Obsessed...very obsessed

[Zman]

ok. I feel your pain. I hiked a few days this past labor day. I spent 4 months searching on line for all the right equipment for a thru-hike. I purchased pretty much the best of everything. I thought I would hike a few section hikes and then when I am 62 yrs of age ( I am 57 now), I would make the complete hike. this would mean leaving a job as a construction superintendent which I have worked very hard for, giving up health insurance ect... That being said, I cant get it out of my mind. I strap my backpack on every Saturday and sunday morning and hike the back road for 6-10 miles each day. I put my house on the market to rid myself of a mortgage, moved into a mobile home which is paid for, and will be financial free enough to hike. Now, I will not have to wait until I am 62. I plan on telling my boss that when I complete 2 more jobs ( which usually last 1 to 1.5 yrs each) I QUIT. I will attempt the hike when I am either 59 or 60 yrs. old.
I have lost a few friends within the last few years due to illness. I don't want to wait until my time comes and the good lord asks me if I did everything I ever wanted to do in life and my answer would be NO. All I ever did was work.
So, long story short. I know how you fell. I CAN NOT WAIT

[Carl7]

All we can do is get outside and walk every chance we can. Even on a busy family day with work you can piece together 5 to 7 miles of walking with a little here and there. You have to want to do it. Even urban walking in a city such as Charlotte is awesome. Today's lunch walk away from the office cubicle was beautiful with the fall colors. I'm almost 57, and these daily walks really help keep the weight in check and my body in working order for section hikes and maybe the big one in retirement. However, if we do it all on the computer with no real walking, any walking, it may all be for nothing one day. Thinking about the next section hike and a retirement thru-hike is a real motivator for daily walking. That is all we have on a day to day basis. Embrace the urban walk. Embrace any walk.

[johnnybgood]

Piece together long weekends where you have a solid 3 days to hike plus half a day for travel time. With a 10 yr. game plan and some funds allocated for shuttles you can hike in your spare time and get hundreds of miles of trail done every year . By the time you retire at 62 (5 yrs.) roughly half the AT would be done. No need to retire early at that rate.

Hiking the entire AT is still a goal of mine but the obsession of the trail isn't as strong as yours. I have reason to believe that if my time comes to complete the trail, then it will get done.

[Attila]

smcahill

You hike the AT when you can.
I drove to and from the trail 13124 miles since 2009 to complete 427 miles in 23 section hikes....... Most "obsessed" trip was in July 2010: 315 miles to Blue Ridge Gap, GA, hike 10 miles of AT to Deep Gap NC, shuttle back to the car and drive home another 315 miles.

See you on the trail.

[Dogwood]

I would also suggest that instead of dwelling completely on the AT, learn to love backpacking in general and discover all kinds of trails of all kinds of lengths to all kinds of beautiful places requiring much shorter time commitments and smaller financial commitments. Then, you will continue to dream about the AT for the next 20 years while you learn to backpack better and further and faster with more joy, more fun, greater finesse and insight learned from all the other wonderful trails you explore while dreaming about the AT . . . in the end, I suspect the AT may become little more than another trail that may, or may not remain on the top of your bucket list. . . there is so much out there to do and see, and the AT, although having lots of culture and history is not the longest, the oldest, the most traveled, the most beautiful, the most challenging, the most remote, or the most anything. But, it is a great trail and a great dream.

The AT will remain at the top of my bucket list until I've thru'd. It isn't just the hike. It's the people, the living, breathing, morphing, snaking across Appalachia incognito with your wits and a bottle of water...the trail towns and the people, the history and the prognostications of the future, the distant dreams of ascending Katahdin in the fog and crying that it's over...it's a million things and more that I will accomplish on a budget or on the lam, like Grandma Gatewood or like the recent college grad at the end of his university apartment lease with six months before committing to a career...the AT isn't a pipe dream for some people like me. It is a concrete goal that we're actively planning for, and building up to, and striking up friendships over...sigh....I'll get off my high horse. Nobody going to carry my boots up the AT like Paul's Boots as cool as that is. Whether I'm 53 when I do it or 67...it will be done.

Nicely stated.

