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August 2 - August 10, 2022
Few aromas in nature surpass the sweetness of freshly cut hay.
I remembered Psalm 96 talking about the trees singing for joy and Isaiah 55 speaking of the mountains and hills bursting into song and clapping their hands. This tree was clapping its hands and singing for joy that morning, surely one charismatic tree.
So I was a scoundrel; I might as well also be a fool for God.
The first slice was delicious; the second slice was good; the third slice was tolerable; and the fourth slice was forced down. I had eaten only half of the meat.
I had traded the joy of nature and conversing with God for a little radio clipped to my backpack.
This was no longer hiking; this was difficult rock climbing, made even more difficult by wet and slippery rocks. Three times during my week in the White Mountains, hikers fell, broke bones, and had to be rescued.
The last climb of the day was Mt. Success, aptly named for my finish in New Hampshire.
Welcome to Maine The Way Life Should Be
Mahoosuc Notch was six miles ahead of me and was known as the most difficult mile on the entire Appalachian Trail.
It’s a mile long, it’s narrow, and it’s filled with a jumble of boulders, many as large as cars or even houses, that have fallen from the opposite cliffs.
Memories of our lost ones will always be with us, but the acute, overwhelming anguish will lessen at some point. We do find life on the other side of grief. I had left the shackles of my grief in a puddle of tears on top of Eph’s Mountain three weeks before.
Each of us lives in a small slice of measured time, inserted here between eternity past and a never-ending life hereafter. From the moment of your birth, death becomes inevitable. Your little slice of time is so fleeting. Whether you live on this planet ten years or eighty is insignificant to God. What is significant is your choice of paths that will lead you to the end of your time here.
rain would be my constant companion for the last two weeks of my hike.
Along the trail, ripe blueberries grew in abundance,
Never in my life had I worked so hard toward a goal as I had struggled to finish this hike. I just wanted to reach that sign on Katahdin and go home.
The shelter came equipped with rain, but wasn’t this a standard amenity at all Maine shelters?
Satisfaction in reaching goals does not always lie in the speed with which we achieve them; sometimes the satisfaction rises from overcoming obstacles and gaining wisdom in our journeys. How often do we dream of a goal, finally reach it, and then wonder, Is that all there is? Don’t forget to live on your journey.
mountain. I would be hiker 91 to finish the trail this season. I had passed another hundred hikers.
How was it that number 91 followed me all along the trail? God’s promise of protection for my hike came from Mary’s beloved Psalm 91, read on the very day I started walking.
August 13, 2008, was my someday.
Our lives had both experienced brutal endings. We found peace and healing here, and the trail became reality and family. Now this too was about to end. We stood at the brink of another good-bye.
celebrated the only way a thru-hiker knows to celebrate—with calories.
caught in a swirl of emotion.
my summer of 2008
