Encouragement - Appalachian Trail

imported
#1

Winning is 90 % desire and 10% ability.

~some famous person

Dawg

#2

Backbacking is 90 percent mental and only 20 percent physical.

~Benny the Bull (not a famous person)

Ben Reuschel

#3

Losing is annoying…100% of the time…but not the end of the world, nothing a nice cup of tea won’t sort out.

-British saying. Why do you think we never win anything at the Olympics.

Ross

#4

You must first know that you can do something before you do it. For if you know or think you can’t then you won’t even try.

Elephants are captured at a very young age and chained to a small tree to keep them from running away back into the jungle. At this young age, they try and try to break the chain, but eventually learn they cannot do it. So as they get older, become trained and work all their lives as worker elephants; each night they are chained to a small tree and remain there. Even though now they are fully grown and can easily snap the chain and push or pull down the small tree, they do not do it. Because they have learned that they can not.

We are all chained in our minds knowing of a great many things we cannot do.

Doing anything is first done 100% in our mind.

See you out there. :cheers

Maintain

#5

A wise man once told me “You can do anything as soon as you lose the belief that you can’t.” He also said “Whether you think you can or you can’t… you’re probably right.”

Tha Wookie

#6

Hiking for 6 months is freedom. Hiking for 6 months is cool. Starting with strangers,finishing with an extended family. Whats around the next bend ? Standing on a ridge early in the morning,listening to the world wake up down below. Seeing familiar faces in town. Sitting at the same table,all glasses clinking together for a toast.Being a “thru hiker” people just look at you as if you were from another planet. You will never experience anything else like it.

Virginian

#7

“It gets easier after this”

Heard this one a thousand times on my hike. It NEVER gets easier, but it ALWAYS gets better, and always stays different.

Remember, harder doesn’t mean worse. Some of my favorite AT sections were the more difficult ones.

There are hardly any “easy” sections

And, NO virginia is not easy. :slight_smile: ENJOY

A-Train

#8

I meant to say, Virginia is not flat. It may be easy is some folks minds. It is however diverse and beautiful

A-Train

#9

Va is a beautiful state. Been here all my life. Three ridges was a Bi–tch. I love it!! All

Virginian

#10

I think that when people say Virginia is easy, they really mean it is easier. And that’s a huge difference.

Peaks

#11

When I did my thru…and the going got rough… I would think about all the other folks who thru-hiked and finished. A lot of them were older, in worse shape and some had physical handicaps…If they could do it, so could I.
This approach gave the personal encouragement I needed to finish my hike.
Grampie-N->2001

Grampie

#12

Goals are dreams with deadlines. From the very start at Springer it just got better. What I wouldn’t give to be back out there now. I saw written on a wall in a hostel “Lord if You’ll help me pick them up, I can put them back down.” There will be those days but the worse day I had on the trail was better than my best day at work. Have a great hike!

Papa Smurf