Update April 10th: I thought I had published this, but apparently not!
March 15th: So it’s time to get back on the trail. Six years ago, I was getting ready to go out on what I considered the ultimate adventure: a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.
As is recounted in detail in the previous posts, I started in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, on April 27, 2017 and came off the trail on August 20 in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire, after walking 820 miles.
Coming off the the trail then was both easy and hard for me. Easy, because I was tired and hurt, I missed my loved ones and had lost a lot of what was pushing me along. Hard, because I didn’t want to let my fears beat me (I was just starting the Presidentials, which terrified me), and if I’m honest (and this blog has been nothing if not honest), the aspect of going back to work was not appealing (turned out that it took 6 months to get back onto the horse).
But the trail has been always been in the back of my mind, a longing to get out there again. I figured it was possible that when I retired, I might be able to swing some shorter sections. And now that time is approaching.
Having retired last fall, I’ve been preparing for an open-ended section hike headed south from Harper’s Ferry into, and perhaps through, Virginia.
Starting date is April 18, with train travel down to Harper’s Ferry on the 17th.
More to come…
Tom Maynard 
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