Thruhike "Enjoyment", was Re: [at-l] New AT speed record... today?!

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Jan Leitschuh wrote:
>
>What a privilege it was to take that journey! My god! How lucky am I
>to have drawn that lot in life. Yes, yes.

Hmmm - partial agreement, Jan.  You're "lucky" to live in this country that 
offers you the  opportunity.  But it was YOU who had the desire, the 
courage, and the determination to seize the opportunity, to make the first 
step - and to finish the journey.  That part isn't "luck".

>I still don't know why I did it, hiked the entire Appalachian trail
>from Georgia to Maine.
>I couldn't not, is all I know.

Yep -
Short story - at a water break somewhere in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness 
in Montana - our hiking partner told us that he wouldn't be finishing the 
CDT that year, but that we would.  He said that if what it took to finish 
was physical conditioning, it would have been the other way round.  But, he 
said, he didn't have the "fire-in-the-belly" - and we did.

You had the "fire-in-the-belly, Jan.  We saw that before you left.  You even 
had the common sense and the intellectual honesty to question what you were 
doing.  I still have your self-questioning post - and our reply.  Because it 
impressed me - and because I knew beyond doubt that barring physical injury, 
you'd finish.  Thank you for doing just that.

>PS Two years ago today (two years ago!? sob!) I was walking into New
>Hampshire, on one of the wonderful, equally-enjoyable,
>less-than-wilderness sections - it was all good!:

Six years ago today, we were in Yellowstone headed south and met our first 
CDT thruhiker.  Five years ago today, we were in Ashland, Oregon headed 
north on the PCT.  Two years ago today we were camped on the back side of Mt 
Robson in the Canadian Rockies and the wolves sang us to sleep while the 
calving of the glaciers sounded like freight trains in the night.

Someday - you'll need to see those places.
Do it.
Just do it.

Walk softly,
Jim

http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/