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Johnny Swank
12-19-2005, 18:29
Just thinking about this. I was a SOBO in 2000, and paddled the Mississippi River last summer. Prior to my thru-hike I got a divorce, sold most of my junk, and headed to Katahdin to figure out the rest of my life. Finished January 11, went back and finished my undergrad, went to grad school, built a strawbale yurt to live in, and am now half-way through my PhD in Parks and Recreation Management. I attribute pretty much of what I'm doing to that 6 months on the AT.

Anybody else?:-?

fiddlehead
12-19-2005, 18:38
Changed my life! Totally

Johnny Swank
12-19-2005, 19:00
How so? The career thing was a big one for me, but its as much as not being afraid to take some risks every now and again than anything. That was huge deal for me.

Mouse
12-19-2005, 20:20
I published a book and it is fun watching people's jaws drop when they hear I did it alone, but aside from that nothing really earthshattering.

DavidNH
12-19-2005, 20:24
Fiddlehead..you say your thru hike changed your life totally...
I would love to know how. Would you share with us...in broad strokes anyway?

Thanks,

DavidNH

fiddlehead
12-19-2005, 20:40
OK, i used to be a carpenter (winters off, summers working) now i sell long underwear (summers off, winters working).
Before i thru-hiked, i had a wife, car payment, house payment, dog and the so called "American Dream" Now, i have none of the above, live in Thailand (long story), have made hiking my life (at least until last month when i had a boy) Yes, my life will change once again.
Before i thru-hiked i traveled to 4 other countries, now i've been to 44. (Thru-hiking is not only for walking, it got me to hitchike around the world in '92-'93)
I simplified my life in so many ways. I learned that thru-hiking teaches you what is important in life. And it's not the big truck and the killing deer stories with me anymore. I could go on and on with that one. But my life is much simpler because i don't need much. (Although living in Thailand makes my life a bit complicated when i come home.)
My friends are different now. I have a hard time relating to my old friends and the things that they think is important. We don't see the same anymore. My hiking friends, on the other hand, are the ones i go to when i'm mad about attitudes because they understand where i'm coming from and why i don't like war, clear cuts, nuclear plants, depleted uranium, etc. The rednecks back in PA don't understand my views at all because they have not hiked and spent quality time in the wilderness. They only seem to care about how many deer they shot and how we should be nuking Iraq and anyone who doesn't agree with our president.
Anyway, you got me started, there's lots more but i've got to go for now.
One more main change: i've learned not to have fear. I learned that i can do anything i really want to do in the world. and i've learned that you CAN drink the water!

MoBeach42
12-19-2005, 21:45
and i've learned that you CAN drink the water!
YES YES YES YES YES!!!
and not just in the litteral sense

Moxie00
12-19-2005, 22:58
I lost 56 pounds, that was a change. I learned how little I can live with and without. Learned how to appreciate my home and family more when I finished. Met some of the most wonderful intresting, down to earth people I ever will associate with. It's a completly different crowd than the country club or the local cocktail scene. I became much more liberal because I came to realize that saving the enviroment was far more important than the bottom line on a spread sheet. I also discovered mankind can survive and flourish without all that oil so what are we doing in the middle east and the artic refuge? The biggest thing I learned was if you can't change it, live with it.

Nean
12-20-2005, 10:41
When I first read that the Trail would change you I thought, yeah right. I'm 28 and already done my growing up (yeah right). Many things:confused: became clear:) ...and that became my first step away from my parents version of the American dream. Loved the freedom, adventure, people, pace, and being in top shape.
The first sign that I had changed when I got back, that I noticed;), was my new found patience when driving- I wasn't in a hurry anymore.
A few years have passed now and I've never been as excited about hitting the trail this spring!:D :jump :banana BTW, 2 Cabins for rent if anyone is interested.

Mags
12-20-2005, 15:23
For many young people, going to college was what showed a different world. Exposure to new ideas and concepts outside of their upbringing (sometimes).

