Appalachian Trail.

I realize that I often just tell stories of what we have done but not what we will be doing.  It’s mostly because I think of our future as being so variable that I don’t want to say we are going to do this and then do that.  However, we do have a few future plans that are set in wet cement – this winter will be our last season in the park and then next summer we will hike the Appalachian Trail.

[NOTE:  I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and hadn’t posted it yet – because that’s how I roll sometimes.  I have also realized that I don’t share a lot of the details of our daily lives – the tourons (like tourist combined with moron), the awful food and run ins with local power-hungry security (which is like a rent-a-cop but not rented).  I’m going to work on this as well… (And you can't fault me too much - I have improved on posting frequency!)]

Winter is a magical time in the park and I would like to experience it one more time.  I’m ready to get some skis on my feet and go out in the quiet, calm after a fresh snowfall.  The geysers and other thermal features have a more poetic draw to them with the freezing air causes the steam to multiply and the hush of nature allows you to hear the rumble beneath your feet.  The animals that spend their time trying to survive a Yellowstone winter, with -40 degree days and 200+ inches of snow, is a very humbling thing to behold. 

There are a multitude of reasons that we’ll be ready to leave the park after that – the main one being that we have little to no freedom here (see above comment about local power-hungry security).  It’s not because we have a million rules (although, we are on federal land so any trouble with the rangers and not security means a felony…) but because we don’t have any facilities.  If we want to make dinner, we don’t have a kitchen and even worse, we don’t have a place to get groceries.  We have a little camping stove and a grill but we have to drive at least an hour to pick up fresh veggies and some chicken.  (And I miss Rupert!)

We have decided that we want the things that come with the “real” world – Rupert, a dog, a garden – but we want one more grand adventure (and probably many others in the grand scheme of things).  We debated the three major trails – the Appalachian, Pacific Crest and Continental Divide Trails – but decided the Appalachian would be the easiest for us since we are both fairly new to backpacking and working on getting our gear up to par.  We recently got a new tent after our zipper broke on our last one!  I’m looking forward to the adventure from Georgia to Maine – approx. 2, 218 miles that we’ll travel with everything we could need on our backs. 

After the Appalachian Trail, we’re not sure where we will end up but we do know we want to be close enough to places that are rich enough to allow backpacking in the somewhat near vicinity.  We have found a peace out in the woods that will be hard to leave so we don’t plan on leaving it completely – “The Mountains are Calling and I Must Go.”  -John Muir.