100 Miles Baby!

Reaching Another Milestone

I passed 100 miles on the trail today.

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on the Trail

We humans have a tendency to give inanimate objects lifelike properties.  I  am convinced that the trail has a rhythm and a pulse all of its own.  As my shoes become more worn I seem to be able to feel the trail more and more.  I am beginning to understand how a person could walk the trail barefoot.  I am mindful of a thought I had long ago; that as farmers become farther away from the earth in their big tractors and equipment the less attachment they have to the soil they till.  This detachment from the soil makes it more just a way to make a dollar rather than a sense of the wonder of this living thing they are allowed to touch and feel as they could when they walked behind the plow.

A person walks at a pace of about 100 steps per minute.  This is about what my heart rate is while on the trail.  Sometimes I can feel this rhythm of walking as the heartbeat of the trail.  I begin to feel every root, rock, and stick on the trail as something special.  I begin to feel the trail as a living thing.

Before I began my trek I felt that the trail was calling me.  Perhaps it really is alive.

Over the last weeks, I have been noticing in objects on the trail, hearts.  Mostly rocks, but also in leaves and trees.  Much of life has a heart, why not this trail?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gifts from the Trail

The trail gives many things, overwhelmingly grand sweeping vistas and sometimes a tiny flower so fragile that it seems out of place amid all the rough rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it is a gentle waterfall trickling from the mountain or the call of a bird.

 

 

 

 

 

I am determined to continue to feel and learn from my experience with the Trail.

 

May your legs be strong

May your pack seem light

May the sights and fellow hikers warm your heart