question to non thru hikers

[trapper]

i have a date set of 2017 to thru with my son. my question is does anyone else have the feeling that if they do not thru hike the AT that they will not be content? maybe people who do thru have the same feelings with the other 2 LD trails? anyone have thoughts on this. its a burning desire that never leaves my mind...i have to complete this trail for ME not for anyone or anything else for me

[topshelf]

Im currently a graduate student, i have a feeling that if i dont do the trail before i start working, i never will. this eats at me because its been a dream since i was a kid and it doesnt appear ill be able to do the trail. i dont see my future work plans ever allowing me to take off to hike the AT.

[Sarcasm the elf]

Trapper, excellent question! I'm having trouble answering it without writing too long of a rambling response.

I guess the short answer is that I hike to go hiking and I overnight/section hike because that's the kind of camping I like to do (as opposed to car camping). I had dreamed of thru hiking back when I did my first hikes on the A.T. in Boy Scouts, but the more time I spend on the trail and the more experience I get, the less I care about goals, I just go out because I like being out there. I still like making miles, but I've found that I don't care as much as I used to whether those miles are a new section of trail that I can add to my list or the same section in Connecticut that I've done a half dozen times.

A lot of this does reflect the point that I'm at in my life, if I had gotten back into hiking a few years earlier than I did then I probably would have attempted a thru hike, but now I go out there to exercise, relax and reflect (some people would say to "escape", but that's not the right word for why I go).

Much in the same way that you fear not suceeding in your thru hike, I fear the idea of pushing myself into a goal oriented thru hike that I complete but at the cost of having a miserable time and hating backpacking. In reality, I think that both of these fears are probably unfounded.

[bfayer]

I would love to hike the whole trail. But you know what, I am married to my best friend who is not a hiker, and I'm not going to spend 5 or 6 months away from her to go hiking. Just not going to happen.

We have had to spend enough time apart for work, and I can do all the hiking I want a few days at a time.

It's all about your priorities in life. I have mine, and everyone else can have theirs. Life is good that way.

[trapper]

im also married but my wife realizes how important this is to me so she's ok with it..i hiked the LT in Vermont this summer thinking that would curb my appetite but it only made it worse. i can't wait to share this with my son not to many father sons get to do the trail together. in 5 years he will be 15 i don't want to try to take him till he can really appreciate the journey. i believe i really am supposed to walk all of this trail...it is my goal in life

[flemdawg1]

Nope I've learned there's no bucket of contentment or meaning of life on the AT.

[Sarcasm the elf]

im also married but my wife realizes how important this is to me so she's ok with it..i hiked the LT in Vermont this summer thinking that would curb my appetite but it only made it worse. i can't wait to share this with my son not to many father sons get to do the trail together. in 5 years he will be 15 i don't want to try to take him till he can really appreciate the journey. i believe i really am supposed to walk all of this trail...it is my goal in life

Since you mention the importance of the father-son hike, I have to ask are you familiar with father daughter thru hiking team Balls and Sunshine? Their trail journal is a very cool, read: http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=364996

[Mountain Mike]

As a thru hiker of At & most of PCT in big chunks. I say take what you can get & trail will always be there. I love long distance hike due to the condition you get into & really in tune to nature. I admire section hikers for their devotion to complete the trail. What it takes in effort to hike each year & just when you are in prime shape you have to get off. I would also like to wonder how much a section hike completion would cost when you figure into transportation.

For now enjoy what you can do. You get to enjoy luxury items many thrus get rid of. At times the constant strive for miles becomes a chore. You get to hit sections when you chose the weather. You can stop & see things close to the trail. When I did a section of PCT I missed no thru did the side trip to Sierra Butte fire tower, to mileage conscious.Picture or Video 1549.jpgScan20 (2).jpg I wasn't going to miss it. So be happy. Section hikes have plenty of rewards. Time is on your side. One friend of mine did all of the triple crown twice...after he retired! Another downside to thrus is you become jaded. When I had to skip the Sierria in my attempted thru of PCT I met up at Seattle with a friend from AT. He came out & hiked with me for a couple of days. His oohs & wows! made me realize how jaded I had become & how lucky I was to be out there.

[RodentWhisperer]

To add another $0.02 into the "married" plot, when I told my wife, "One of these days, I'm gonna hike the entire Appalachian Trail," she asked me "Right after you're single again?"

[thebrewguy]

I've done several sections and have plans to do more, but I still have a burning desire to thru hike. I'm satisfying my trail lust for now by busting out different sections, but I won't feel like an AT master until I've thrued.

[johnnybgood]

Without a doubt I want to finish the trail because one never knows when their health may abandon them or the desire may wane. At this juncture in my life I do feel as though this will consume my every thought until the dream has been cultivated,priorites have been reset where nothing else matters.

Reiterating your last line , I too believe that this is a goal that is very much my own. Prophetic in a sense. I hope to stay sane in the meantime.

[Bati]

I set out to thru hike but due to bad weather, an injury. and not allowing enough time, I ended up doing quite a bit of the trail in sections. Do I feel like I missed out? Not at all. I saw a lot of thru hikers who weren't having fun by the time they got to New England. I saw many who weren't enjoying backpacking and were out to finish as many miles per day as they could, however they could, just so they could finish sooner and go home. Many ended up spending lots of time in cheap hotels because of burnout from the trail or bad weather. Not everyone felt the burnout, but it was common among many thru-hikers.

