Drastic, complicated change of plans

After a couple days of deliberation and fun, I have a new trip plan. Warning: This may get complicated if you are not intimately familiar with the geography of the MST and North Carolina. Here goes.

I hiked from Kitty Hawk to Okrakoke, took the ferry to Cedar Island, and walked on roads to the Neuse River, following the MST until I reached the Croatan National Forest and the Neusiok Trail. From the Neuse River, I hitched a ride to New Bern. From New Bern, I drove back to Durham with my sister and bro-in-law, who came out to visit. I will spend a few days sleeping indoors and dayhiking the Falls Lake section of trail, trying to continue to heal my blistering face. I will take off from the western terminus of the hiking trail on my sister’s road bike. I will bike for about a week, until I hit trail again near the Appalachian foothills. Somehow, I will transport me and the bike to Durham in the beginning of February. On the way back to the trail, I will drop by the MST annual meeting in Greensboro. Back on the trail, I will hike west from the point where I left off, visiting characters from the Appalachian Trail class of 2006 in Boone and Asheville along the way. By the first week of March, I hope to be finished with most of the trail, excepting this section between Falls Lake and the Croatan National Forest. My parents are driving down to North Carolina for a visit in the beginning of March. They will bring my younger brother’s kayak, pick me up in the mountains, and drive me to Durham. Where I will hop in the Neuse River and paddle down to its confluence with the Trent River here at the crotch of New Bern. I will finish out the trail with a two-day hike through Croatan National Forest.

And now I will interview myself to assure my oodles of fans and stalkers that I am, indeed, at least partially aware of what I am doing:

Are you still thru-hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail?

No. I intend to complete the trail corridor without gaps, by the end of March. I will not be HIKING the whole trail. I will be biking about one-quarter of the trail, kayaking one-quarter of the trail, and hiking half of the trail. For a few years, I have had this vision of traveling a long distance through those three types of movement with the use of mechanical machines. No terminological “purist” would call this a thru-hike. I am infinitely okay with this.

Why don’t you just walk, it would be way less complicated?

I know that I am physically capable of hiking across the state, and if I had a more noble purpose for walking every step of the way (for example, for every mile I walked, a nutritious meal was donated to feed a poor, local family), I could push through my listless wall of misery and finish the trail on foot. However, this trip is entirely selfish. I am learning, researching, and writing, and find that I am more productive when I am reveling and not wallowing. Makes sense, no?

What are you researching and writing?

I had an idea before I left for the trip that it would be really neat to write a book based on my experiences on the trail, and amazingly enough, I think that it may be a viable idea. As I see it now, it would be part travelogue/ personal reflection on the things that I see and people that I meet, mostly focusing on how the people I encounter interact with and think about the natural world, especially related to consumption (food, water, energy), with a dash of natural and human history.

What are you learning?

GRE vocab. I know what ‘mirth’ and ‘lugubrious’ and ‘libertine’ mean, and can use these words in a sentence and recite a list of near-synonyms. Can you?

This will mean you will reach the mountains a couple weeks earlier than planned. Are you really ready?

Wahoo!

It will be cold.

Zippideedooda!

You’ll probably get lonely.

My mama always said, “Lonely is as lonely does”