hike part of the Appalachian Trail

3 weeks.

So my buddy Dan and I had a vacation of 2 days off and decided to do something, so we came up with a list of 50 things to do and took turns eliminating ‘til we came up with going for a hike and we picked a random trail 3 hours away. We get up there and it starts raining cats and dogs. We get up there a bit late due to the rain and we start hiking and it starts getting dark and we realize that we drifted off the 2-3 hour trail we were on and managed to get on the man appalachian trail and it’s now getting dark and rangers will be looking for us soon because our car’s still parked at the ranger station where we began. We wound up hitch hiking back terrified that we were gonna get strangled or something. I’m much bigger than my friend so I sat up front and my friend sat in the back and I swear if the guy would have so much reached into his coat pocket for a Mento I may have slugged him. He gets us back and tells us this little town has a bar that he and his buddies go to, so we agree to go and buy him a beer for the ride and it wound up being a great bar with the best burger I’ve ever had. Turned inot a hell of a night, and we had to stay til 4 or 5 in the morning to sober up for the drive back to NY.

I spent three days and two nights on it. I happened to hike one of the lousiest part of the trail: Southern Pennsylvania. I spent a very long time going uphill over a seemingly endess series of large boulders. It was mindnumbingly dull.

But eventually I made it to the top and had a level grassy area to hike. It was completely vacant. So I thought, “What the hell!” and took off my clothes, put them in my backpack, and hiked naked for a while.

I also found a large patch of Wilm Blueberries, but I guess I shouldn’t have lost so much time picking and eating.

Later on somebody had moved a sign and I went off on a deadending side trail. When I figured that out and backtracked, it was getting dark. But I was so angry and stubborn that I kept hiking—even AFTER dark! I remembered what Obi-Wan said in “Star Wars” and trusted my feelings, and for over an hour I managed to follow a winding trail in the dark that’s hard enough to see in the daytime. A dying penlight would reveal a trail marker on a tree whenever I doubted myself.

Eventually I decided to get off the trail and cut down a slope to a distant highway. I stepped into a bog full of rancid garbage. I guess it was the Universe’s way of telling me I didn’t need to hike the Appalachian Trail …

I found the nearest Motel and hoped to crash for the night, but I was told they had no vacancies. To this day I disbelieve that. I hope karma gets ‘em.