I update him on my progress, telling him of my sprained ankle and my struggles with the heat in New York and rain in Vermont. “Geez, I thought none of that would bother you,” he says. “Why would you think that?” I answer. “You were such a machine back when we met in North Carolina. I thought you were some military type, like a sergeant.” My recollection is of Crossroads powering up Standing Indian Mountain. He is younger than I am; he was hiking faster and was on a more ambitious schedule. At the time we first met, I was mired in doubt about my ability to thru-hike. We all perceive that the
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