As with most of my cousins, (who are also first generation college students), I commuted to college and lived at home. I missed out on the exposure to different people and ideas the often accompanies college. My friends were of the same background and upbringing as myself. Our ideas were often the same. My friends did not come from college, but from the part time job at the local hospital we all worked at.

When I started backpacking, I was hooked. Long story short, doing the AT exposed me to a different lifestyle completely different from what I grew up with. I also met people who had a different upbringing than me.

Doing the AT is what gave me the gumption to move to Colorado. As I metioned in a previous thread, of the six chidlren and 16 grandchildren in my family, I was the first to move so far out of the family orbit. (Another cousin has since moved to Miami). Most of my family is still within less than ten minutes of each other. Don't think would have moved 2000 miles away if I had not done the AT!

Heck..if I had not taken up long distance hiking, would probably still be in RI. Probably would be 20-30 lbs heavier, working in the same hospital I worked at from 16-24, have a ranch house somewhere in the 'burbs and 2-3 children. Not a bad thing per se...but my life would be much different.

The AT (and more specifically long distance hiking) showed me a much different path. I can honestly say my life up to this point all comes from the urge to follow the white blazes. The white blazes led not only to Katahdin but also to the life I have now.

Nean
12-20-2005, 15:50
When I started backpacking, I was hooked.


Hey Mags, Enjoyed the Hooked (JunJul05) article.:clap Interesting picture selection, you "trail machine" you!:)

Mags
12-20-2005, 16:05
When I started backpacking, I was hooked.


Hey Mags, Enjoyed the Hooked (JunJul05) article.:clap Interesting picture selection, you "trail machine" you!:)

I was a bit embarassed by the title of the article and that line!

The author of article lives in Boulder, heard about me from afriend, contacted me..and well..there it it be!

They liked the pic of me in the desert. Including you, my mom and a few doctors offices, I think 4 people saw that article .:)

MadAussieInLondon
12-22-2005, 08:43
got married to my hiking partner and moved to america! (so a lot changed...) now to convince her to move to australia to my home!

HarleyHogPit
12-22-2005, 12:49
This is the best thread I have read in a while. I haven't hiked the trail yet but this is exactly what I am doing it for. Everything you all have said is so incredible. I know the person I am not but it is completely different from who I will be when I am finished. I am looking forward to everything in between. I know the trail changes people and almost always for the better. It can't help but not too. I haven't heard of one case that it hasn't enhanced a persons purpose for living.

I am a teacher right now and I work with a lot of emotionally disturbed kids with behavioral problems. They are generally good kids but are trying to find thier place and vastly misunderstood. I think that we should drop all of those kids out on the trail for a few months. Maybe they would come back with a completely different attitude.

bfitz
12-22-2005, 17:58
Careful...the trail ruined me for conforming to society. I got a taste of the freedom and the damage is done. Now I feel the chains of my regular life, and of winter more than ever before. I'll not abandon those I love or the place that's home, but now it's more crap to do than ever before to provide for everything else, and still have months set aside to hike. So many trails callin my name....Get ready for a struggle for "balance" or you could become a hobo.

Footslogger
12-22-2005, 18:37
I've hung back on this one because I really couldn't put my finger on the answer at first. I was always a bit of a "dreamer" so the fact that I now daydream a lot about the trail isn't anything new.

What I think the trail changed most about me is my view of the past and outlook on the future. All things being equal I would have hiked the trail when I was younger ...and since hiking the AT in 2003 I am more conscious of how I spend my time.

I have a private and internal sense of accomplishment. When I hear or read about someone else doing something of significance I catch myself smiling ...sometimes even grinning ear to ear.

I feel that I carry myself differently since hiking the trail. I say that because in my every day life I interract with medical professionals who have much more education and many more titles than I and yet they often express envy in me and in my life.

My thru-hike changed the way I am ...

