Thru Hiking to Mental and Spiritual Health – My AZT Why

So what makes a 50 year old military chaplain want to burn a year’s worth of leave on one trail experience?  Why leave behind wife and family, work and responsibilities to take on a long trail?  I am sure there are people in my life questioning my sanity at just wanting to walk for 800 miles in a go, but there are probably some who will be asking the deeper questions.  It is natural to wonder, and also very common to judge that thru hikers are shirking responsibilities, ignoring those who need them, being selfish, having a mid-life crisis (or quarter-life crisis, depending on age), there’s a million assumptions that could be made. So I will attempt an explanation.

Where to start. I am going to begin with 2022. It probably wasn’t the beginning.  There are neither beginnings nor endings on the wheel of time… but it was a beginning. After three years of COVID and the challenges that go along with that, Canada was finally beginning to return to normal. And just like that, real estate prices took off. In 2022 we were slated to be posted to a new base, and we realized that most of the places I could be sent would be to inflated housing markets, which if a market correction happened, would destroy a lot of equity for us.  The only alternative was to take a posting to an isolated base, where we could live in base provided housing. Goose Bay, NL was available, so I put my name forward for it and was accepted.

From COVID Isolation to Hinterland Isolation

July 2022: rolling up on a more than 5000km road move with the family

The downside to such an isolated station was that I would be a one of one, and far from immediate support if things go sideways. As I mentioned, COVID had affected many, and I was feeling like I needed more human connection and support, but thought I could “tough out” three years there, especially if the community was as close-knit as I was led to believe. And certainly, that wasn’t a lie, but I probably underestimated the relational barrier that my trade presents. People make assumptions, sometimes subconsciously, and it leads to distance.

By the dead of winter, 2024, I was beginning to notice that the isolation was affecting me.  I was starting to see signs in me that I had been trained to watch for in others. I was thinking possibly burnout, but my wife and I thought that an early spring hiking trip together might give me some sun, some vitamin D, and R&R to get my mind back in the game. We decided on a section hike of the AZT.

Down in a wash north of the Gabe Zimmerman Trailhead

It was a very good time from my perspective.  I did come back feeling better… for a couple of weeks. But then the symptoms were back.  By May I decided to throw a flag on the play as it were, and alert my supervisor that I needed some support. I was put on sick leave, but I found it very difficult to separate myself from the job when you’re the only one there doing your job, and feelings of guilt and responsibility for people continued to weigh me down.

From Burnout to Heart Problems?

I threw myself into running training, which I usually do in the early spring because it’s really easy to slack off in the silly season of October to December. I pushed myself perhaps too hard one day in early June, doing some very intense sprints. Did I mention I was 49?  My Garmin Instinct 2 watch told me my heart rate was 200. 200?  That can’t be right.  I watched it as I finished up my training program and it stayed in that range for 15 minutes before normalizing. I thought, a minute or two it could just be a glitch, but that long a period, I should probably check in with my doctor.

I popped by the base medical, and saw my doctor, who referred me to the hospital for a blood test. The hospital took my blood, and then in a few minutes returned wanting to put me on monitors, and admitted me for more tests.

I had never experienced anything like this before.  The sudden concern, the tests, the medications… they all had me doubting my health for the first time in my life.  That evening one of the medications dropped my heart rate abnormally low, which I now believe set off my first panic attack in my life. The doctor took me off that med, but by the next day they told me that I was showing signs of having experienced a cardiac event, and they wanted me to stay on bedrest until they could move me to the provincial capital, a 2 hour plane flight away. So began a wait of over 3 weeks in the hospital, wondering if I was dying every day.

By early July they finally found me a spot on a medivac flight (I had to wait because I was stable, compared to many other cardiac patients they saw during that time). In St. John’s they gave me a dye test and a heart ultrasound, until finally concluding that no, I did not have a heart attack. But I did have a little plaque, and they kept me on Statins to resolve that.

So I returned home having been told no, I am not dying, but basically in a state where the burnout I had been feeling had now been piled on by a large dose of health anxiety. I needed to begin to rebuild myself, my confidence, my resilience, and find a new way of living that would allow me to return to the work that I loved, helping people and making a difference.

Health Benefits of Thru Hiking

These guys didn’t thru-hike. That, and they threatened Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Neither was a healthy decision.

Over the years as my passion for hiking had grown, I had run across studies of veterans with PTSD and other disorders, experiencing wilderness adventures and even through hiking and finding themselves making real progress. For me, I believe that this thru hike can do a lot for me in terms of rebuilding myself. What will it do?

• I won’t have to be responsible for anyone but myself. Eat, hike, sleep. The daily rhythm will provide stability and rest from the variable environment I have been in.
• I don’t have to chaplain anyone. I don’t have to parent anyone (I have teenage and young adult sons at home). I can lay those burdens and stressors down for a time. To be fair, and I have been told by several peers, I need to be able to let go of my job, and be okay with it being someone else’s responsibility. I can make excuses about why that’s hard, but I can’t disagree. 
• Physical Health. Using my body all day every day, I fully expect to lose some weight.
• Trust again in my Body. I also expect that overcoming the challenges of the trail will help restore my confidence in my own health, that I am not dying, that I am not fragile. It is easy to tell oneself these things, it is another to believe it deep inside after a scare like I had.
• Reconnection to the Spirit. As a chaplain, my faith is not just a part of me. My sense of hope, my sense of purpose, my recognition of the parts of the person that are often overlooked or neglected by others are key to doing my job well. These things are meant to be shared, especially for people who are doing a job that deals with life and death. I have found I have been so busy serving others that I have let my own connection shallow out. I need to spend time with God – undistracted time.  I have always found that easier in nature; in creation.
• Trail Connections. My hope is that I do not spend the whole time alone. My hope is that I will meet fellow travellers along the trail and form new relationships – relationships that do not expect anything from me, that do not see me as “other”.  And from these relationships perhaps I will carry some into the future to help sustain me after I return to work and life.

So that’s my why.  A little long-winded perhaps, but I actually skipped a lot!  Save some for camp chat in the evenings, I hope!