It has been one month since I finished the trail. Every day I think of some way to tell people what it was like to walk through a chain of mountains on a footpath that extends nearly 2200 miles in length.\u00a0 I can tell of the misery of bad weather, explain the aches and pain the body endures, try to convey the fears we were confronted with every day, and describe what it\u2019s like to dedicate such a large portion of your life to something no one told you you had to do.\u00a0 I can tell of the beauty of the mountains, describe what it\u2019s like to be one with nature, live simply with basic needs, and find motivation in moving forward towards the inevitable goal you have set for yourself. After all this time, I still don\u2019t know how to put my AT journey into words that reflect my life for those six months; I\u2019m not sure I even want to.<\/p>\n
How has the trail changed me? In the past few years I read numerous journals and books about thruhiking the AT, all with great insight into what a person undergoes on the trail. I thought I was well prepared for what I would encounter out there. I thought I would know how I would feel both during and after the hike. I thought wrong.\u00a0 Until you hike it yourself, you can never know what it\u2019s like or how you will feel.\u00a0 It might be selfish to say, but we belong to an exclusive club. I want to share the experience, but in some deep personal way there is a part of me that doesn’t want people to understand; I have something that’s mine, and everyone else should find a peace of their own. Other than knowing I have accomplished something extraordinary and maybe dealing with things a little more patiently, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve changed at all.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m often asked what was the best part of the trail.\u00a0 I have to say that each day I was out there was better than the day before.\u00a0 The mountains get more beautiful the further North you travel, the friends you make become closer with each passing day, and every day puts you closer to accomplishing your goal.\u00a0 There was never a day when I wanted to give up. Sure, some days things didn\u2019t always go as planned, but even those days were better than days when I had to work for a living.\u00a0 If I was younger and had a healthy body, I may have turned around and hiked south from Maine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has been one month since I finished the trail. Every day I think of some way to tell people what it was like to walk through a chain of mountains on a footpath that extends nearly 2200 miles in length.\u00a0 I can tell of the misery of bad weather, explain the aches and pain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pieces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelafferty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}