'Slogger

Photofanatic
12-22-2005, 20:04
When I started on the trail I was a mother of 3 children at home with a husband and two businesses. The AT was another adventure similiar but different than other adventures I had taken. When I returned home for a short visit I found that I could not come home. My husband had filed for divorce, claimed I had abandoned my home, family, children and business. He got an emergency hearing so that he could control everything in my absence. He also filed for and got a restraining order against me so that I could not return home and interfere in the daily operation of my business. I was screwed to say the least. I did not get to see my children until December 2004. It took from June 2004 to March 2005 for the court to return everything to me. By that time he had pretty much ruined my business, my credit, he starved or killed 10 of my horses, embezzled so much money from one of my businesses that I have had to liquidate. He did this without anyone knowing except he and the court. Even my immediate neighbor (my mother) didn't know until I came home and couldn't even go to her home because it was too close to my property that he had control over. By the way he did try to have me served, here at my house where he knew I would not be.
What truly saved me was my cell phone. I receive an itemized bill that shows I called home more than 300 times in each 30 day period that I was gone. It also helped that my husband wired me money throughout the time I was gone and I had kept the paper receipts. The judge realized that my hike had also been endorsed by my husband. The judge returned to me what was left that my husband hadn't destroyed.
By the way, the divorce lingers on. I am in the process of selling my land and home because I can no longer afford to keep it because I no longer have one of my businesses. My children and I are in counseling and my thru hike is still ahead of me to begin again when this is all said and done. I didn't quit the trail but it nags at me that I didn't complete the trail either.

neo
12-22-2005, 22:03
When I started on the trail I was a mother of 3 children at home with a husband and two businesses. The AT was another adventure similiar but different than other adventures I had taken. When I returned home for a short visit I found that I could not come home. My husband had filed for divorce, claimed I had abandoned my home, family, children and business. He got an emergency hearing so that he could control everything in my absence. He also filed for and got a restraining order against me so that I could not return home and interfere in the daily operation of my business. I was screwed to say the least. I did not get to see my children until December 2004. It took from June 2004 to March 2005 for the court to return everything to me. By that time he had pretty much ruined my business, my credit, he starved or killed 10 of my horses, embezzled so much money from one of my businesses that I have had to liquidate. He did this without anyone knowing except he and the court. Even my immediate neighbor (my mother) didn't know until I came home and couldn't even go to her home because it was too close to my property that he had control over. By the way he did try to have me served, here at my house where he knew I would not be.
What truly saved me was my cell phone. I receive an itemized bill that shows I called home more than 300 times in each 30 day period that I was gone. It also helped that my husband wired me money throughout the time I was gone and I had kept the paper receipts. The judge realized that my hike had also been endorsed by my husband. The judge returned to me what was left that my husband hadn't destroyed.
By the way, the divorce lingers on. I am in the process of selling my land and home because I can no longer afford to keep it because I no longer have one of my businesses. My children and I are in counseling and my thru hike is still ahead of me to begin again when this is all said and done. I didn't quit the trail but it nags at me that I didn't complete the trail either.

i am so sorry you went thru all of this horrible mess,God bless you l.wolf
you are in my prayers,i hope you will have a wonderful thru hike and that
you and your children recover from this very bad situation:cool: neo

Red Hat
12-23-2005, 12:22
Wow, L. Wolfe, that is so sad! I have heard of other women who came back to find themselves in the middle of a divorce. My friend Dare is still going through hers. Her hike is what inspired me to go. My husband is the reason I cut my hike short. He kept teasing about Dare and I knew it was a not so subtle hint. Why is it that men can (generally) go away without problems, but women are "abandoning" if we try?

As for the change in me, I never feel at home any more. I need less. I want to be hiking. I long for knowing my job is to walk.

Chef2000
12-23-2005, 14:30
My ability to hold a steady job

sarbar
12-23-2005, 17:48
I am a teacher right now and I work with a lot of emotionally disturbed kids with behavioral problems. They are generally good kids but are trying to find thier place and vastly misunderstood. I think that we should drop all of those kids out on the trail for a few months. Maybe they would come back with a completely different attitude.

