Need an intervention

[sbhikes]

I think I need an intervention.

When I reached the monument at the Canadian border, all I could think about for the last 8 miles was that I never had to do this ever again.

Now I keep thinking about the forest and how I wish I was there again and how I want to sleep on the ground again and walk all day again and listen to the birds and carry a pack and look out at the world of cars and wonder how anybody lives like that as I slip away into my secret forest life.

I'm sick. I need help. Is there a cure? What is it?

[BitBucket]

Hit the trail again....

[Egads]

Thought you were talking about someone else

[Mags]

The opening lines of Travels with Charley by Steinbeck:


When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.

Good book. Read it if you can.

[superman]

The opening lines of Travels with Charley by Steinbeck:


When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.

Good book. Read it if you can.

Are you saying he can't read.

[ShelterLeopard]

I think I need an intervention.

When I reached the monument at the Canadian border, all I could think about for the last 8 miles was that I never had to do this ever again.

Now I keep thinking about the forest and how I wish I was there again and how I want to sleep on the ground again and walk all day again and listen to the birds and carry a pack and look out at the world of cars and wonder how anybody lives like that as I slip away into my secret forest life.

I'm sick. I need help. Is there a cure? What is it?

Join me on my thru. Of course, it'll make everything good while you're hiking, but will only make the sickness worse later on...

[neighbor dave]

does john coffey do house calls?
http://www.dharmaflix.com/w/images/3/33/Greenmile1.jpg

[sbhikes]

I think I read Travels with Charley in High School. Maybe that's where I was infected.

[buff_jeff]

No offense, but it sounds like you might not be happy anywhere you are.

[FritztheCat]

Are you saying he can't read.

LOL! That was my first thought as well!

[Doctari]

Are you saying he can't read.

LOL.
That reminds me of the very old joke: "I can write readin, but I can't read writin."

And in answer to the OP: No cure, just go hiking. Yes, it will actually make it worse in the long run, just hike till you hate it then go home. This should give you a few months (Weeks? Days?) of relief, then you will have a "flare up" & have to go hiking again.

I sometimes get to hike till I hate it, but am usually planning my next trip on the way home from the trailhead. So I get "relief" for a few hours at best. The short trips are worst, last weekend made me almost not go home,, ONLY 3 D*** DAYS!!!! But at least I got out.

[TOW]

I think I need an intervention.

When I reached the monument at the Canadian border, all I could think about for the last 8 miles was that I never had to do this ever again.

Now I keep thinking about the forest and how I wish I was there again and how I want to sleep on the ground again and walk all day again and listen to the birds and carry a pack and look out at the world of cars and wonder how anybody lives like that as I slip away into my secret forest life.

I'm sick. I need help. Is there a cure? What is it?

just admit it, you are powerless over hiking and your life has become unmanageable.....

[BrianLe]

Doctari said: "No cure, just go hiking. Yes, it will actually make it worse in the long run, just hike till you hate it then go home. This should give you a few months (Weeks? Days?) of relief, then you will have a "flare up" & have to go hiking again."

I suspect the general phenomenon is a common one; a thru-hike takes a long time, it's inevitable that there will be at least some feeling of "I'm really ready to be done with this, but I committed to it, I want to finish it, plus I know there will be more good times ahead". And, of course, "I'll miss the people I've been walking with".

I'm certain that assuming everything goes well, I'll be really ready to be done some time(s) before the end of my next long trip. It's mostly psychological. Before I had foot problems I'd go for a, say, 5 mile run and typically the last 1/2 mile would seem the hardest, where I was most tempted to walk the last bit. If instead I went for a 2 mile run, then the last 1/4 mile would seem the hardest ... pretty much all a head game. That writ large is at least part of what goes on with long distance trips, like so many things it's about expectations.

[Montana AT05]

in '05, around MA/CT I swore I would never hike the AT again. Ever. <spit> If I did, it would be in an RV, with lawn chairs fer sitting and a cooler for eatin' and drinkin'. I'd be a travelling trail angel--offering myself soda pop and hohos, and rides into town for buffets and hotel rooms.

I tried the PCT in 08, expecting a much better experience that AT. I hated it. I despise that trail and its culture. I left it at Kennedy Meadows (thereby missing it best parts I know!).

Next year, 2010, I am planning to revisit the AT while the snow melts out here in the West. I may do a portion of the AT or I may do it all, I may find I still hate it, or I may find I don't. I might get injured, bored, excited, more experienced...heck I dunno. But I look forward to it, I'd rather risk the experiece that sit and do nothing.

So much for my vow to <spit> never hike that accursed AT again.

sbhikes, it may that you found something you like and our culture (assuming we share the same one) instills in us a strange feeling of guilt for doing what we enjoy. How sad that will strike us as we near the end of our days, if we are given the chance to know it.

[greg burke]

nice poem thx for sharing....

[Mags]

Are you saying he can't read.

Poor, sleepy at the time, choice of wording on my part.

instills in us a strange feeling of guilt for doing what we enjoy.

You just summed up nine years of Catholic school!


(You may have vowed to never hike the AT again..I vowed to never wear navy blue pants again !!!!)

[Tilly]

This probably won't help you, but try to find something outside of hiking that you enjoy or that you can work toward. It isn't feasible for every person to go hiking every year, some can't do it. Also, things don't have to be all or nothing.

I miss the trail in a nice way. I wish to be there but I feel it is with me. I don't feel like I'm away from something I want, or that I'm doing the wrong thing off the trail like working. It eventually becomes less of a division. I think of the trail often but I genuinely feel that it is a part of me anyway, and I know with confidence that I will be back out there for an extended time again in a few years.

[superman]

Poor, sleepy at the time, choice of wording on my part.





You just summed up nine years of Catholic school!


(You may have vowed to never hike the AT again..I vowed to never wear navy blue pants again !!!!)

When I was a young papist, my buddies and I used to say that if your confession can't be sincere it should be entertaining. We were good at vowing about everything.

[Miner]

I think I need an intervention.

When I reached the monument at the Canadian border, all I could think about for the last 8 miles was that I never had to do this ever again.

Now I keep thinking about the forest and how I wish I was there again and how I want to sleep on the ground again and walk all day again and listen to the birds and carry a pack and look out at the world of cars and wonder how anybody lives like that as I slip away into my secret forest life.

I'm sick. I need help. Is there a cure? What is it?

Yep. When I finished in Canada on the PCT this year, I was glad it was over and was thinking I'd proably never do that again. And now, 2 months latter, I feel like I want to do another trail. I had thought it would take at least 2 years for the pain of the PCT to subside and only then whould I start to think about how much fun it was and be tempted to do it all over again. But it only took 2 months. I guess I'll have to start planning for an AT or CDT hike sometime in the near future.

[A-Train]

I think I need an intervention.

When I reached the monument at the Canadian border, all I could think about for the last 8 miles was that I never had to do this ever again.

Now I keep thinking about the forest and how I wish I was there again and how I want to sleep on the ground again and walk all day again and listen to the birds and carry a pack and look out at the world of cars and wonder how anybody lives like that as I slip away into my secret forest life.

I'm sick. I need help. Is there a cure? What is it?

You don't need an intervention, you need to stop feeling guilty about what you love and plan another adventure! At the end of both of my hikes I was ready to be done; I was exhausted mentally and physically. I always seem to come around after being back in "normal" life, ready to hit the trail again.