peter's mountain shelter to rausch gap shelter

just a day of moving and not much more. rocket and i did 18 miles across flat ridge with literally no views all day. there was one descent and one climb as we transitioned from one ridge to another. at the bottom there was a single road crossing. the weather wad cool and grey.

i called magz early, as i jad good service. i’m glad i did as she had overslept. she’s so adorably cute sounding when she’s tired. we chatted until she had to go to work. we had hoped to chat in the afternoon, but there was no service to make a call.

i spent some of the day listening to “the subtle art of not giving a f*ck”. it’s a pretty interesting book that articulates a direction i think i’ve been going for some time, espousing concepts like continual incremental improvement, choosing your values instead of letting them happen to you, and the fact that all of this is easily said amd takes a lifetime of work. perfection is what you aim for, not something ever acheivable.

rocket and i got to the shelter early, around 14:00. we had chatted at lunch about maybe pushing further, but all it would have got us was 2 nights in the rain. i immediately set up my stuff and took a 2 hour nap. it was a welcome treat.

i had some time after my nap to listen to some tunes. i often listen to my spotify blend with maggie. i started thinking about this whole long distance hiking endeavor and how hard it is. i want to hike the appalachian trail, but i don’t want to be away from home, from magz, from our life that we built together, from my fantastic outlaws and the wonderful life they’re building together, and from my friends. it’s hard because i want to do this, but i also want that. there really isn’t a way to compromise. the only thing close i can come up with is that this hike is only a few months, but damn it still hurts to be away from home.

i haven’t really entertained the idea of quitting, but i still feel like it’s there in the recesses of my mind. “want to stop missing maggie?” “you can literally go home whenever you want to.” it’s especially hard when i’m in pain or there is shitty weather.

it’s also hard to have put months of effort in and to only have reached the halfway point. i actually think this will not be a huge issue since this half i’ll actually get to see magz some, but i’m not there yet and it doesn’t feel great at the moment.

the trail today: