Re-adjusting - Appalachian Trail

imported
#1

I am about to head back “home,” after 5 1/2 months out here. I’m scared.

Any tips on how to re-adjust to non-trail life?

nobody

#2

You cant adjust. Thats why one year later I am here on this sight.
Just take it day by day. Stop to think and ponder from time to time. What you did,what you saw. You cant explain it. Just feel at peace when you think back on the times on the trail.

Virginian

#3

Start saving beans for another March start. Careers are bullsh**

Wolf

#4

Try a season job in the ski industry. You can chose just about any A.T. state and find a ski area (many near the trail) The responsibility level is flexible, it can be as fun as you want it to be, you’re in the mountains (after a winter in the snow March starts in the south seem easier), good people (I believe Lone Wolf is an ex-snowmaker), etc… It helped me to adjust, knowing I was going to work outside all winter with good friends. Although, like Virginian, here I am pondering life on the trail through a website. The trail is always with me.

celt

#5

Celt is right. I worked 11 years at a ski area. Sept.-March then hit the trail.

Wolf

#6

I haven’t managed to readjust to life after the trail and it’s now over 12 months. I expect that the right sort of work in the right part of the country might help.
Good luck with it!

Downunda

#7

I still haven’t completely re-adjusted after a year.
It’s probably due to chronic unemployment, so I have little to
do.

I shower/shave when/if I please. Maybe not for days, unless
I have somewhere to go in public. Drives people nuts!

My menu is still rather spartan, but not trail food. (in case
I want to go back out on the AT)

I wouldn’t worry about it. Next spring you’ll crave to go
back out AT hiking…everybody gets that urge, I suspect.

Scamp

Scamp

#8

After two times hiking the trail I can relate to your feelings, as does everyone else that has posted. First time back I found readjusting to be very difficult and not pleasant. The second time it went pretty smoothly. Honestly, try and get yourself in a place where you feel connected with friends and family, where you can be yourself and use your time on the trail to help you grow and move forward. Perhaps moving forward means hiking again one day, or perhaps not. Either way, I found that living each day inspired by the beauty around me and giving my time to something meaningful on a daily basis helped make the transition easier. Even if you go back to a job in a cubicle, the joy and peace and happiness you felt walking can still dwell in your heart. Focus on how you can help others and make them smile and you will not have a hard time.

Israel

#9

When I finished I had enough and wanted to go home. I thought I wouldn’t hike again. Oh that has passed. Last night somebody asked me if I would do the trail again…I said in second!
The triple crown is looking better and better…but I now getting married and will have a family to look after in a few years.
So I am looking on the bright side I can hike my country and the triple crown will still be there when the kids have packed up and left home.

Mongo:eek:

Mongo

#10

I agree with the others, you cannot adjust. Work two jobs in the winter, save it all. One year I lived in a tent all winter. Once you realize the cage door is actually open and only you hold it shut, you will never be able to close it again.

Blue Jay

#11

One of the guys I met who helped me the most dropped his old way of life for helping new people like me, suit up for our trail. He works in Nashville at Cumberland Transit. He is a natural and was so hepful with trail info, made we want to shop there. Bonus for the outfitter and the clients.

Burnfusious

#12

I haven’t yet thruhiked (2005), so this comes from that perspective. The thru-hike experience is one that most would agree is unique and a real blessing to do. Instead of dwelling on how miserable you are after the trail–why not think on the thru-hike experience and say to yourself–“now that’s something I set my mind to and was able to accomplish”–what else do I want to accomplish in my lifetime?–and do it. Unless we can apply the life lessons learned on the trail it seems to me it was just a vacation. The trail seems to be most beneficial when seen as one learning phase in your life–now move on to the next phase, whether it’s another trail, a career (and there is nothing wrong with making use of your talents in this way, giving something back to society, contrary to what some have argued here), a family–whatever. But move on and do something.
Kyle

Kyle

#13

After spending months (or years) planning your hike and more months hiking all day every day, where the trail is the center if not the whole of your world, there is a big hole left in your life once you finish. If you can’t find something else to fill that hole (new job, move to a new location, starting school, family, a cause, etc.) it is very easy to get depressed and feel the empty space quite vividly. Those of us who have dead end jobs are more likely to look back at the time we spent hiking and want to go back to an existence where what we were doing mattered, at least to us. Ordinary life is fine, but it doesn’t provide the same kind of purpose, beauty, camaradery, serenity, and simplicity that is such a part of the hiking lifestyle. On the other hand, I do like hot water, sleeping dry, eating ice cream whenever I want, not being in constant pain, etc.
Some people find it easy to move on and find new challenges. Some of us have a hard time finding anything that fills our needs as completely as long distance hiking does. So we go back - sometimes again and again.

