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Why I quit my thru-hike

by William Kendall

After nearly 4 ½ months of hiking the Appalachian Trail I have made the difficult and seemingly strange decision to head home. My hike of 1230 miles has been a unique and wonderful experience. Everyday had a strong physical challenge, and everyday was a strong mental/emotional challenge. Most long-distance hikers agree that the long difficult hike brings one into contact with your essential self in ways never experienced before. For most it is a "high-point", if not "the high-point" of their lives.

Having watched many others make the decision to go home; I have noticed that no one could verbalize ;his or her reasons well; most do not try. Usually there are a few days of quiet brooding followed by an announcement that they had had enough of trail life and want to get back to "the family", "the friends", "the job" or mostly "home" in all of its many definitions. They had, in marathon terms, "hit the wall" and like it or not the event is over.

I know from reading about the experiences of other long distance backpackers that the question of "why" one stops hiking is almost more interesting than actual hiking. I’m not sure there is a good answer to the question. Baring some physical ailment, financial failure, interference from home, or lack of the essential outdoor skills, one could be expected to reach the top of his mountain. However there are the mental challenges, the fears, the loneliness, the aloneness, the boredom, and the deprivations from the conveniences of modern life. I knew hikers who would put in 30 mile days if it meant that they could get to a TV for Thursdays just to see Seinfeld. Others would endure hardships for a pizza or a hamburger. During the first few weeks there were several hikers who never got past the first tavern. Hiking is not a solution to alcohol dependency or any other dependency. The catch phrase on the trail is that it is a "mental hike".

Why answer why? If given a choice between a beach volleyball game, in which the teams are accidental, the boundaries are vague and the fun of play is the essential merit of the activity; or a volleyball competition, in which scores are kept, trophies are awarded and losers get sand kicked in their beer, I would always pick the first. I am the quintessential type B. In college I studied theology because I wanted to learn something of the spiritual history and experiences of mankind throughout his history, not because I wanted to become the next Billy Graham. However I live among and most of my acquaintances are the type A serious players who want to see a mountaineering trophy mounted on my backpack or know the reason why.

On the plane back to Houston I made a list of some of the things that were bothering me during the last few days. In random order they were as follows:

1. I had had several sleepless nights , in the pavilion in Port Clinton with lights and traffic, in the shelter at Eckville with several unfriendly snoring Europeans, in the tent, camping at New Tripoli where lightening and rain nearly washed me away for four hours.
2. The threat of being hit by lightening on the ridge tops continued to bother me. I had had one bolt within 20 yards, close enough to smell.
3. The Pennsylvania rocks and boulders had been the worst part of the trail so far and several days more were ahead.
4. The heat wave was most oppressive and the forecast was for temps in the 100’s.
5. I had fallen behind my trail friends without hope of catching up to them.
6. Homesickness after seeing THE WIFE and THE SON for a week.
7. Palmerton was an easy exit to the Airport in Allentown. I got home in six hours!
8. General summer discomfort. Those hikers from the North hated the cold. I ,a southerner, hated the heat and humidity, the body odor, hot sleepless nights, the bugs, the snakes, the hot food which was great in March was hard to eat in July and managing water intake was more and more difficult. (I later found out that a fellow my age died of heat related heart attack in New Jersey at about this same time—a few days ahead of me).

I usually fought off any depressions I had on the trail by enumerating the positive aspects of the day’s hike. On the last day nothing worked. The summer hours were much more difficult to deal with than the winter hours. In the winter, I could hike 7-10 miles from morning to dark around 4 p.m. Make dinner and go to bed. In the summer I started hiking around 6 am and did 14-15 miles by 2 or 3 p.m. and then had a boring 8-9 hours of daylight left. Walking longer mileage up to 20 miles a day took its toll on the knees and calves and ultimately was also destructive. With a good group of companions, your trail family, you can kill 8 hours, alone you just sit there sweaty and bored.

As I look back now in 98 I must repeat my dislike of the heat. I have since moved from Houston Texas (where today’s temp is 91 and the humidity is probably also in the 90’s), to the Pocono Mountains of PA where this morning ’s temp is 50 with low humidity. Last night I sat by the big fireplace and laughed at the idea of sweating it out in Texas—a good state but toooo hot.

© Copyright 1995 William Kendall