-
Re-Entry Pains
Read more: Re-Entry Painsby Lindsey Rudibaugh. This is a post I wrote after completing the Appalachian Trail but never published. News of aspiring thru-hikers hitting the trail this month has me feeling an aching nostalgia, so I brushed this off to finally share. Lights. Everywhere, lights. Noise. Everywhere, noise…but a dead-sounding silence in the house. No birds. No […]
-
Falling Down Is For Everyone
Read more: Falling Down Is For Everyoneby Lindsey Rudibaugh When you fall down in the woods, you get dirt and twigs in unfortunate places. It makes you angry. It leaves you bruised, scraped up, embarrassed. Feeling defeated. Feeling triumphant. The ‘ol fall-down-and-get-back-up adage is perhaps a little tired, but lately I’ve lived it so literally that it feels like fresh, deep […]
-
Excuse me, where’s your kitchen?
Read more: Excuse me, where’s your kitchen?by Lindsey Rudibaugh It’s 4 am. I awoke at 3:00, painfully aware of some pressing biological needs. I tried ignoring all of them in favor of sleep, but after a short 5 minutes I (very) begrudgingly found my headlamp and TP in the dark, unzipped the hammock, found my shoes, and hobbled into the trees. […]
-
The First Third
Read more: The First ThirdWe’ve hiked 870 miles of the Appalachian Trail. That’s more than one third! (By 140 miles if you’re looking for specifics.) Bill Bryson, considered an authority on the AT based on his wildly popular book A Walk in the Woods, only hiked a third of it. The Proclaimers won millions of hearts with their grand […]
-
High Alert & High Adventure
Read more: High Alert & High AdventureRealistic expectations are a good defense against disappointment, so when planning our thru-hike, we read as much as we could about what we should expect. Several previous hikers said that life on the Trail is constant misery, or at the very least mild discomfort, occasionally interrupted by moments of awe, elation, and satisfaction that make […]
-
New Realities: The First Two Trail Weeks
Read more: New Realities: The First Two Trail WeeksWe’ve been nomadic forest-dwellers for more than two full weeks now, the longest either of us has ever spent camping or backpacking. Two weeks isn’t much out of a 6-month stint, but it’s been enough time to notice our brains wrapping around our new lifestyle. A few examples of our shifting realities, (and our apologies […]