Harley, you don't realize how right you are-one of the reasons I started hiking was it calmed my son. Lets just say there is a reason why he can hike 19 miles in 24 hours-and that was at 6 years old, with a full pack on! He never tires out all day, pinging off the walls. He was born premature-and has no concept of personal boundaries. Society rules don't mesh well with his idea of how the world should flow....it is a battle between me and the school-they'd love to see him doped up. But you put him in the wilds and he is a happy person-he already gets "it". If I could, I would move to Alaska and live there with him-take him farther away from society. While I have only hiked a bit of the AT, I can say that Ford loved being there-he understood the concept of the trail-he loves being on the PCT with me here in WA state. I am redoing the Wonderland Trail with him this coming summer-and maybe doing the whole WA section of the PCT. At 8 he is ready. But after meeting 150+ other hikers off of forums, I have yet to meet another parent who takes their child with them on real trips! Toss the tv, and snuggle down at night in a sleeping bag with your kids! Green bond them, show them what bears and mt goats are-show them massive volcanoes, take them to rain forests, walk amongst 500 year old trees....

The oddest thing I noticed after my first long distance hike was that I didn't care when I got back into my vehicle.....I was doing 35 in a 55 zone, and I felt like I was going SO fast. I am quessing the people behind me didn't think that :rolleyes:

wren
12-23-2005, 18:25
The oddest thing I noticed after my first long distance hike was that I didn't care when I got back into my vehicle.....I was doing 35 in a 55 zone, and I felt like I was going SO fast.


I forgot all about this.. haa.. So true. After the pct, i caught a ride to vancouver, and i was freaking out the whole time on the highway.

Agree with you that parents should spend more time with their kids OUTSIDE. I think it would makes a huge difference in their well being.

..Then again, I dont have kids so maybe id be taking trips to get away from them, haa.. who knows..

neo
12-23-2005, 22:08
Wow, L. Wolfe, that is so sad! I have heard of other women who came back to find themselves in the middle of a divorce. My friend Dare is still going through hers. Her hike is what inspired me to go. My husband is the reason I cut my hike short. He kept teasing about Dare and I knew it was a not so subtle hint. Why is it that men can (generally) go away without problems, but women are "abandoning" if we try?

As for the change in me, I never feel at home any more. I need less. I want to be hiking. I long for knowing my job is to walk.

sorry you had to cut your hike short:cool: neo

neo
12-23-2005, 22:13
When I started on the trail I was a mother of 3 children at home with a husband and two businesses. The AT was another adventure similiar but different than other adventures I had taken. When I returned home for a short visit I found that I could not come home. My husband had filed for divorce, claimed I had abandoned my home, family, children and business. He got an emergency hearing so that he could control everything in my absence. He also filed for and got a restraining order against me so that I could not return home and interfere in the daily operation of my business. I was screwed to say the least. I did not get to see my children until December 2004. It took from June 2004 to March 2005 for the court to return everything to me. By that time he had pretty much ruined my business, my credit, he starved or killed 10 of my horses, embezzled so much money from one of my businesses that I have had to liquidate. He did this without anyone knowing except he and the court. Even my immediate neighbor (my mother) didn't know until I came home and couldn't even go to her home because it was too close to my property that he had control over. By the way he did try to have me served, here at my house where he knew I would not be.
What truly saved me was my cell phone. I receive an itemized bill that shows I called home more than 300 times in each 30 day period that I was gone. It also helped that my husband wired me money throughout the time I was gone and I had kept the paper receipts. The judge realized that my hike had also been endorsed by my husband. The judge returned to me what was left that my husband hadn't destroyed.
By the way, the divorce lingers on. I am in the process of selling my land and home because I can no longer afford to keep it because I no longer have one of my businesses. My children and I are in counseling and my thru hike is still ahead of me to begin again when this is all said and done. I didn't quit the trail but it nags at me that I didn't complete the trail either.

