Mile 1659. Just keep going.

I slip on a log and plop smack dab into 6 inches of black soggy bog.  A fat green frog peaking from the muck is my only witness.   I just sit there.  Dripping.  And I laugh.   “Oh, this is just epic,” I say to myself.   “Too bad that wasn’t caught on video.”    

Assessing that the only damage is the tip of my pole, I’m cleared for take off.    I pick myself up again.   Pants and shoes squishing, I keep walking north.   Neither my pace nor my spirit is broken.

I’m not going to lie.   This is hard.   The Appalachian Trail is H-A-R-D.

After four months of hiking 10-12 hours a day, almost every single day, my body is tired.   The backs of my eyeballs are tired.  The marrow of my bones are tired.  The nuclei of my cells are tired.  

The Appalachian Trail is a 2200-mile obstacle course.    Here in Vermont, I weave and dodge thick black mud.   All day long.   In New York, I weave and dodge relentless mosquitoes.  All day long.   In Pennsylvania, I weave and dodge jagged rocks.   All day long.   Each state has its own weave-and-dodge challenge.   Each obstacle is as formidable as the one before.

But I keep going.   I keep walking north.   I keep ticking off each mile.   One.  And then another.   And then another.   One mile at a time.

The other day, Intrepid texted that she’s getting off the Trail.  She also took a fall; and, even though her black eye is healing, her knees need closer medical attention.  Planner left for a similar reason.  Even after he won a valiant battle with hostel-acquired MRSA, the bone-on-bone pain in his knees was more than he can bear.  Double Wide ran out of money.  Chia went back to school.  Sarah Smiles got poison ivy on the bottom of her feet.  Ace doesn’t like his Tramily.  Splash could say that the tendonitis in her feet is her reason for getting off Trail; but she’s honest with her self and the world:  The Trail just doesn’t give her joy.   At all.  

Each time I learn that a fellow hiker has left the Trail, a Hunger Games cannon goes off in the pit of my stomach.   Oof.

Appalachian Trail Conservancy estimates that 1 in 4 complete the trail.  However, The Trek’s annual survey has seen a steady decline in the success rate since 2016.   They are seeing a success rate closer to 20%: just 1 in 5 complete the trail according to their data.    Oof.

So why do I keep going?   Why do I continue when – all I have to do – is just make a quick phone call.   I could be on a train back home.   I could be clean.  I could sleep in my own bed.   I could have all the big fluffy pillows to my heart’s content.

I keep going because I said I would.

I keep going because I set a goal.  And – even if I need to take a day or two or three to rest – I will reach that goal.  Come mosquito hell or high flood water.

To keep going, I focus on the process.   The small victories.   The happy moments.

If I think about how many miles I do or don’t have left, I get overwhelmed.   It’s too big.   It’s too obtuse.   It’s too far out of reach.

Instead, I focus on the here and now; and I am grateful for the little moments.  

I beast-mode the eight mile climb up Mount Greylock; and – lungs moving up and down – I am grateful that I still can crush hills like I did when I was ten years younger.  I feel alive.  And strong.  And I put my arms up in a victory “Yesssss!”

With oxygen flowing through my body again, the leaves are greener and the tree trunks are blacker and the birds are happier.  I see the world in a glorious multitude of color.   My eyes dance with absorption.

After a rain, I take in the magic of a raindrop on a leaf; and I am mesmerized by the little prism it creates.   

I hear the woosh of water flow over rocks under a bridge.   I pretend I’m floating down on a leaf, following the path, twisting and turning and rushing through until it escapes into an eddy.   

Water is powerful and enabling and dangerous and relaxing.   Two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen can take so many different shapes.

I hear the stillness.   The quiet is my companion.   Soft footsteps.   Heavy breath.   Wind whispering.   Silence.   I am grateful for nothing-ness and everything-ness all at the same time.

I keep moving north because I can.   

I keep moving north because – there will be a day when I cannot.    

I keep moving north because this is living.