The Final 500: Thoughts from 6 Thru Hikers on the AT

I apologize for the long break between my last update and this one. I have been busy. I have pushed and hiked and crawled my way to the final 500 miles of the Appalachian Trail!

Well, not just myself. This post is unique because I have asked my tramily members to write their own paragraphs, include their own thoughts.

My group has grown to 6 and we have all had very different experiences on the trail. Even Snail Mail and Crease who I have been with for almost 1700 miles. I have plenty to express myself but I believe that you will enjoy what they have to say as well.

My Thoughts Reaching The Final 500

Starting the trail I always knew that I could make it to the end although the thought of making it to 1000 miles, or even 1700 was insane. Now I’ve done it. And more.

I have been on the trail for 4 months. It is truly a home and a comfortable place for me. There are few aspects that feel unnatural to me now.

I will be honest. A lot of this trail has been a battle of will. If you have read my previous posts you may have picked up that this has not been an easy experience. The trail has been miserable, hard, painful and sometimes even heartbreaking. I am not too proud to admit there was a time where all I wanted to do was push miles because I was ready to be done. I knew I wouldn’t quit so all I could do was finish quicker.

There was a time where I would have traded the end experience to be released from the mental and physical hole I was in.

I sat on a porch recently with my friends (family more accurately), and a question was posed. “If an alternate reality was presented to you where you could be done with the trail in 4 days and have completed the hike, would you accept it?” I surprised myself when my first thought was no. As ready as I thought I was to be done, the thought of only having 4 more days was terrifying and devastating. I am not ready to leave this trail or my found family.

I am so excited and proud of myself to have made it this far into the trail. The prospect of only having 500 miles remaining is both exhilarating and heart wrenching.

The trail is just as tough as I have described. It is uncomfortable and tiring and beats you down but it is an unbelievable experience. It is an opportunity to step into a different life, a different world. The rules are different here, the culture is different. I have mentioned before that the beauty and grandeur of the trail is impossible to describe and I promise I will try when I finish the trail. When I can take the proper time and care to describe it to you, but for now you will just have to trust me a little bit longer when I say that the Appalachian Trail is an incredible experience and something that is both brutal and impossible for me to give up.

Did I express my thoughts entering the final 500 miles clearly? No. I didn’t. But I will say that my words were as truthful and accurate as they could be. My thoughts aren’t clear. My emotions are high and unpredictable. It’s another beauty of the trail. I promise!

Introducing My Found Family

I have asked my tramily to write their own paragraphs about how they feel entering the final 500.

I would like to provide some context of these beautiful people so that you may read their words as I do.

Crease: He is a 26 year old from Michigan. He is who I have hiked the most miles with on trail. When I thought of who I may share this experience with it wasn’t him. He is my opposite. Don’t tell him but I also think we make a great team. When you first meet him he is quiet and kind (this changes). You have to dig into him a little bit to get to his personality but when you do it is worth it. He is annoying and funny and stubborn. As I write this, we are arguing about him writing his paragraph. I’ll get one for you though! Read on!

Snail Mail: She is a 26 year old from Boston. I found her shortly after Crease. The three of us have been a team for almost 1700 miles (at the time I am writing this). She is kind and generous and jumps at every opportunity to lift a person up or help a person out. Even if she isn’t particularly fond of them. Someone once sat with the 6 of us and commented on our dynamic, she called Snail Mail our fixer. I think this was accurate. If there is an argument she will break it, if there is something broken she’ll fix it, if you need motivation or energy, she will give you hers. She will bleed herself dry for anyone and everyone.

Liberty: He is a 56 year old from Scotland. If you have read my previous article “Not Every Day Is A Good Day But Every Day Is A Great Day” then you already have some context. I am happy to say that I did indeed catch him, as he always says “no one is really gone”. He is the father of our group. He make sure we stick to the plan, write our journals, take care of ourselves as well as each other. He loves chocolate and giving us a hard time and making sure that we don’t take any part of this experience for granted.

Hiawassee: He is a 35 year old from South Carolina. He is someone that I heard a lot about before I finally met him. He is a shirtless, chaco hiking, long haired man that takes a minute to understand. He is here for the experience and takes good care to make sure he does. He is always willing to take a break or set up camp early. He will also tease you but will follow up to make sure that you know that he does truly care for you and sees what you add to the group. He is quiet at first as well but will always say what he feels and thinks needs to be said. I haven’t seen him take the trail or any person for granted.

Baby Driver: He is a 22 year old from Boston. He is our newest recruit and a great addition to our group. He is actually a flip flopper and started his journey in Harpers Ferry. A “day hiker” as Liberty lovingly calls him. He is fast and energetic and funny. He will relentlessly tease you but is somehow the most polite of us and expressive with his gratefulness. He is quick and witty. He is also generous. He brought all of us home to his family who were incredibly kind and caring. You can tell the family has a strong foundation of love and respect for each other and strangers (even dirtbag thru hikers).

A photo of myself because if one of us goes down, we all do! And it wouldn’t be fair to abuse my power to embarrass them on The Trek and give them no way of getting me in return.

So there you go. That’s my family! Read on to see what they all have to add!