I never suffered from burnout, got my worst day ever on the trail over with early on (day 4), and never felt that I hadn't accomplished something I had set out to do. Of course, it may be different in that I never gave much thought to my original to thru hike before I left. Thus when it was quickly changed to "enjoy backpacking the AT (or at least as much of the trail as I could find),from Georgia to Maine" I didn't feel like I was changing a goal, only refining it to fit the new reality of my backpacking adventure. Your motives may vary, but don't let the ATC's definition of a thru-hike stop you from having a great time backpacking in the Appalachians. You may very well find that you enjoy 6 or 7 trips lasting 3 weeks or so and taken one a year with your child much more than you would ever enjoy a thru-hike.

[Hosaphone]

It's definitely on my bucket list. I should be able to go next year, I hope.

It's all about your priorities in life. I have mine, and everyone else can have theirs. Life is good that way.

Somebody said, "you can have anything you want in life.... but you can't have everything."

[prain4u]

On one hand--my not thru hiking eats at me. I want to be able to say "I did it" (It has been a dream since my teenage years and I am now age 51). However, school, marriage, many responsibilities and my two teenaged children with special needs--make scheduling a thru hike a real "challenge" or even an improbability. So, a thru hike has not happened. I would also add, that on my "stupid days"--I sometimes find myself buying into the foolish myth that thru hikers are somehow "better" than section hikers (a myth which is perpetrated by some thru hikers). On those "stupid days" I find myself wanting to thru hike even more than usual.

ON THE OTHER HAND----I am USUALLY pretty content with just getting out on ANY trail when I can and hiking whenever I can. A day on any trail is better than ANY day in the office!!! So, all is good. I can die content if I never thru hike. I am the type of guy who can achieve just about any goal that I set my mind to. I am also the type of guy who could get within one mile of finishing a thru hike and just walk away from it--IF I felt that I had already gotten out of the hike everything that I had wanted to get out of it.

[gumball]

Set your goal and get there if you can for a thru hike. That being said, section hiking the entire trail isn't talked about as much, but bears its own weight in challenges. While thru hikers have a five to seven month window of straight hiking, section hikers have to drive back and forth over the course of many years to meet their goal of finishing the entire trail. There are time frames to finish X-number of days and not the ability to take each day as it comes--if you have 10 days off, you have to plan for travelling to and from and get as far as you can get. There is also the issue of getting in and staying in shape. You often just begin to feel like you are getting your "trail legs" at the end of a longer section.

So--if what you have open to you are several years of sections rather than a clear view of when you can thru, remember that each has its good and bad parts and neither is necessarily more of a challenge than the other--depending on your perspective.

[stuthetraveler]

I've hike a section of the AT and since that trip... I've wanted to go back. I don't think I'd hike the entire trail... but once you've done part of the AT you'll want more section hikes. IMHO

[Starchild]

My take on it is whatever I'm suppose to do that's exactly what I will do, I do believe my trip is planned by powers higher then me and that's how I like it. My plan is to get my ass to Springer Mtn and start walking north following the blazes, taking it one step at a time, one day at a time and one resupply distance at a time. If I don't complete it I know that was also part of the plan and have peace either way.

Though I do believe in my heart that I will complete the entire AT, but don't know how that is to be done - I strongly suspect it will be this year thru.

[4shot]

i have a date set of 2017 to thru with my son. my question is does anyone else have the feeling that if they do not thru hike the AT that they will not be content? maybe people who do thru have the same feelings with the other 2 LD trails? anyone have thoughts on this. its a burning desire that never leaves my mind...i have to complete this trail for ME not for anyone or anything else for me

I have thru hiked the AT and can speak about the other 2 trails. I enjoyed the trail and like most, think about it almost every single day. With that said, I have no burning desire to do the other 2 - they just dont have the appeal to me that the AT did. In fact, I didn't even know they existed until I joined this site. Also, I know I could do them if I wanted to. One of my motivations for a thru was to see if I could do it. It's kind of like my son - he trained for and ran in his first marathon last year. he has no desire to run another one. Not saying I wouldn't go hike the PCT if given the opportunity but I am not pursuing it as a goal.

I have gone back to the AT and section hiked. It's more relaxing to go out for a fixed amount of time rather than a fixed amount of miles. I do miss the friendships formed over months on the trail and as someone else said, I miss the level of fitness one achieves by hiking all day, every day for months at a time.

[Capt Nat]

I've done a lot of things and have come to learn that happiness is not at a place or within a circumstance, it comes from within you. If you can't be happy here now doing what you're doing, you're not going to find happiness anywhere else or doing anything else, including hiking, sailing or whatever.

That being said, commitment is important and setting the goal should be done without failure in mind. Less than total commitment is not really an attempt. The thru is important to me and having to drop out would be a disappointment for me.

However, my life isn't defined by hiking, or any one accomplishment or event. If I finish, nobody will care but me. If I don't, I won't live the rest of my life in shame and defeat. If before, during, or after a thru it defines your whole life, you should examine your life and try to broaden it some.

As much as I enjoy it, life is not about hiking. Everyone I meet on every trail, in every diner, on every sidewalk is unique, special, and interesting. Pay attention to them and in a very short time, you will discover something remarkable.

[Sandy of PA]

I am thru-hiking one state at a time. I can enjoy hiking for about 6 weeks continuously after that my body starts to get unhappy. Each spring finds me out there before it gets real hot and I have to get home to can the garden.