Re-entry – First 2 Weeks at Home

Re-entry is hard. Perhaps not as hard as backpacking through New Hampshire. Finding my bearings and figuring out what to do next continue to be difficult. The frequency of tears is decreasing. I have already forgotten the mental challenges that made me want to quit and we are planning our next AT through hike. It won’t be next year, we are working on a trip out west, perhaps in 2026.

First Hour

During the first hour back, Meriwether and I each took showers and immediately faced the dresser challenge. All I wanted to do was put on a t-shirt. My dresser drawer has about 30 of them, mostly from trail running races. They are all exactly the same. Other than occasional “loaner clothes”, which I always chose the most outrageous, this was the first time in over 4 months I got to choose what to put on. With too many choices, the decision was pretty hard. I think I went topless for the next hour.

Not only were there too many choices in my dresser, there were too many choices everywhere. What chair do I sit in? What mail do I open first? What food should be eaten? We actually ate all the food, starting with the food easiest to pull from the refrigerator. Finding a place to start continues to be challenging.

First Full Day

I wish I had taken notes on our first full day back. We took a lot of walks in the neighborhood. There was definitely a lot of indecision about everything else. Making the decision to walk was easy even if it was just on sidewalks and streets.

My body started to seize up. I experienced extremely painful leg cramps during the night, never had one cramp on the trail. My feet swelled. I hobbled like a very old man. How does my body know that the time for 20+ mile days is (temporarily) over.

We unpacked our packs. I am still reluctant to put away all my gear, it is strewn over our ping pong table. I did wash my spoon and the jar I ate out of for the first time since day 17. I also washed all my hiking clothes.

We ate and ate and ate. I was down 25 pounds. The first 10 came back pretty easily. The refrigerator, filled with food, emptied quickly. We visited local grocery stores frequently but were not, and still have not, been able to successfully stock our kitchen with enough food. Gallons of juice, quarts of ice cream, dozens of apples and bananas, loaves of break, pounds of sandwich meat, peanut butter and jelly, at least two dozen eggs, a couple pounds of bacon, all vanished within minutes of entering our kitchen. I prepared a meal that should have fed four and we both needed sandwiches and ice cream after devouring it all. The eating part happened on day 1, but the quantities mentioned took us through the weekend.

I sorted the mail. Our house sitter purged the junk mail before we got home, I was still amazed that the trash generated was about 4 times as big as the stack of “important” mail. As a sophisticated society, isn’t this an area we could significantly improve? I moved this so called important mail around several times, not exactly sure where it should live until action can be taken. While backpacking, everything has it’s place and it becomes so natural to unpack, use, pack up, and repeat. Where does all this mail go?

Celebration Hike

On the Saturday after our through hike completion, we had a celebration hike to McAfee Knob. Many of the same people that walked with us the first 3.5 miles came for this celebration hike. Our older son arrived home, with our dog, the day before. We were overjoyed to see both of them. My body felt good being back on the trail. The swelling in my feet temporarily subsided and my hobble went away. I hiked slowly and spent as much time talking to as many different people as possible. On day 1, so many days ago, I was so eager to get going that I hiked pretty fast and was only able to utter “We’re hiking the AT!” over and over. Today I enjoyed much deeper conversation.

We set out early, not as early as we did on on trail, but we were at the trailhead by 8 AM. Nobody brought beer or whisky but there was juice, fruit, and chips for all to enjoy. There were many, many other hikers out. Most of them day hikers, a few weekend or short section hikers. We met a ridge runner at the knob and spent a lot of time talking to her. Eventually we took a bunch of photos. That was when I really knew it was done. I didn’t cry, not out loud, but I was very sad that the trip was over.

Walking back down the mountain, I was very glad for the friends and family around me. Chris has an upcoming trail race in Utah. Stephanie’s desire to do a through hike was apparent in her questions probing our experience. Ken is anxious to retire and spend more time with his grandchildren, I hope to be as good a granddad as him one day. George and Beverly are doting foster parents, their commitment and courage inspire me, not to foster, but to be a better person. Ryan has experienced water shortages on backpack trips out west much worse than those we experienced, I look forward to my next trip with him. Sam is having a blast working on his MBA, every parent should love and admire their children as much as I love and admire mine, both of mine, and my daughter-in-laws, both of them too.

Client Visits

The week following our return I visited my two clients. I am eager to start assisting them and they both could use some assistance, primarily just too keep things moving forward. I won’t say that I am a necessary resource, they have excellent full time employees obviously with the skills to pick up everything I was I doing prior to our hike. I will say that I have more experience and far fewer (like none) meetings to attend so I can get more done in less time. Right now I am happy letting them take their time to figure out how/if/when I fit into the equation.