i highly recomend you to read this book,brawny is an awesome lady and tells her story in her book,its about her freedom from a terrible control freak she was married to for 25 years,she and her boy friend started a great buisness making excellent ultra lite gear also,she tell about how the love for hiking changed her life:cool: neo

http://www.trailquest.net/dlgcmyjourney.html

neo
12-23-2005, 22:15
Wow, L. Wolfe, that is so sad! I have heard of other women who came back to find themselves in the middle of a divorce. My friend Dare is still going through hers. Her hike is what inspired me to go. My husband is the reason I cut my hike short. He kept teasing about Dare and I knew it was a not so subtle hint. Why is it that men can (generally) go away without problems, but women are "abandoning" if we try?

As for the change in me, I never feel at home any more. I need less. I want to be hiking. I long for knowing my job is to walk.

hi red hat,i highly recomend you get this book and read it,its very inspiring:cool: neo

http://www.trailquest.net/dlgcmyjourney.html

neo
12-23-2005, 22:18
Wow, L. Wolfe, that is so sad! I have heard of other women who came back to find themselves in the middle of a divorce. My friend Dare is still going through hers. Her hike is what inspired me to go. My husband is the reason I cut my hike short. He kept teasing about Dare and I knew it was a not so subtle hint. Why is it that men can (generally) go away without problems, but women are "abandoning" if we try?

As for the change in me, I never feel at home any more. I need less. I want to be hiking. I long for knowing my job is to walk.

Many of Carol's friends (including me) have been asking her for quite a while to tell her amazing story. Carol endured, for the sake of her children, more emotional and mental abuse over a period of years (actually, decades), than most of us could have survived.
http://www.trailquest.net/dlgcmyjourney.html

this an awesome book i highly recomend:cool: neo

http://www.trailquest.net/dlgcmyjourney.html
She was married to a controlling man who could not accept the fact that any woman was his equal. Simple things that we take for granted, like getting into a car and driving to a store, deciding what to wear each day, selecting a movie to rent or even what is watched on television, were all subject to the whims and approval of her husband. This lifestyle was prescribed by a fundamentalist religious cult that she (and her family) was a part of for many years. This cult manipulates its members through guilt and fear and managed to turn her family and friends against her when she could endure it no more.

Somehow, she maintained hope and nurtured the spark of freedom; the freedom to someday make her own choices and control her own destiny. Finally, with her children grown, she began her life anew. This is the story of her new life. After she gained her freedom and independence, she started hiking. In only a few years, she hiked not only the Pacific Crest Trail and John Muir Trail, but the Appalachian Trail as well. This is the inspiring account of her adventures, of hiking thousands of miles (mostly alone) from Mexico to Canada, through the Mojave Desert and the High Sierra, and then in the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Maine.

When she hasn’t been hiking, she has been designing ultralight backpacking gear; award winning gear that has been acclaimed not only nationally but internationally as well. She shares her ultralight hiking expertise here, as well as some of her designs and sewing techniques. There are detailed instructions for making 12 important gear items, including her 8 ounce silnylon backpack. She also includes her latest gear list (with weights) and information on resupply and ultralight hiking in winter.

Her's is a story of an unquenchable thirst for freedom; of never giving up and of ultimate, personal triumph. It is a story that you will never forget.

The book contains 8 chapters and a total of 195 pages. It measures 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", and is about 5/8" thick. Each copy purchased here will be autographed by Carol.

--David Mauldin

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Nean
12-24-2005, 18:09
Brawny was upset when she met me. Earlier in a register I had responded to a couple of ultra lighters who were of the opinion that the reason people were not ultra light was based on fear. I pointed out that depending on your perspective, going ultra light could be based on fear too. She seemed to be fine with the UL opinion but stating mine was blasphemy. Had I know her story I would not of laughed so easily. :o