality is that I want to 'knock out miles' but there's that nagging sense that I should just calm self and focus on enjoying the present - but how much enjoyment do I really deserve when it was my choice to be unemployed and walk through the woods this spring/summer? It's just a weird spot to be in when you're free to choose your own schedule, but as a person who enjoys a sense of purpose - I always have Maine on the brain. It's been a weird and kinda difficult couple weeks and I do get the sense that other hikers are going through it as well which is a mild consolation.

I happened upon a few fellow hikers, a young married couple from the next town over at home, that were waiting on a ride to Philadelphia when I met up with them at a road crossing. My overwhelming feeling was that I was absolutely in the right place at the right time, that I should take this ride home for a day or two and really check out from the trail, that I need to recenter. After all, there still is so much to look forward to - the Delaware Water Gap, the Mohican Outdoor Center in Jerz, the Berkshires, the mighty Whites, the 100 Mile Wilderness...the elusive Katahdin. And I'm going to go ahead and say that life is still pretty damn good. I just know sometimes it takes stepping back and looking on the experience from a different place/perspective to remember this.

I've met some pretty amazing people that do some pretty cool stuff. You find a lot of folks out here who are just the types that make things happen for themselves - the travel, the cool jobs, the atypical life experiences...it's inspiring. The mountains and folks that live in the surrounding regions have been wonderful - more welcoming towards strangers than I imagined people could be these days (bah, what does 'these days' even mean?) I'd say that more than anything else, this hike has reminded me that at heart people are generally good, they are trusting, they are generous even when they have little, they want to leave you with a good feeling about the place they live, they want to help you connect to that place, they want to see the good in people too. Aside from that not-small life lesson, it's also been interesting to see how little you can actually live on. How attached I am to the tiny alcohol stove (thanks Hustler!). How the 'one's junk is another's treasure' concept functions so seamlessly in hiker boxes where people leave things they no longer need and they're picked up by others.

Yeah. Halfway.

Enough deep thoughts by Jack Handey. I leave you now with an NPR article on the AT that just popped up after they interviewed thru-hikers in Harpers Ferry a few weeks back aaaaaaand the Public Enemy song that's been running through my head when I scramble over PA rocks - Harder Than You Think. 'Cause, as with most things in life, if I'm gonna get through this damn thing...it's gonna be with the help of Flava Flav.

(sidenote: the young married couple in the video from the NPR article, Quixote & Panza, are the wonderful folks that offered me the ride home when I needed it...great people)