Starting tomorrow (which I guess is today), I will be spending five days out on the Appalachian Trail. We will be backpacking, sleeping under tents or under the stars, filtering water, cooking over propane, and shitting outside. And I am looking forward to (almost) all of it! As summer approaches at home, I would typically celebrate the end of the school year with a camping trip as soon as the last snow melted, or an after-school hike to relieve finals stress. Out here in CT I've had to make do with laying out on the Quad to get my outdoors fix. (It has paid off-- I'm more tan now than I ever have been at the end of an Alaskan summer). But I honestly have been craving the wilderness. You know, mountains, streams, sunshine, and none of this man-made crap. While the "mountains" in Connecticut don't quite compare to the monstrosities of my backyard, they are green and beautiful. I'm content to trek several miles a day and lay out my sleeping bag on a flat piece of ground. Unfortunately, its forecasted to rain all week, so I anticipate some miserableness. All I know is that I'm looking forward to getting outside and jump starting what I hope to be an outdoor-adventure filled summer.
We'll only be doing a tiny portion of the Appalachian Trail, but we may come across a legendary "through hiker," who traverses the entire 2,180-mile trail from Maine to Georgia, often taking months to complete. I don't know if I'll ever be that hardcore, but this is a really moving video of one through-hikers experience. He took one picture of the trail in front of him each day of his hike, and condensed the entire journey into a five-minute movie. Sweet.
P.S. I know I haven't been consistently posting, but there will obviously be nothing new until next weekend, as my lovely MacbookPro doesn't have the same affinity for the outdoors as I do.
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