[at-l] Post Trail Sadness Disorder

[EHamilton]

When it's the time of year that, last year, you were making your last preparations for starting your thru, when it's that time of year again and you're NOT starting another thru (and only did half of the one you intended to do)..... do you get sad? Do you buy trinkets that improve on the ones you actually took on the trail? A lighter penlight, instead of a headlamp? Do you spend hours on websites becoming familiar with gear you'll never get to use, at least not in the next few years? Do you decide at last that you can at least take your 7-yr-old granddaughter out on an overnight once in a while and wonder if that will do it for you, hiking and tenting a couple miles from home?

My friend Patti "Jessie's Girl" from the AT is on a bus now headed for the Florida Trail. I'm so envious. I would have loved to go with her. I want to go hiking. We have 4+ feet of snow and I have no snoshoes but I want to go hiking. I want to hang up a hammock so it won't touch the snow, put a quilt under it so it won't touch the cold air, pitch a tarp over it so sleet won't cut my face, and sleep in the woods. I think I will. Make myself a hammock, traipse through the woods out back with my dog, set up my hammock, cook on the snow, and sleep out in the cold. I'll carry a warm bed for the dog. Or make her carry it.

I want to go hiking.

MacGyver


      
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