I love the work I do for my clients and want to continue doing the exact same stuff. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how best transfer my knowledge so that I am less critical to their operations. This probably sounds horribly vain. I have forever said that everybody is replaceable and if I can figure it out there are millions of others that can too, hundreds or thousands of those millions already work for my clients. My being critical to an operation is simply a perception. My perception is often wrong.

New Home

As you may be aware, we sold our home while we were on trail. I think we started talking about it in Pennsylvania and decided to sell before we got to New York. It took awhile for us to decide when. I pushed for sooner, I did not want to wait until we got home. If we got home first, we would become comfortable again in a place that is too big with too much stuff. Meriwether wanted to wait until we got home. Finally, after debating through several States, we decided to put it on the market sometime shortly after Springer.

Since getting home, Meriwether and I have spent countless hours on Zillow. We desired to stay in our current neighborhood with it’s easy access to both wooded trails on our mountain and to all the conveniences living in a city can provide. There is easy access to two trailheads with a half mile of our home. These trailheads lead to nearly 30 miles of trails on and around Mill Mountain. We love hiking and running on these trails. We have 3 local restaurants 3 blocks from our home. Downtown is a 30 minute walk or 5 minute drive. The Blue Ridge Parkway is an easy 4 mile run or 10 minute drive away. We have easy access to the AT at Dragons Tooth, McAfee Knob, and Daleville, all within 30 minutes of our home.

We also considered Blacksburg, an easy 40 minute drive from Roanoke. Blacksburg would put me closer to my clients and provide many of the cultural events that one can only get in a small town /  huge university location. One of my sister’s lives in Blacksburg. My brother owns a house in Blacksburg. We would be much closer to my family. Blacksburg has excellent public transportation and is very walkable. Getting to trails, however, would require getting in a car. I was excited about a potentially lucrative income stream from renting it out for home football games and graduation.

Our Roanoke realtor quickly found almost exactly what we were looking for. The house is a bit larger than what I want but it does offer one floor living and much less storage. We will have to do a pretty big purge before we move. The yard does have some grass but I am pretty sure we can replace the grass with rhododendron, mountain laurel, and native flowers to simulate the trail in our area. I am not mowing lawns anymore. Not raking leaves either. There are enough bedrooms for both our children and their wives to visit at the same time. We have a verbal acceptance from the owners, this won’t be posted until I have the executed contract in hand.

Trail Angels

Back near Standing Bear we met a young man out for his first backpacking trip, Joseph. It is a pretty amazing first trip, around 600 miles from Newfound Gap to Waynesboro. My first trip was about 10 miles and I went on hundreds of 10 – 76 mile trips before I attempted my first multi week trip.

We passed Joseph pretty easily back in North Carolina and got to the McAfee Knob trailhead a full two weeks before him. He is killing it now. His pack hasn’t lightened much, but he got his trail legs and is knocking out 20+ mile days with ease.

I met him at Dragons Tooth and hiked with him down to the next road crossing. We talked the entire time. He has experienced the joy of making new trail friends, the sorrow of having to leave those friends, and the mental strain of hiking alone for days. He has watched the sun rise and set in amazing settings. He has been cold in the rain, hot in the sun, and enjoyed the perfect temperatures on those rare August days with low humidity. Listening to his stories made me long for the trail even more.

He stayed the night with Meriwether and I. We fed him a big dinner, showed him how to work the washing machine, shuttled him around for a resupply, and got him back to the trail. Most importantly, however, we listened with excitement as he shared his experiences with us. While he was so appreciative, I know now that we got more from him than he from us. I like to think that we are now “Trail Angels”, but we probably have a lot more to give back to really earn the title. I look forward to it.

Two Weeks After

A full two weeks have passed since we got back. The third week has actually started. Meriwether indicated this morning that it might be time for Pot Luck to let the mutton chops go and to perhaps do something about his hair. I am reluctant. Will restoring my original appearance make Pot Luck fade? Pot Luck has enjoyed his time in “civilization.”

I still struggle with indecision. There is too much to do, too many choices, the simplicity of the trail is calling. I find myself visiting the Facebook groups set up for this year’s through hikers. I am reading the blogs of those still on the trail. One evening, and only one evening, we watched YouTube videos of those still on the trail. We are going on a short backpacking trip this weekend and a longer one next weekend. Anything to get my fix.

There is a hole in my heart similar to losing a girlfriend. Thank God it is not worse. It is not as large as the hole from losing a parent or even a dog. I always wanted to get over the girlfriend quickly so that I could move on. I don’t want to get over this, I do want to get back out there. I am no where near my final swig.

Happy trails.