Do you ever feel completely at peace with an upcoming decision, having planned all the ins and outs, trust your intuition, trust your heart, and THEN 

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COMES NIGHTFALL and suddenly you’re questioning everything, alone in the darkness with only your thoughts that endlessly make your head do a loopy de loop? 

It’s funny how that works. 

The dusk starts falling and with that new fears you never knew you had are unlocked. Suddenly you remember things to add to your endless list of what you must prepare for for a thru hike. The night time hours seem to last twice as long and you wake up the next morning exhausted. 

But as quick as those thoughts and doubts come to mind by night, they equally fade as quickly come morning. Once risen, blinds slightly ajar, the sun begins stimulating serotonin to ease your worries. You settle back into yourself and everything once again makes sense.  

It’s a constant cycle which sometimes lead a few folks to have enough doubt and anxiety in their mind that they forgo their hike completely – which we can understand and empathize with. 

The classic pre trail jitters doing their jittery job won’t work here. They may try, time and time again. They may even keep trying well into the trail, but one thing is for sure,

WE GOT THIS.  

Just a little over three weeks until we head off on trail! 

Preparing for the trail 

• Physical preparation 

As much as I would love to boast going to cross fit twice a day or tackling HIIT work outs in abundance, truth be told we haven’t done much. 

We have had too many viruses pass through our household so exercise has been put on the back burner. Not to say we don’t take walks or this or that, I just haven’t aggressively shown the stair master who’s boss. 

Despite this and what happens every year even without long trails is, I get stronger and stronger the more the hiking season goes on. So I suspect our trail legs will grow quickly once on trail! 

• Mental preparation 

How does one possibly prepare mentally for the task they’re about to endure taking on a thru hike? 

We are just taking it one step at a time, one day at a time. There is rarely a time where I would ever wish for a day “in the real world” over a day on trail.  Keeping perspective on how quick this journey will pass and how truly temporary it all is, will help us to slow down and appreciate everything for what it is. The potential bad weather and cold nights, the exhaustion and achy feet, and the inevitable tears to come. Just one step at a time, one day at a time. 

We got this. 

What the kids are saying

As we prepare to head on out, I figured I’d ask some kids their final thoughts.

Are you excited for the trail?

• 6yo “YES!”
• 9yo “Kind of”.  
• 12yo “Yes and no”.
• 14yo “Yes.”

• 6yo “Showing Summit ( our 18mo ) all the Summit’s! I’m going to say ‘Summit, look at all the Summit’s!’ 
• 9yo “The summer weather”.   
• 12yo “Hopefully getting to swim and lots of food and candy. I’d like to see a fox.”
• 14yo “Swimming, food, candy…and I guess the walking too. I do like walking.”

Just as I expected their answers would be! To be honest, my kids are pretty neutral and chill about most things in life. We have never gotten huge reactions out of anything except maybe when we bought them the Nintendo Switch… If I say we are going somewhere and doing this thing, it doesn’t always look like the videos you see on TikTok of excited kids exclaiming their excessive zest for life. It can be a simple “okay” or “yay”.  More feelings later show in little ways. It could be a “I don’t want to go home, It’s too beautiful outside.” It could be as simple as “I love you so much Mommy” while watching a sunset together. They’re not robots and we do not require productions from them, despite what some people think they should do. 

Time to pack some more and go through my gear checklist for the hundredth time. 

Until next time, beep boop beep boop, I’m out.