AAhiker

Alright, so this happens every year, well for the past two years and this year is even worse. I am hitting the trail in 2015 but every year I start looking at trailjournal.com around this time. Since I set my start date last fall I have been aquiring things and thinking about the A.T. even more. But holy crap!!! I have never been this impatient. I feel like I am going to explode every time I read a new journal entry. I want to go this year soooo so very badly. I can't because I don't have things prepared and I don't have the fundage but still. It's like... "my mind is telling me no, but my body!!!! my body's tellin me yes!!! Every time I step on the trail now, where ever I go I can't help thinking I never want to turn around. By body I think, is in permanent survival mode. At work I am tired and sedentary, then i go home by body wakes up so I can run with the dogs and work out, shower, eat and then I am relaxed and even a little sleepy again already. When hiking, my body just finds the energy. Not a lot of it at times. I will admit that. And there have definately been days where I like sleep more than I like dinner even though I know I burnt a ton of calories. But never have I woken up the next day with a whole day of hiking in front of me and though "Man I don't' want to do this today". Never, not once. There was a hike once where I ended up pushing too far, got stopped by an un-fordable river wore the wrong boots, and forgot to cut my toenails( a month later my toenails started to fall off, all of them, they slowly pealed back during the hike, nice and slow so no blood flowed.) So yes, I woke up the next morning realizing I was going to have to bushwhack my way up and over a ridge from the valley I was in due to time constraints more or less directly with pretty painful feet, and still, I just thought "well, what ya gonna do?" And off I went. I certainly regretted the footwear,(NRS workboots) but never the hike. My dog and I had a hell of an adventure. I had a pretty uncomfortable night a few weeks ago up in Shenandoah, it was in the 20's with a hell of a windchill up at Rock Springs hut. It was so cold that even with 2 layers of socks in my hammock, I still ended up putting hand warmers in my toes to keep them from freezing. It was a test run for my gear and it failed a bit obviously, but all that night did was make me want to start my hike earlier the next day. And you know what, it was a gorgeous day that next day. I couldn't help thinking how I would feel if I was actually on the A.T. for the duration and I was looking at weeks of that freezing always cold weather and I the decision was, Hell yea! Just a chance to test myself. Anyway I finally finished the ADK 46 high peaks last year so now the A.T. is my only major goal. I have other ones like, I plan on hiking the Adirondack long trail this year to test out what it is like to go through towns and stuff on a hike and figure out mail drops or bounce boxes, and I plan on getting out as often as I can in between. Though living in Southern Maryland it is a substantial time and gas cost to get anywhere worth hiking. Alright I feel better no expressing my ellated frustration. If anyone reads this, have a great hike!!