[Dogwood]

Living here in MI, I have the opportunity to hike many beautiful areas of the state. The NCT is very close to me and we have numerous state and federal lands with tons of trail systems. I have a had the pleasure of being able to experience many of these pleasures MI has to offer. Our Boy Scout troop does a half dozen or so backpacking trips throughout the state of varying distance, and we decided to head and do the section on AT for a few days. Needless to say, I became addicted to evrything thru-hike. The struggles, the personal accomplishments, the people, the beautiful land, etc intrigue the hell out of me. My wife thinks I'm batty for considering this, although she knows in the back of her head that my mind is made up and a thru-hike will be attempted.

Another romantic.

[GoldenBear]

Like you, I got obsessed with long distance hiking years before I thought could retire. Maybe not 20 years, but years. Now I've done 1100 miles (more or less) on The Trail, and hope to finish it off before I get too old. My advice:

1) Make certain that you CAN retire. Sad to say, most Americans reach what they HOPED would be retirement age and find themselves in such bad financial shape that they keep working just to avoid a severe downturn in living situation. You've got twenty years, which should be plenty of time *IF* you learn to save & invest for retirement.
2) Take good care of yourself. Right now you've got the body to do The Trail, but not the time. Imagine the horror you'll feel if, at retirement, you find that you have the time but not the body. When I first started dreaming about this, my body was such that I could eat anything I wanted, as much as I wanted, and not gain a pound -- at age 40, for instance, I weighed the same as my high school weight despite two decades of eating tons of junk. Getting older has meant that I have to watch what I eat, take medicine for high cholesterol & pre-hypertension, use eye drops for pre-glaucoma, etc. If I hadn't been pro-active about my health many years ago, I'd be in no shape for a five mile overnight, let alone two weeks in the Whites.
3) A sub-section of (2) is getting regular check-ups. The problems I now try to prevent from becoming "game over" - cholesterol, hypertension, glaucoma, diabetes -- are all (almost) symptom-free until severe damage has already been done. In my father's case, the first "symptom" was a fatal heart attack age 47! Make certain your regular doctor understands that you want to spend you "golden years" doing serious exercise.
4) Your mention of a son makes me conclude you have a significant other. Make certain your spouse is on board about your doing long-distance hiking. In my case, my wife is 100% behind me when disappear for a week, even though she suffers (literally!) while I'm gone. Best to clear this hurdle sooner rather than later. In the best case scenario, you might find you have (my words, that my wife LOVES) "a free shuttle, with benefits."
5) And, as others have noted, start learning YOUR style of long-distance backpacking. Some people can just buy the first gear they think they'll need, hit The Trail, and arrive at Kathadin five months later. MOST people, however, need a little more time to find their optimal balance between "This set of equipment is TOO MUCH" and "This set of equipment is NOT ENOUGH." I won't even begin to tell you the spot where YOU will find YOUR balance point, the only way to do so is to start with an intelligent guess, do some backpacking, realize you've made some stupid mistakes, and then learn from them -- ie, what I did.

One last bit of advice -- it's entirely possible that you'll find your REALITY of backpacking is so far from your FANTASY that you'll decide that doing the entire A.T. is not in the cards. If so -- that's fine! Do something that *IS* an avocation you get pleasure from, be it short backpacking trips or even something unrelated to the outdoors. After all, "Hike your own hike" includes not hiking at all!

[GlitterHiker]

ok. I feel your pain. I hiked a few days this past labor day. I spent 4 months searching on line for all the right equipment for a thru-hike. I purchased pretty much the best of everything. I thought I would hike a few section hikes and then when I am 62 yrs of age ( I am 57 now), I would make the complete hike. this would mean leaving a job as a construction superintendent which I have worked very hard for, giving up health insurance ect... That being said, I cant get it out of my mind. I strap my backpack on every Saturday and sunday morning and hike the back road for 6-10 miles each day. I put my house on the market to rid myself of a mortgage, moved into a mobile home which is paid for, and will be financial free enough to hike. Now, I will not have to wait until I am 62. I plan on telling my boss that when I complete 2 more jobs ( which usually last 1 to 1.5 yrs each) I QUIT. I will attempt the hike when I am either 59 or 60 yrs. old.
I have lost a few friends within the last few years due to illness. I don't want to wait until my time comes and the good lord asks me if I did everything I ever wanted to do in life and my answer would be NO. All I ever did was work.
So, long story short. I know how you fell. I CAN NOT WAIT

This is a great story! Very inspiring. I hope you keep us posted here.