Trail Romance (was Re: [at-l] Observations on the sexual threat thread)

[paulmags@netzero.net (Paul Magnanti)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-l-admin@mailman.backcountry.net

> they split up a few years ago. Dunno about any others...I get
> the impression > this is one of the (many) single male fantasies about
trail life.


One of the popular nicknames for the AT is the abstinence trail! Something
about hiking all day cools the romantic ardor a bit. (Sex? I want sleep and
lots of Snickers!)  Of course, when I thru-hiked the trail, the only female
thru-hiker that was hiking in the front wave of northbounders was way
cool...and so was her boyfriend. :-)

I must admit though, I have a memory I file under the "What if?" and "Fond
Memory" categories. The same day I spent reading a book while floating in a
pond on an inner tube,  a southbounder came there for the evening.  There
were four of us there that night who could be considered long distance
hikers. The caretaker was an AT alumni (and met her boyfriend while he was
southbounding on the AT that same year. In a weird coincidence, he is from
Rhode Island. I hooked up with both of them at a Halloween party in
Providence that October. Last I heard, they were both living in Montana),
one of the hikers also worked for the AMC and was doing a long section hike,
then there was the southbounder. After the pot lock dinner at the
caretaker's tent (with freshly baked brownies! mmmm!),  the southbounder and
I spent all night just talking. One of those rare moments when everything
just clicked.  After my hike, we wrote a few times as she was making her way
to Springer.  We also exchanged letters after she finished the trail.   This
correspondence kept up for quite a few months.  It tapered off as the
holidays approached and she was about to study abroad and I started to date
someone.

    Ah...memories. (And tommorow, makes three years to the day I summited
Katahdin, and two years to the day when I packed up a U-Haul and moved to
Colorado).



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The true harvest of my life is intangible... a little star-dust caught, a
segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
--Thoreau

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