Originally Posted by
KnightErrant
Is this Ranger Z that ATM (the tall French guy) and I ("Possibly," a teacher from Virginia) hiked with off and on from the Smokies through mid-Virginia? We had dinner with you at that Mexican restaurant in Erwin, right? Sorry to hear about your injury! We were consistently a day behind you in Virginia after taking a zero at my brother's house, and then we stopped seeing your name in the logs. We didn't know if you'd gotten off or if we'd passed you without seeing you. Glad you got the care you needed and can finish it up in 2019. Good luck! (And if it makes you feel any better, from Vermont to Maine I fell over approximately twice a day.)
Regarding the topic at hand, I did succeed on my hike but I had a couple serious health issues, and I struggled off and on with burnout when various factors combined all at once to make the experience miserable (bugs, mud, rain, chafing, knee pain, illness, boring rocky trail, etc). I could cheerfully deal with any three or four of these factors at any given time, but when they all combine, there was definitely a sense of "why am I doing this?" The people around me, and one in particular, helped me continue to want it. I started the trail solo and determined to be sociable but ultimately independent. Instead, if anything, the lesson for me was how to lean on my friends. Humbling for sure. So beyond the undeniable reasons to get off like a serious injury, I think the stumbling block that might have caused me to fail would be refusing support when it was offered.
The other common stumbling block I observed was lack of funds. No one plans to spend so many nights in hotels and hostels, but on a year as rainy as this one, it took some serious willpower to escape the town vortex sometimes, and I saw a lot of people succumb.