08/24/2026
The first picture was before , the last after. I’m not smiling because I was beyond exhausted and overcome by emotion. I didn’t climb the sign and raise my hands in victory. I didn’t conquer the trail, certainly not this special and sacred mountain. I endured until the effort became its own reward. I healed so I can not only come closer to being the person Roo thinks I am, but the one those people I love deserve me to be.
Barkeater
I did one of the hardest things in my life recently. Last Thursday I hiked to the top of Mt. Katahdin , the northern terminus of the AT. The combination of doing this at 73 and its difficulty was exhilarating, emotional, exhausting, and left me totally spent. That wasn’t the hard thing I did.
I had been thinking about trying an AT thru hike since I learned about it in my twenties. In 1994, 41 years old, a father of three sons who needed and deserved my presence , I got rid of most of my possessions, and decided to give it a try. The romance novel version of why - at the midpoint of my life I wanted to challenge myself , to lash out against my mortality, to conquer nature and demonstrate my mettle like the heroes in the books I read as a child. The reality, my life was in shambles and I didn’t know to fix it. I took the easy path and walked away from my troubles and my sons. If I could go back I would stay home, fix it, and be present with my sons.
There’s an aphorism that AT thru hikers like to peddle. The AT provides you with what you need from it. In my case there was some truth to that. I walked many miles with special people who will always be part of my journey. Along the way I was gifted many, many random acts of kindness and shared stories with total strangers. It helped restore my faith in people a bit. The effort required helps you learn your strengths and weaknesses, to become clearer about the things you always knew really mattered, but somehow still lost sight of. In Virginia two good ole boys, angry at what they mistakenly saw as an exercise in privilege wanted to change my life forever and stole my pack, everything I needed to continue. I had to go home and resupply. While there I applied for and got a teaching position that would soon, with the help of Clay Reaser, bring Cynthia into my life. A new wonderful journey of joyful, creative, shared discovery that continues to this very moment began. Those thieves on the AT did change my life forever, just not the way they hoped.
I met more than a few other hikers who saw the AT as an escape. I had to intervene with two people suffering from serious mental illness. They were telling themselves hurtful stories filtered through the lens of their mental illness. The first one I considered a nuisance, a distraction. The second one was thirty years later when I had a new understanding about the risk of telling yourself harmful stories and the skills to help me stop doing it. Even though I was rightfully scared because he was carrying a machete and was trying to convince me that nuclear war had broken out, I got myself and him to a safe place and hope he too is healing.
For all of the 800+ trail miles I have walked on the AT since the end of my thru hike, I have been by myself except for one day. It’s hard physically and tiring mentally to walk alone for this long. It’s also not safe for me at this age. I decided to join a supported group with a guide to walk my last five days of the AT. In order for that to be the end, I had to do five more hard hikes by myself before August 15th. I got my stuff together , loaded my vehicle , said goodbye to Cynthia and Roo The Good Red Dog, and started to drive away. This is when I had to do the hard thing I mentioned earlier. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Cynthia holding Roo and waving to me. In that moment, I realized I didn’t need the AT anymore, not for atonement, not to be heroic, not to spit in the face of mortality, and especially not to escape my life circumstances. I had all I had ever hoped for behind me and yet I still drove away.
I wasn’t able to get to the point where the group hike began. It was 90+ degrees in Maine with thunderstorms and apparently I no longer believe the AT is worth dying for. I joke with my sons all the time that if I die on the AT they cannot say, I died doing what I loved . They can only say that he died doing what he endured for decades because as smart as he was, like the lead character in Broke Back Mountain, he could never figure out how to quit the AT. They are funny guys and if do die out there , they are going to say over and over again he was doing what he loved. This was on my mind Thursday when I finished my Katahdin hike. I’m convinced that what I felt in my legs was rigor mortis.
For 32 years I wrote a story in my head about ending my walk on top of Katahdin, I appear over the final ridge , sweeping vistas all around, walk to the sign marking the end of the AT, friends and strangers telling me I was their hero and an inspiration. Now if I’m lucky, there will be another end. Four more walks and it will end on a nondescript road deep in the 100 Mile Wilderness. I told Cynthia I wasn’t going back , that I didn’t need to go back. She told me I had to. The romance novel version, she’s a loving and supporting life partner. The nonfiction version, although she swears it isn’t true, I heard her mutter once under her breath if I have to listen to one more thing about the AT , I’m going to kill him in his sleep.
On one of the group hikes last week, I was deep in thought and walked off the trail , leaving one mile on a beautiful four mile loop that circles back to the same road 1.5 miles from where it started. I had an off day in Maine and drove 75 minutes back there to walk that mile. I parked , picked up my pack, and got ready to walk. The romance novel storyteller took over again. If I leave this mile, Cynthia and Roo The Good Red Dog can walk the last mile of the AT with me. I put everything back in my car and left. That was easy. If I’m lucky, and that’s not guaranteed , this will happen in September. Should I die when I take my last step on the AT , my sons have my permission to say he died doing what he loved , going for a walk and sharing the only life he got with Cynthia and Roo The Good Red Dog and with them.
I am always humbled if a reader gets this far. There’s another thing we say to each other on the AT. Happy trails ! I hope the path you follow, no matter how challenging , always leads you towards the life you hoped for. Mine sure has.
