-8 Miles: At the Approach Trail

Why I'm Hiking

Hey y'all, time for my first post! As we speak, I'm approximately 3 miles from the trailhead (or actually the trail that approaches the Appalachian Trail) at Amicalola Falls, and am officially heading out tomorrow morning to start the hike, consisting of an ~8 mile approach trail and then finally setting foot on the actual AT.

Registering and collecting my badge!

As my first newsletter, thought it was fitting to focus a question that I've received from a huge chunk of folks I've talked to in the last couple of months: why I've decided to hike.

Why I’m Hiking

1. Outrageous Living

The first time I heard of the Appalachian Trail I thought it was an incredible feat of humanity. Just thinking about the degree of cooperation, of tying together miscellaneous stretches of the trail, of the hard work in building a trail over years and years and the number of (mostly volunteers) involved in creating a path across the entirety of the Appalachian range amazes me. In itself, the Appalachian Trail was an outrageous dream and an example of the best of humanity bringing something that seemed impossible into reality and continually keeping that dream alive (the trail is maintained by thousands of volunteers-- honestly crowdsourcing before it was a tech term!).

So the scale and vision of it and the idea of spending time in the wilderness initially brought me to the trail, where I spent 6 weeks hiking around 500 miles of the North Carolina and early Virginia sections after graduating college. The 6 weeks felt like the first paragraph of a book that I needed to devote time to reading fully, when I left the trail then I made it a personal goal to hike the entire stretch. I think many of you who know me well know that there are few things I love more than a big idea or a lofty goal to be accomplished: the AT both was that in it's inception and quickly became a personal ambition after my initial section hike.

I believe strongly that a life well lived is one where I have achieved both professionally great feats but have also personally achieved goals outside of the realm of a career. Part of being the person that I want to be involves being great at work, and also a great friend, a lifelong learner, a fantastic partner, and (while incredibly cheesy/perhaps childish framing?) and adventurer. And it becomes harder to take leaps and pursue adventures as your life progresses and mortgages and children and career choices intercept the velocity of your own life ambitions-- so I've decided to take the leap in 2022 because who knows if it'll ever get any easier.

2. A Big Blend of Humanity

When I hiked previously, I was amazed at how the AT serves as this intersection of people in a variety of different stages in their lives all bound by the same singular purpose of hiking from Georgia to Maine. I hiked for days with people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. I camped and made dinner with a Korean War veteran, I spent a huge portion of the trail with two Canadian friends about to pursue Masters in Plant Biology (which honestly was a useful academic interest for a trail companion to have!), became friends with folks recently retired, shared shelters in the rain with a veterinarian and a librarian. It's such a rare experience to spend time, a huge amount of time, hiking and camping and filtering water with people radically different from you in beliefs and background and life stage. If conversation is like cooking a good meal, having such a variety of ingredients from a rich pool of life experiences makes for much more interesting cuisine. I loved the conversations and friendships that I made and have found no parallel in the off-trail world.

3. A Gratitude Refresher

I've also thought strongly about what ultimately makes a person happy (this question is always a work in progress and I, of course, welcome your thoughts as well), and have decided that a large portion of it is gratitude in the ordinary. I'm incredibly fortunate in that my pre-AT life was pretty damn wonderful. I lived in Washington D.C. (which many of you know I will firmly argue is the best city in America), worked at a company with coworkers I loved and where I was able to learn a great deal early in my career, had a handful of restaurants within walking distance of my house, could hop on a biking trail or stay indoors whenever cold, and overall was quite comfortable. And, like all comfortable things, it becomes absolutely ordinary to live such a great life.

I, perhaps like most people, didn't often take a moment to relish the comfort in a heated room or the convenience of a meal cooked in a restaurant or the miracle having access to running water daily (I also recognize that a lot of this reflects a high degree of privilege that I enjoy and that for many people those statements may not be true). A part of the reason why I want to hike the AT is because in the past, every time I've gone on a backpacking trip, I've emerged with a renewed sense of gratitude of these small aspects of life that can fade otherwise into the backdrop of our existence. Perhaps, with 5-7 months of time largely in the woods, that gratitude will be instilled a bit deeper or last a bit longer, helping me live a happier live.

4. Some Time Away From the Screens

I'm obsessed with technology and the progress of humanity, and am currently envisioning my future likely working to help build small tech companies, so there is a portion of me that finds the idea of rejecting most of technology for a bit extremely compelling as a counterweight to the likely focus of my years to come.

5. I really like hiking up mountains.

Honestly there isn’t more to this one. Climbing a huge mountain makes me really happy.

So that's essentially what's motivating me. A combination of the above drivers that I probably could have been more concise about.

And one last note before I leave you— for a long time when I was younger on the top of my bucketlist was bungee jumping. Naively, because I wanted to do it so badly, I'd made the assumption that I would feel no hesitation or fear when the time actually came to jump. And yet, the moment I came to the edge of the bridge I realized how entirely wrong I was and was nearly shaking with nervousness; quickly coming to the realization that being excited does not equate to vanquishing all fears. In a similar way now, after wanting to hike the full thing for so long, I'm reminded again the limits of excitement on calming nervousness. It’s a long, long trail and if I’m honest with myself and you as a reader, I'm certainly heading in with both excitement and nervousness for what's to come.

Thank you for reading this first, wieldy post (I promise for my other newsletters I'll be too tired to write this much!). Absolutely feel free to reply and I'd love to hear any thoughts you had. I'll be shooting out an update around ~300 miles in or so, likely in North Carolina and am planning on focusing on what I've brought to hike with.

Until the next stretch of trail,

Tierney