PDA

View Full Version : Post Hike



Giantsbane
03-25-2012, 13:18
I just got back a few days ago from a 6 day solo hike on the Ouachita Trail and I am having a tough time adjusting to being back in civilization. I'm planning my thru for 2013 and I'm just a little worried about how I'm going to mentaly come back from the woods after 6 months if I'm having a tough time with just 6 days.

How do people who have thru hiked the AT deal with coming back to the world?

Datto
03-25-2012, 14:05
It took me more than 30 days after finishing my AT thru-hike to start becoming civilized again. I know there were some thru-hikers who were still camping out on their porch after 30 days.

Those that returned to work right after submitting Katahdin... wouldn't be my cup of tea.


Datto

4shot
03-25-2012, 19:53
I just got back a few days ago from a 6 day solo hike on the Ouachita Trail and I am having a tough time adjusting to being back in civilization.

How do people who have thru hiked the AT deal with coming back to the world?

For the most part, people at the end of a thru hike have had their fill of hiking (ask any SOBO about the NOBO's they meet up in VT, NH, ME) and are looking forward to the end. Of course, when they get to the end and get back home they wish they were back on the trail. It's a curse of some sort. From the people I keep in touch with, it's a rare day when you don't think about your hike and the memories.

Mags
03-25-2012, 20:56
I wrote this essay on this very question:
http://www.pmags.com/after-the-trail-–-post-trail-re-adjustment

I have to update it a little (I am now engaged to a lovely women who puts up with me for some reason and I think I struck a balance...maybe) but the overall gist is the same.

Giantsbane
03-25-2012, 22:18
I wrote this essay on this very question:
http://www.pmags.com/after-the-trail-–-post-trail-re-adjustment

I have to update it a little (I am now engaged to a lovely women who puts up with me for some reason and I think I struck a balance...maybe) but the overall gist is the same.

That helps a lot, thanks. I guess the getting over it is just another journey as well.

ScottP
03-25-2012, 22:49
I just got back a few days ago from a 6 day solo hike on the Ouachita Trail and I am having a tough time adjusting to being back in civilization. I'm planning my thru for 2013 and I'm just a little worried about how I'm going to mentaly come back from the woods after 6 months if I'm having a tough time with just 6 days.

How do people who have thru hiked the AT deal with coming back to the world?

After my PCT thru it was really odd. I was alone almost all of the last 1500 miles or so. Everyone smelled funny--like soap.

And I missed talking back and forth with the pika's. So I'd be walking down the streets randomly yelling "pika!"

Plus my hair was bleached blonde and I was so tan that people thought I was Hispanic. I had to beat the girls away with a stick!

It really depends on what you got out of your thru. Some people? no big changes. Other people can experience some pretty dramatic value shifts. It lets you live in a different space for a bit, so you get the chance to push back against the typical values of our society & rethink your priorities.

d.o.c
03-25-2012, 22:57
its complicated the return to "normal life" will return...

BryanE
03-26-2012, 00:59
I wrote this essay on this very question:
http://www.pmags.com/after-the-trail-–-post-trail-re-adjustment

I have to update it a little (I am now engaged to a lovely women who puts up with me for some reason and I think I struck a balance...maybe) but the overall gist is the same.

That article was very powerful and meaningful. Thank you for sharing. Do you regret ever starting to wander, or do you feel like you had no choice and it is in your blood? Do you sometimes wish that you could cure that itch and settle down? I would love to hear more from you. I lived in Boulder for 6 months, what a town, I really miss it. I've been meaning to pay it a visit but money is tight. I am about to go on my first big hike (Superior Hiking Trail, 240 or so miles). I am curious to see how much of this I will have to deal with. I am already sick of the city and I feel the need to get out and just go walk. Should be interesting to see how I adjust after coming back (although I will only be gone a month, not half a year).

underscored
03-26-2012, 01:28
I wrote this essay on this very question:
http://www.pmags.com/after-the-trail-–-post-trail-re-adjustment (http://www.pmags.com/after-the-trail-%E2%80%93-post-trail-re-adjustment)

I have to update it a little (I am now engaged to a lovely women who puts up with me for some reason and I think I struck a balance...maybe) but the overall gist is the same.

Thanks for that link! (and some of your other entries on there) - sent you a message. Congrats on being engaged!

garlic08
03-26-2012, 09:52
Mags wrote the best essay I've seen on this subject (and has a wonderful fiancee, as well, lucky guy). My story has a more immediate happy ending--I came home from my first thru hike, the PCT in 2004, with my confidence shattered. I'd just finished one of the greatest four accomplishments of my life (along with getting married, getting a BS degree in EE, and becoming a certified firefighter) and had the strangest feeling that I had nothing to do with it, that it was just luck I'd made it. My fire chief saw the change, and promoted me from lieutenant to captain within weeks of coming home. He told me I had obviously matured in some way, even though I was in my late 40s. You want some cockiness in a fire lieutenant, you want more maturity in a captain, apparently. So the trail changed my life in a different way than Mags' or anyone else's. Hopefully you can embrace that change, whatever it is.

turtle fast
03-26-2012, 14:07
Many who thru hike the AT do modify their lives. Many go on to hike other long distance trails like the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), Continental Divide Trail (CDT) to become triple crowners...or just incorporate hiking more into their lives by volunteering with local trail organizations and just plain hiking more. Many find personal satisfaction of completing the journey rewarding and always remember it...and wish to communicate with other hikers one reason Whiteblaze is so successful.

MissMagnolia
03-26-2012, 16:49
I just got back a few days ago from a 6 day solo hike on the Ouachita Trail and I am having a tough time adjusting to being back in civilization. I'm planning my thru for 2013 and I'm just a little worried about how I'm going to mentaly come back from the woods after 6 months if I'm having a tough time with just 6 days.

How do people who have thru hiked the AT deal with coming back to the world?

2011 thru-hiker Badger wrote a book called Appalachian Trials. His real name is Zach Davis. He has a whole section about life after a thru-hike. I highly recommend the book and believe it will not only help me increase my odds of completing my thru-hike this year, but hopefully adapt well after I'm done.

Pony
03-26-2012, 19:59
Noise was one of the things I had a hard time adjusting to. My first night home, I went out to have a few drinks with some friends. We were standing in front of the bar when a firetruck went by blaring its sirens. I nearly freaked out. I don't think my heart has ever pounded like that. A few weeks later I went to a concert and had the same experience except it lasted for three hours.

More than once I got up in the middle of the night and walked out into the front yard to relieve myself. I was so annoyed when my girlfriend came out to ask what I was doing, until I realized most people don't do this in the middle of a city. One night was waking down the street and tried hitch hiking. I did it more out of habit than out of not wanting to walk. You're chances of getting picked up in a city of 50,000 are pretty slim. I also spaced out a lot and took an unusually long time to do simple things like brush my teeth or do the dishes. It takes a minute to adjust, and whatever you do, take a week or two before you go back to work.