AT HAPPINESS: This Is Becoming Normal

One of the things that I talked about earlier was the stages I expected to go through on the trail. Initially I was a hopeful thru-hiker. I expected that stage to last for a very long time.  Next I expected to become a novice thru-hiker as a sense of normality set in on the trail.

Amazingly that sense of normality has already started to set in after only 160 plus miles.  Getting up at sunrise (I’m not a morning person) breaking camp, packing up and walking for up to 9 hours a day, setting camp, cooking, hanging a bear bag is just what I do now.

Big ass mountains are quickly becoming just another hill. Not downplaying how hard this is, walking up and down mountains all day, every day is incredibly hard.  It’s exhausting, your body hurts all of the time, Advil are referred to as trail candy.  Coming out of the NOC we walked uphill for 6 hours and gained nearly 4000 feet in elevation.  We averaged 1.2 miles per hour.

Somehow all of this is becoming normal. I’m still learning how to do this, lessons are constant and important. Every single person on the trail is a potential teacher.  A LOT of people have quit already, I’ll say it again, this is hard.  Things happen you can’t control, we have all fallen, we are all banged up and losing weight.  But the important thing about normal is that it is normal, it happens every day, again and again.  Only 2120 some miles to go and a lot more happy days my friends.  – Rev Kane