Climbing Clingmans

I am back from my yearly Appalachian Trail hiking adventure. Compared to previous years, it was pretty uneventful. No one collapsed from exhaustion. No monsoon-like rain sent us swimming down the mountain. No knee problems, no major blisters, no problems at all really. It was, as always, the most physically challenging experience possible. This was my fifth year hiking and the first one where I actually completed the hiking we had planned. My first year, I wasn’t prepared for the physical toll hiking can take on my knees. I only completed about twenty miles that first year, I think. In the second year, my knees were good, but I got a blister the size of my entire heel. At the time, it seemed like too big of a deal to go on, although this year, I wouldn’t have let it slow me down. Live and learn. I think we only got about 22 miles that year. In year three, I got off the trail with my sister (she got bad blisters that year and was just tired of it, I think) so she wouldn’t have to hitchhike to civilization alone. I was supposed to meet my brothers on the AT the next day, but they called us that night asking to be rescued from the torrential rainstorm. They were done after that and I couldn’t go alone since they were my ride. Last year, my brother John got sick on the mountain, cutting that hike short. But this year… THIS year we hiked for five days straight, almost 50 miles up and down the mountains reaching the highest point on the entire AT (Clingman’s Dome in North Carolina at 6,643 feet). It was damn hard, but I have rarely felt as good as I did when we climbed that last hill and reached the summit. I am a skinny guy, never excelled at sports or anything, so pulling this off was just overwhelming. I conquered the mountain and it felt good.