This should start a great discussion. I am a section hiker, one day I plan to thru hike. For you thru hikers AFTER your hike was over how many of you have are preoccupied, obsessed and have an ongoing urge to be back on the trail. Aren’t you constantly thinking if you could do it again. How you have to be back on the trail. I am a compulsive person, I think most thru hikers are also, once you have the taste, wouldn’t you go to almost any means to do it again. tia eom
freeranger
I mean aren’t you always thinking about it, the thru hike you’ve completed and if only I can get out there again.
ranger
freeranger
Yep! Constantly thinking about hiking, traveling, discovering new things. After the PCT, the only thing I could think about was to hike another trail, or to bike to South America, or to kayak in Alaska… I love the nomadic life style, the meeting of new people. The five months after the trail were quite depressing but only a couple days more and I’ll be out there again :happy
We’ll see how I feel after the AT but I fear this desire won’t go away, what’s to become of me? :oh
Apple Pie
To answer the question more directly, I was constantly thinking about the trail I just hiked, even tried to snow shoe the part we had to skip because of fire, I was obsessing about my pictures of the trail, trying to keep in touch with all my fellow hikers. When I started I didn’t understand those people who would hike it again and again but now I do…
(I know I’m talking about the PCT but it must be the same for the AT)
Apple Pie
Once you experiance the mental, physical, and spiritual side of hiking long distance, it always reaches out to you.
The pain, the rain, the bugs, the heat, the stress, the hunger, all the things that accompany it dont matter in the long run, cuz you find yourself getting through it. Even if with a group, or a person or two, or completely alone,YOU are the one that takes it, deals with it, and grows from it.
The Wilderness reaches out to you for sure, but from deep inside of your soul, you reach out for it. Your soul burns to experiance the simplicity, the love, and the greatness of the kinds of people you share your time with.
It shows you more then words can ever say, and it will change you forever.
Lion King
I just addressed this in my last journal entry on March 13th. It is one year ago to day that I started the trail. www.trailjournals.com/Journey03
Journey
When I summitted Katahdin last September, completing my thru-hike, I never would have believed that I would ever feel “the call of the Trail.” I loved the Trail, but was exhausted and relieved to be finished. I could not understand repeat hikers - they just seemed crazy. Then, as time passed, far sooner than you would believe, the Trail started to call. This spring is now filled with longing to be out there following those blazes north. I am a 47 year old woman with a wonderful, full life. It makes no sense to me that I feel this way! (note: I feel very lucky that my husband/thru-hike partner feels the same way. So, I have someone close at hand who understands.)
Cobra
thanks hikers, it is as I expected. it remains an obsession for all time. damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
freeranger