expat500
Diamond Member
- Jan 16, 2012
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This is a very nice read:
When I was 18 years old, I decided to hike all 2,193 miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine.
It was a strange year to come of age, 2020. Covid had canceled my high school graduation and delayed my freshman year of college; it was hard to see how to go out into the world and grow up. But from my bedroom in the suburbs of Chicago, there was an image I couldn’t get out of my head, a memory from a childhood trip in Vermont: little carved signs pointing out a path through the woods. Turn one way, and you could walk to Georgia. Turn around, and you could walk to Maine.
The Appalachian Trail’s length is about 9 percent of the Earth’s circumference and, in terms of elevation, equivalent to hiking up and down Mount Everest sixteen times. It was stitched together in the ’20s and ’30s for local recreation, not for long-distance backpacking: To hike its entirety, to be a “thru-hiker,” was originally thought impossible.
www.thefp.com
When I was 18 years old, I decided to hike all 2,193 miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine.
It was a strange year to come of age, 2020. Covid had canceled my high school graduation and delayed my freshman year of college; it was hard to see how to go out into the world and grow up. But from my bedroom in the suburbs of Chicago, there was an image I couldn’t get out of my head, a memory from a childhood trip in Vermont: little carved signs pointing out a path through the woods. Turn one way, and you could walk to Georgia. Turn around, and you could walk to Maine.
The Appalachian Trail’s length is about 9 percent of the Earth’s circumference and, in terms of elevation, equivalent to hiking up and down Mount Everest sixteen times. It was stitched together in the ’20s and ’30s for local recreation, not for long-distance backpacking: To hike its entirety, to be a “thru-hiker,” was originally thought impossible.
On the Appalachian Trail, I Fell in Love With America
After graduating high school during Covid, it was hard to see a path. That’s when I decided to hike 2,193 miles.
www.thefp.com
