Mile 1097

Life on the trail has normalized to a point where this is just how Misfit lived. She rarely considered life beyond the scope of miles and meals. Water and walking. She had reached the halfway mark with a combination of joy and reflection. As she stood at the mile marker, a bittersweet thought occurred to her; From this day forward, instead of counting up, she would be counting down the miles to the summit in Maine. At that moment, it felt like both a promise and a curse. On the one hand, she lived what felt like three lifetimes walking through 6 states and over 1000 miles. On the other, the miles and the time have gone by in a blink of an eye. She loved her wildlife.

On the trial she is connected to her environment and surroundings in ways she has never experienced. If it rains, she gets wet. If it’s hot, she gets wet. Sweat or Rain. Either way, she is damp more than one could enjoy. She wakes with the sun and the birds and sleeps with the moon and fireflies. There is no TV. She is totally unplugged from the insta-twit-book universe. No artificial input to suck her attention dry, overload the senses, and elevate stress levels. She no longer feels anxious all the time. Her attention span is growing, her patience is increasing, and her empathy is evolving. She talks to strangers… Every day. She makes friends and acquaintances from strange and often contrary social classes. She marvels that she still meets new people after this much time on trail and gets excited whenever she runs into someone she last saw several days ago. However, at this distance, those Intermittent micro reunions are becoming fewer and further in between.

Hikers are dropping off in droves. At least 40%, maybe more. It’s a sad day to learn that someone is off trail. Unfortunately, the majority of them are primarily due to injury. Some vow to return when healed or perhaps later, but others, sadly, are gone for good. Luckily Misfit has not faced any overwhelming disasters.

Conversely, she has discovered that she really doesn’t like soaked shoes. She is one of the last holdouts that still dances around puddles and muddles until it is unavoidable. It is almost comical to see her rock hop and dance around water while others stroll through without a care in the world. She has yet to be successful at arriving at camp on a rainy day without landing in a puddle at least once.

In the game of miles, she is averaging 18-20 per day; also, the time to travel that distance is diminishing. She will arrive at her destination earlier and use the downtime to stretch, meditate, or socialize with fellow hikers. Her biggest day to date was 30 miles in 12 hours. It was not intentional, perhaps the first time she fell victim to her environment. Humans place many rules on lands, and Misfit abides out of respect for nature. For example, she was trapped in a no-camping zone for 8 miles after hiking 22. She was proud to be able to go that far, but she vowed never to attempt that again if for no other reason than she misses more when hiking that fast. The last one on the mountain is the winner, after all. While the rest of the world is back at work, she would prefer to be hiking. Otherwise, she can calibrate her mileage to suit her desires. For example, her desires were set on a barbecue restaurant the previous day, so she pushed 23 miles to arrive before closing rather than splitting it up across two days and missing out.

Reflecting on the past 1000 miles, she has felt lucky to have spent so much time with Jabberwalker since their first meet-up in Hot Springs. Jabberwalker joined Hopper, FancyFeast, and Misfit on the 50-mile river trip down the Shenandoah. Misfit was grateful to share an activity she loves with the people she loves. Other times she is alone. Alone but never lonely. If anything, she is thankful for the time to be with and learn about herself.

She is amazed by how little she carries, yet her life has never felt so luxurious. True, she has slept in various levels of comfort, from a sub-freezing high-altitude shelter floor to a luxurious king hotel suite. However, both have their merits. She carries one outfit for hiking and another for sleeping. She goes many days without bathing, so she has amassed a medal-worthy hiker funk. However, it doesn’t matter because everybody stinks out here. A new status quo, and despite all these things, hikers still take care of each other or share their meager possessions when possible. Small gestures have become life-altering moments of generosity, luck, and kindness. These things matter because they could only make it this far with the help of another hiker or trail angel.

On the topic of stink, a shower has become a euphoric experience. An ice-cold soda; heavenly. Town food; delicious. She cherishes every moment she spends in dry cotton loner clothes from a hostel while machine washing her daily hiker synthetics. She feels every moment and lives each one as though it will be the last of its kind. She has finally found something different from the world she came from. New rules and new paradigms among equals in the human world. And she can finally see that the world is… Beautiful!

Time and distance have become one and the same. “When will we get there?” “In 4 miles” or “Just shy of 2 hours.” They are interchangeable and often highly inaccurate. Hiking has morphed from a leisure activity to a mode of transportation. Cars feel like rocket ships after walking 1000 miles and are, in some ways, frightening to ride in. A two-mile shuttle/hitch saves a hiker 1 hour of their precious daylight hours! Nothing natural should move that fast.

Misfit, still standing in the middle of the trail, marveling at the sign before her, then turned her thoughts, not to the miles behind, but to the miles ahead. The second half is by far the majority of the elevation, rugged terrain, and harsher weather. She wonders if what she has fought through has, in any way, prepared her for what’s to come. But, in many ways, it doesn’t matter, for she will hike as far as her feet will take her so long as she remembers the lessons she has learned from her journey so far: Slow down, enjoy the small things, karma hurts, and the trail provides.