Getting Ready (Less Than 1 Week To Go): Physical and Mental Readiness
“Head is more important than heel.”
– Emma “Grandma” Gatewood (in Walking the Appalachian Trail by Larry Luxemberg
Physical Readiness
How much do you have to train for a thru-hike? My personal opinion is that it varies person to person. A common phrase one hears on these long trails is, “hike your own hike.” Each person is going to be challenged in different ways and each person will go about their hike in the way they feel is right. For me, I have tried to do some training, but am not stressing too much about it. I feel I’m in good enough shape to start and will listen to my body in regards to how quickly it adapts to the new extreme conditions I’ll be putting it through.
From May to early December 2024, I was living and working in Yosemite National Park. Most of my tromping around last summer and fall wasn’t at all related to my thru-hike aspirations. The Sierra Nevada is however, an absolutely perfect place to prepare for a thru-hike!
Towards the end of my time in California, I was being more intentional about trying to get in a few runs during the week and something longer and more intense over the weekends. The photo above was taken during the last backpacking outing I did and it was cold! After that experience, I transitioned away from overnight trips to doing long day hikes, often in Yosemite Valley, or at lower elevations.
My last big day-hike, I schemed to walk right out my front door with hopes of reaching the top of El Capitan. Before you start imagining me as Alex Honnold or Tommy Caldwell, super big wall climbers, know that my route wrapped around behind the cliffs, back in the forest. No technical climbing involved at all. I wanted to test myself with this hike; to see if I was ready to take on big-mile days. If I completed it, it would be a huge day of 28 miles and a bunch of elevation gain.
I set out just as it was getting light in the morning. Things started out great as I cruised on up some of the local trails leaving my little community. I was making good progress, but around noon I got to the snow line. After trudging for a half mile more, the snow looked to be getting deeper and my progress slower. I made the call to turn around and even though I didn’t make it to El Cap this time, my day ended up being even more miles than originally planned.
I was on a roll out west. Then I moved back to Michigan and I haven’t done anything! I think I’ve gotten out on 2 or 3 walks, but these have been pretty low miles.
Instead, I’ve been taking a different strategy… watching movies, puzzling, and filling my body up with cookies and pies and all the good holiday foods. So, this will be an experiment. A month ago, I felt I was in really good shape. How this month “off” will impact things, I’ll find out soon!
Mental Readiness
This is the big one for me. Am I ready for this?
Thinking back to the start of my previous hikes, I know I was full of uncertainty, both related to my abilities, whether I was capable of such a long journey, and whether I was doing the right thing. I’m hesitant to confess this, but only a few days from starting the ECT, these kinds of doubts have faded to the background. What’s up with that? Why am I more confident this go around, when the challenge is all the more extreme?
I should be clear, I have had some anxiety about this whole thing, but it was earlier on in the process. I remember several times in Yosemite going back and forth on what I wanted to do next with my life. Here’s an unedited excerpt from something I wrote down a few months ago…
“September 6, 2024 –
Today, it’s a somewhat rare cloudy-ish sky and I’m off from work in Tuolumne Meadows. Most weekends I find myself scrambling up some granite slabs, finding a swimming hole, attempting to fly-fish, or take off on a backpacking trek. Instead, I’m sitting in my little work office shack writing.
I can’t stop myself from future thinking; scheming for the next chunk of my life. Over the years, I’ve found some nice quotes about being in the moment and letting things develop in time. I like these ideas and at times I can get myself centered in those ways, but in my new world of seasonal employment, this time of year seems to bring out the stressors of determining my next moves. When September hits, things quiet down and there’s a feeling in the air that the season is nearing its end. This time, however, I’ve been given the opportunity to stick around longer, through most of the winter. So, why the big conundrum then?
‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.’ (The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost).
When I looked up this quote, the author of the website claimed that most people misinterpret the poem’s meaning of taking the road less traveled, which is often used as a means of celebrating individualism. Instead, she tells that Frost is more so hitting on how no matter which road you take, the tendency is to wish you’d taken the other. It gets at the idea of regret and the question of “what if.” I think I can relate to both.
Lots of lead up here. Essentially, I’ve formed two-ish ideas of what I want to take on this coming year. The first… stick around Yosemite and put my efforts into committing to this place, job, and community. There’s some additional schemes within this plan, but that’s the general concept. The second idea involves setting out on my third long thru-hike, this time along the eastern side of the country. And, I have it in my head to take on slightly more than the Appalachian Trail itself, if fact, I’ve come across this route that’s now called the Eastern Continental Trail. In its entirety, it’s about 6,000 miles in length beginning in the southernmost part of the Florida keys and making its way into a couple Canadian provinces culminating at Cape Raven in Newfoundland.
Have I lost my mind?
Maybe. A grin did just spread across my face as I typed those words out though and thinking about this ridiculous challenge. Hmm, maybe my choice is making itself known to me?
So, just for fun, I’m going to start scheming…”
When I started learning about the trail, it just seemed right. I like the idea of doing something uncommon. I like that I’m doing it my way. And, the timing of it all seems fitting. With all the unexpected twists and turns ahead of me, there’s no way to be fully prepared for every situation that’s going to come my way. I’m thrilled to be setting out to experience it all though.
A few nights ago, I got the chance to chat with some of the trail family, Cheer and Snickers. We reminisced about life on trail, reveling in all the wondrous parts and somehow laughing at the miserable ones (specifically a section in Wyoming’s Wind River Range where it seemed the whole forest had been knocked over and a horde of mosquitoes feasted upon us). Once again, they gave me courage that I could do this and reminded me of one of the best parts of a thru-hike… the people you meet along the way.
It’s going to be an interesting ride for sure.
Before setting out on the CDT, I think I found the perfect quote to get at the feelings during this time. Like many of my most favorite quotes, it’s from an animated kids movie… Finding Nemo. Dory and Marlin are two little fish inside a whale barely hanging by their fins. They’re faced with a dark and scary abyss below and must literally leap into the unknown…
“Dory!” – Marlin
“He says, ‘It’s time to let go!’. Everything’s going to be all right.”– Dory
“How do you know? How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?” – Marlin
“I don’t!” – Dory
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