Crease

I’ve received some harmless ridicule for buying the AT map on FarOut in 200-mile sections rather than all at once, but I did it because I could never picture myself completing the Appalachian Trail even though I have been on it since March. Now that we’re less than 500 miles from Katahdin, the reality of this journey’s end is beginning to sink in. While the trail hasn’t answered all the questions I had about myself when I set out from Amicalola Falls, it has given me far more than I could have imagined. The trail has provided countless unforgettable memories, it has helped me forge bonds with people that will remain long after we’re more than just a few miles apart on thetrail, and it instilled a deep confidence in myself that could have only been accomplished by doing something as crazy as disconnecting from the “real world” and walking in the woods for months on end. I’m both excited and terrified about these final 500 miles — excited that we’re only weeks away from achieving a goal we’ve been pursuing for months (and dreaming about for years), and terrified because summiting Katahdin will mark the end of the greatest adventure of my life.

Snail Mail

From the vantage point of less than 500 miles to go, I’ve been reflecting back on the first 500 miles. Everything felt so exciting and new, and I never wanted it to end. Each day felt like a gift and each new milestone renewed my sense of purpose and drive. Somewhere in between then and now the shine wore off—everything started to feel monotonous, painful, and impossible. At points I couldn’t wait for it all to end. In these last 500 miles, nothing is new and yet everything feels so precious, like each hitch, sunrise, campsite, or town meal with tramily might be my last, and I wish I could freeze the moment. The miles are long but the days are numbered and I can feel it all slipping away faster than I would hope. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and sad about the end; more and more these days my thoughts turn to what comes next—a daunting landscape of possibilities. I’m fighting to stay in the present and embrace the aches, the unrelenting hiker hunger, the bugs, the mud, and all the beauty there is to be had in between. There’s no way to stop time passing and this trail will inevitably end as all things do, but maybe it’s enough to stand still in the midst of it all for just a moment and feel the physical, mental, and spiritual impact that the last 1700+ miles have had.

Liberty

As the last 500 actually becomes closer to the last 300 there are lots of mixed emotions.  The first 500 was all a huge positive adrenaline fuelled ‘I never want this to end’.  Now there are definitive feelings of ‘I want to have this finished’. Because it’s hard up North. Beautiful, but hard.

I’ve met old friends this week who have finished and drove to meet our little gang.  That brought more adrenaline and good vibes because the people on trail have been so vital to fuel this adventure. But then they hopped in the car and left. And a touch of sadness crept in.

I want to be finished because I’m tired and hiking 2200 miles is tough on this old body. But I don’t want to finish because that means saying goodbye to the wonderful band of misfits I’ve been hiking with. Topping out Mount Washington in glorious weather is easy because of the spectacular vistas all around. Descending Mount Madison is only bearable because of the magnificent supportive comrades I have beside me. 

Climbing Katadhin will be a goose bump raising rush because of these people who energise me when I’m really flagging, and having my son and nephew finishing with me is a dream that I wouldn’t have believed possible even a few months ago. Katahdin has been a 10 year pipe dream that is now within my grasp. That’s  special.

I’ll never need to hike the AT again. Please no, don’t make me!

But topping out Katadhin means saying goodbye to special people and that will sting.

However ‘be glad that it happened and not sad that it’s over’ is the mantra I’ll push for as the last 500 dwindles to the final goal of Katadhin.  It really is all good.

Hiawassee

The last 500 miles have solidified my initial thoughts on hiking the AT. Campfires, mountains and sunsets are nice, but the people are what keep me going. I hike to get to the next experience, mostly with the tram but new characters have been appearing lately. It’s been about that since the beginning for me.

Baby Driver

How I feel approaching the halfway point:
As the tramily’s only flip-flopper, I have a distinct perspective as we slowly approach Katahdin. My hike will not end after the ascent up the lonely mountain, but a special aspect of my journey will. The hundreds of kind, hardworking, and generous hikers whom I have met will conclude their voyage, yet I will—in essence—restart my own. Katahdin stands as a brutal reminder not only will I be just halfway through my hike, but the 1,200 miles of friendships I have fostered will reach their on-trail conclusion. While the other members of my tramily hop on flights to go home, I will be driving back down to Harper’s Ferry to begin my lonely southbound hike to Springer. However, I am also filled with excitement. I feel immense anticipation for Liberty, Hiawassee, Birdie, Crease, Snail Mail, and countless other hikers to accomplish their multiple-month-long dream of summiting Katahdin. I feel pride for hiking a difficult 1200 miles across the country. Most importantly, I feel determined and enthusiastic to continue my journey, prepared to embrace the unknown and unexpected adventures the trail has in store for me. However, I still have over 300 miles of laughs, tears, late-night conversations, and everlasting memories to share with my friends, and I plan on cherishing every step along the way.

Walking Onward

I really hope that we could help provide some perspective to what this trail is truly like. None of us are thru hikers quite yet but we will all be soon. We’ll all make it to the end. We’ll make sure we all make it, even if we have to drag each other further up the trail.

I’ll update you then!

 

 

 

 

My name is Alex Tucker and I am fully invested in this endeavor. I plan to be consistent on this platform but if you would like to know more about me and my time on the trail you can follow me on Instagram @nobo.nomad!