Here we go again… – The Trek

Continuing where we left off.

This time last year I was agonizing over grams and ounces, food and shoes. Come April, I would fly to Georgia and hike my sorry ass up and down the Appalachian Trail. 2025 was my year to walk in the woods.

What an adventure!

As we reached Fontana Dam and headed into the Smokies, a few things became clear to me: I can do this. I had my trails and enjoyed the variety of company I found along the way. It also became increasingly clear that the journey became a journey of gratitude for me. For my health, for my wife of 45 years, my friends (one who drove 3 hours to pick me up and take me to Atlanta to go to the ER), my family, and the incredible privilege of spending time among things made and not made.

At Springer Shelter, during initial conversations about “who you are and where you’re from,” I met a gentleman who shared the exact same birthday as me (he was a year older), and we were by far the oldest hikers there that night. We would walk the rest of the way together. Steve was from Maine, I’m from Virginia—two of the most unlikely, extraordinarily different personalities you’d ever imagine would come together, but we quickly became friends. Shared adversity, shared wonder, and shared refuges will do that.

We were both compatible hikers, early risers, fairly fast walkers, able to communicate when to stop and when to push without saying a word. And we both landed in the same place at the same time: just because we can doesn’t mean we should. So, at Standing Bear Farm, we left the trail. We told each other… like MacArthur we will return! We will continue where we left off. 2025 was the year I would walk to Maine… until it wasn’t.

Last September, to celebrate our shared birthdays, I flew to Maine and we climbed Katahdin together on our birthday. At some point during that weekend, we decided we would return to pick up where we left off.

Know when to hold them…when to fold them.

Deciding to go off track actually wasn’t difficult. We were both in our 60s and had nothing to prove to ourselves or anyone else. My granddaughter was graduating from college and I wanted to attend this important event, and for Steve, the violinists were ready to be chosen. We both realized that our retirements belonged to our wives too and that taking such a big chunk out of the year was a little selfish.

And yet, the AT was/is such a wonderful experience that we both feel like we’re done with it.

So now it’s that time of year where I’m in between grams and ounces and this and that. In April we will continue our journey believing that the AT is more of a journey and not a race to the destination. It’s a place I think we’ll keep coming back to until we’re done.

Fellow hikers used to ask me if I was done hiking, and my answer then, as it is now, is, «I’m hiking until I’m done.»

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