“Unspeakable Excitement”

-12 hours to trail.

(Suches, GA)

I haven’t felt excitement like this in so long that I barely even remembered that such a feeling existed! For the last month it’s all been so busy preparing for the trail that I haven’t been able to let myself become excited for the trail.

That’s different now though. I’m so excited that I can’t even contain myself.

—

I arrived in Atlanta late last night, got my checked bag, caught my ride out of town, and it was two hours to Above the Clouds, the hostel I’m staying at tonight.

My ride was a guy named Ron, who had been running an AT shuttle for the last 19 years. He was a character. Almost twenty years of stories from shuttling hikers along with stories from his own hikes on the AT and elsewhere. He was a wealth of knowledge, and I can imagine that he’d be even more useful to someone new to thru hiking. Most of my curiosity along our drive was specific to the AT, and less about thru hiking.

The hostel was closed well before we arrived, but they’d arranged for me to stay in a cabin on the property and left the porch light on.

It already feels different out here than anything I’ve felt before, and it’s not only the excitement. Something feels like it exists in this part of the world than I’ve found before this. Like the air is thicker. No not the humidity. Something you feel more in your chest. I find it hard to explain.

It was hard to sleep through the excitement, but woke this morning around sunrise.

The owner of the hostel made breakfast and showed me around after pointing out the full coffee pot. It brings me right back to trail, being here. There were only a few people here when I arrived, but by now, in the evening, there are nearly a dozen of us. I’m the only one who has yet to start the hike. Everyone else here has done 20-30 miles to get here. I’ll start tomorrow.

The owner of the hostel, a guy named Lucky, mentioned that he had a home gym around back, and I asked if he’d let me use it. He said he’s always trying to get people to use the weight equipment in there, but evidently nobody ever does. Go figure–hikers are tired, even after just 20-30 miles. They don’t want to lift weights after coming off trail.

So I was able to get in one more workout before going to trail tomorrow. Much of the equipment was dusty and ruddy, but it still felt good.

The hikers here are mostly new to thru hiking, and it’s been fun going through their gear and helping to reduce weight. It reminds me of being on my first long trails, and how much different hiking is to me now.

On my first thru hike my base weight (the weight of all my gear, minus my worn weight, food weight, and water weight) was around 24lbs. That was way too heavy. That was 10 years ago. My base weight this time is 17.49lbs. I weighted it all out this morning, and I’m really pleased with this.

The fun goes up when the weight goes down. I’ve met people who have had “sub-10” base weights, but to me that just sacrifices too much gear. I like my comforts, but I’m also pleased to have dropped my base weight this much.

My worn weight is 5lbs, and food will be around 2lbs per day. I could start out with just a day of food for as much resupply opportunity as there is on this trail. But I’m stocked for 4 days, and plan to carry that full weight from the trailhead.

Tomorrow I’ll start at the approach trail at around 8 or 9am. I want to start earlier, but I need to get a ride to trail, and that’s about an hour south of here. I also will register with the Appalachian Trail Association before starting the approach trail. That’s 9 miles, to the start of the official AT, and from there it’s north.

I don’t need to make big miles tomorrow, but I like to on my first day of a thru trail. If there weren’t the limitation of starting late in the morning, I’d like to get 30 miles tomorrow, but we’ll see.

The forecast is calling for a bit of rain tomorrow, then pretty good weather for the foreseeable future past there.

—

After working out I mostly hung out with the other hikers for the rest of the day. Did a couple of pack shake downs, shipped my “normal” clothes and shoes back that I wore on the plane yesterday.

My food resupply box was here when I arrived for breakfast this morning. So I packed food, weighed all my gear, and a few of us ordered food from a near by grocery store. Made a dinner of pasta and beef. Had a salad. Frank another beer.

—

Wow… that was cool. Between the last paragraph and this one some of the hikers were asking me about injuries and what not. We started going over stretches and preventative exercise, and it led to my getting to do about an hour of bodywork. That’s something that I’ve really wanted to do on trail, but I know that I’m not able to practice like I would at my office, because I don’t have a table or lotions or anything like that. But I can practice this massage, and that’s basically what I did for the hour in a couple different hikers. Their feedback was really validating. One guy said after the session that he’s going to start getting massage monthly when he gets back home.

—

Tomorrow I’ll have breakfast and coffee with the other hikers and take a ride to the approach trail.

I’m so excited that I can barely even see straight. No idea how I’m going to get sleep tonight. Shit… I might be able to even make a little income or pay my stay at hostels in trail if I’m able to do bodywork like I did today.

Life is good.

I haven’t felt that way in a long long time. I forgot it was possible to feel good again.

Wormwood.