Kyle, I do agree that giving back to society is a good thing. Living a life that is totally for Self is not what I want. I want more meaning in my life than comes from thinking only of my wants and needs. But you can do both: hike many hikes, and in between work and live a life of meaning. Being absorbed in a cause that is bigger than you are can be a road to happiness (or fanaticism), but it can be hard to find something that you really believe in enough to make it an important part of your life. I’m too much of a cynic. So I help others in small ways where I can, but don’t have service to others as the center of my life, just a part of it. And I plan my next hikes.

Ginny

#14

When we got back a year ago it was very hard, we had never gotten tired of the trail and even wanted to yo-yo. Student loan debts and other things called us back to the working world. We do plan on hiking another long trail, and it helps to look forward to that.

At first, we came back to the city and none of the things we used to love appealed to us. My husband was in a band, but no longer enjoyed it, and none of the plays/ concerts/ art galleries/ city life stuff appealed to us. In fact, being around so many people yet not being able to walk up and start a conversation naturally was very depressing/ lonely. We had previously both truly loved our work (engineer and librarian) but the 8 to 5 was now killing us.

We stuck with it though, kept playing in the band, kept working, kept going to plays, etc. and eventually the depression lifted, though my husband is having a harder time - still has bad days. Here is the problem: thru-hiking was the best time of our lives. Sounds great, right? Well, what comes after the best time of your life? The struggle is moving on and making more “best times our lives”. I don’t want to become one of those people who are stuck on the past, like on their senior year in high-school or something. Yet at the same time, I know I will never be the same, will always be homesick for a place that is not really there.

Ah well, maybe I’ll see you on the CDT in a couple of years! Good luck, keep in touch with your hiking buddies. Be patient with your non-hiking friends who don’t/can’t understand. Volunteer as a trail maintainer, or transcribe someone’s journal next year. Keep excercizing. Don’t spend too much time on the Internet (like me!)

Oh, and, congratulations on your hike!

Jitterbug

#15

:pimp I am going to attempt the AT next year so you are saying after working for forty years I am going to have to readjust to doing nothing after the hike. C’mon

Pops

#16

It will be VERY hard to do nothing after your hike.

Blue Jay

#17

I guess post hike readjustment is different for everybody. I’m retired so a job isn’t a problem. What is different in my life, post thru-hike, is that the trail is constantly on my mind. I think of my experiences, trail places and the people. I can’t wait each day to check this list and others and read new journal entries.
I have become addicted to the AT and I don’t want to find a cure.8)

Grampie

#18

I guess post hike readjustment is different for everybody. I’m retired so a job isn’t a problem. What is different in my life, post thru-hike, is that the trail is constantly on my mind. I think of my experiences, trail places and the people. I can’t wait each day to check this list and others and read new journal entries.
I have become addicted to the AT and I don’t want to find a cure.8)

Grampie

#19

For me, prior to my hike I was slowly sinking in corporate America - high stress, out of shape, frustrated with spending 1/2 my time on BS. Since finishing, I’ve floundered for the better part of a year. I had some depression and lots of indecision. I hiked the Long Trail this summer. It was good, but not the same. I’m going back to grad school in the spring to be a teacher and it feels right. I think I’ll grow and it will get me away from most of the BS and I will be able to hike and travel in the summer.

I still get together with some trail friends and a common theme emerges - nobody who hasn’t done a long distance hike understands how we see the world now. I feel sad and dissapointed when among strangers who would prefer to remain strangers (on the subway, at the grocery store, everywhere). Everyone congratulates me on my “accomplishment” rather than my “experience” and every time I want to explain the MONUMENTAL difference to them but I usually don’t because too many people have thought that they “get it” when it’s soooo clear to me that they still don’t. So now I just tell them that they could and should do it too, then I challenge them when they say that they could never do it. Despite these feelings, there’s never an ounce of regret that we chose to hike.

So for me, re-entry has been a long process. The challenge, in my view, is reconciling your mind. For your whole life you’ve experienced things a certain way. Your mind has grown to accept this way. While hiking, you experience things a totally different way and your mind gladly adapts to accept this new (usually improved) way. When you’re done, you go back to the old way and your mind doesn’t want to go back and gets really confused. It’s not on an intellectual level, it’s more on an emotional, spiritual and physiological level so you can’t reason your way out of it. I don’t know, I’m clearly no phychologist, but that’s the best way I can explain it.

Wedding Singer

#20

Everybody is affected differently by a thruhike. Some ease right back into their prior lives, others totally change their paths. Check out Yogi’s thoughts on this subject. Some of the most honest and well spoken I’ve seen from someone for whose path has clearly changed after her AT thruhike.

http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=23306. or this link

Wedding Singer