Danae and Daniel are in a minority: people who decided to hike the Appalachian Trail barely a month before leaving. They never thought of letting it slow them down, and in April 2014 they set off with a treasure-trove of Googled knowledge and a lot of borrowed hiking gear.
Rage is a brilliant motivator
Climbing up and down mountains daily should be one of the hardest parts of long-distance hiking, right? It doesn’t need to be!
Danae let me in on the secret: stare down that mountain. “If we were climbing the tallest mountain and it was just lasting forever I’d just get really determined, like ‘I’m gonna kick this mountain’s butt!’”
Don’t burden yourself with what you don’t need
Over-packing is the theme song of newbie long-distance hikers. Danae and Daniel were no different, but soon learned that no-one actually needs five pairs of underwear. Or separate sticks of deodorant.
“Basically we ended up never changing clothes until we got to a town where we could actually rinse off and shower.”
She comfortingly told me that everyone smells so bad anyway they don’t really notice the stink.
Don’t be too independent
Who you hike with changes how you hike, especially as a married couple. Danae, famously feisty and competent, said the cooperation and compromise they needed for a smooth hiking trip was more than she ever expected.
“It taught me a lot about what it means to work with someone. On the trail it’s way easier if you’re not independent.”
Choose a misery you love
Danae and Daniel finished hiking at the half-way point, Harpers Ferry, WV, a thousand odd miles short of their original goal. It turns out the hardest part of the trail isn’t thousands of feet of climbing, it’s boredom:
“It got to the point in the end where we were getting up at 6 and hiking till 5 or 6….we weren’t enjoying it.”
When she told me, I thought of how misery is worthwhile when it’s for the sake of what we’re passionate about. But when it’s taking the joy out of life it may be time to move on.
Always record!
There is no replacement for the stories you forgot to write down. For the first month of hiking, Danae wrote a paragraph or two in her phone every day. Less than a year later it brings back memories that had already faded.
It’s easy to sleepily think, “I’ll just write for today tomorrow…” Beware the slippery slope. Every minute of jotting down the memorable moments of your day is repaid in a wealth of memories.
