Category: Hiking

Reflecting on my Year of No Fear

On By Brittany BigleyIn Adventure, Backpacking, camping, Conquering Fear, Hiking, Travel, Uncategorized, Year of No Fear3 Comments

As 2015 winds down, it is only natural for people to reflect on the year that has been and gear up for the year that will be. Many of my friends who have been following my adventures have seen my Year of No Fear hash tag. What most people don’t realized that what started out as a simple hash tag, was actually first a mantra/promise I made to myself in early 2015.

During the Winter of 2014/2015, I was going through a depression that crippled me both mentally and physically. Although I was able to keep up an act at work, on the weekends my act crumbled around me, as I succumbed to the pain, sadness and emptiness that permeated through me. I secluded myself from friends and family who were worried about my wellbeing. My once adventurous and out-going attitude faded behind my ever-growing self-doubt. One day, at my worst, doing everything in my power to overcome a vicious urge to take my own life, I made a promise to myself. “Stop living a life of fear,” I told myself. Fighting back tears, I wrote those words on my mirror with crimson red lipstick. I strategically placed that mantra in a place where I could see it from my bed. I repeated it over and over, growing louder until I was screaming it at the top of my lungs, as if trying to expel the pain and sadness from my bones. It was in that moment that I promised myself that I would live without fear, or “Live Fearlessly”, my final edit to the mantra on my mirror.

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My first snow bike ride. #yearofnofear

It wasn’t until February 16th, 2015 that my #yearofnofear made it onto my social media page. I had used the hash tag as motivation to help me get over my fear of biking to work. Although I became a bike commuter in the winter out of necessity, not choice, I knew that this first triumph over one of my fears was just the beginning. While biking home that night I contemplated how my life would change if I forced myself to do everything that scared me.

Looking back, I can say that my life as I knew it changed that day. I made a conscious effort to change my attitude, which in turn changed the way I decided to live my life.

One thing that changed during my #yearofnofear was the amount of things I was able to accomplish. Whitewater kayaking. Sailing. Rock Climbing. Biking. Backpacking. Making new friends. Traveling with strangers. Traveling to Iceland. A month long road trip. Visiting Texas, Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Utah. Visiting Shenandoah, Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Reestablishing a relationship with my father. Online Dating. But the biggest reward wasn’t the amount of things I was able to check off on a list, it was the amount of confidence I gained while doing things I had otherwise thought was impossible.

Learning to roll my kayak. Punching through Cucumber Rapid on the Youghiogheny River. Ascending a 5.9 route with an overhang. Solo backpacking for a week. Traveling without plans in an unknown city. Traveling alone. Being homeless for a month. Living on a boat for a weekend. Biking to work for 4 months. Having a one night stand with no guilt. Making peace with my father. Solo Snowboarding. Applying for a new job. These were all examples of things that I considered impossible for me to accomplish. Yet, as I was able to overcome each one, an overwhelming feeling of confidence would come over me. Slowly, as my accomplishments added up, I began to own that confidence. Soon I felt more comfortable in social situations. I was able to hold more meaningful conversations and I noticed the type of person I was able to attract into my life. These were people who also had some ambitious plans, goals, or were just down for more spontaneous adventures. They were more genuine, wore their emotions on their sleeves, more willing to help you out with little to no expectation of having the favor returned. I was becoming the person I had always imagined, and that was the biggest accomplishment of all.

Along with the accomplishments and the confidence, #yearofnofear allowed my friends to follow my adventures, and to even keep me motivated. I had a lot of fun talking with you, answering questions, hearing your admiration, and even being heckled for some of my decisions. “Come on, Bigs, it’s your Year of No Fear,” as I was being called out by my roommate for not confessing my crush on a male friend, was one of the best heckles of the year!

Even though 2015 is coming to an end, my Years of No Fears just began. I’ve decided to continue conquering my fears as it’s become my way of life. My list of things to accomplish has grown. Singing in front of a crowd. Skydiving. Hang gliding. Ice climbing. Exploring my sexuality. Posing for pin-up photos. Dating. More sailing, backpacking, rock climbing and kayaking adventures. Hosting house parties. Connecting with friends on a more personal level. Allowing myself to become vulnerable. Overcoming my emotional ties to my parents’ divorce and my father’s abandonment. Living in a foreign country. Finding my sense of home. These are the things I hope to experience in 2016, and you will see it posted with #yearsofnofears.

So what’s next? In addition to #yearsofnofears, I have decided that this will be the Year of the Empress (#yearoftheempress). It’s not as catchy as Year of No Fear, but it has a deeper meaning. The Empress refers to a chakra archetype, one that relates to pleasure, well-being, abundance, sexuality and a strong emotional sense of life. These are concepts that, for the longest time, I felt unworthy of knowing or experiencing. With my increased self-confidence, I now feel that I can and should experience abundance, well-being and pleasure, and have it come easily.

What will the Year of the Empress look like? It will be deeper connections with friends and strangers. I will allow myself to enjoy life, unrestricted and uninhibited. It will be opening myself up to opportunities to experience abundance in material, financial and emotional forms. It will also be a time where I will focus on what I need most, quiet the distractions, refine my character and hone in on what I am meant to do in this life.

This is also the year where I will be telling my story. I will be divulging the unknown chapters of my Year of No Fear, I will be compiling my stories of the road and of my adventures both from 2015 and years previous. I think I have some interesting things to say, and I’m hoping that my friends, family and visitors to my page will concur.

As I begin to prepare for the new year and new adventures, I will leave you with this lesson that I have learned from my Year of No Fear in hopes that it would inspire you:

Fear is but a mindset. Fear is singlehandedly the thing that will hinder you the most in your lifetime. In trying to overcome it, you’ll  learn so much about yourself, and when you do conquer it, it’ll lead to a feeling of ecstasy and self-confidence. Anything is possible, especially when you change your mindset. That is exactly what I did that day, in January 2015. When I wrote those words, “Stop living life out of fear,” I made a decision to change my mindset. And in changing my mindset, I changed the entire way in which I continue to live my life.

Happy trails and adventures to you, where ever they may lead you in 2016!

To Hell and Back

On By Brittany BigleyIn Adventure, Hiking, Iceland, International Travel, Travel, Uncategorized, VolcanoLeave a comment

Hiking Hekla Volcano, Iceland June 2015

“Shit” I exclaimed, shivering in the whipping wind. I was on the verge of tears, but I couldn’t let him see me cry. “I guess we are in for a long night.”

It was at that point that I realized I might have been in over my head. Unprepared. Naive.  An over inflated ego. What ever you call it, I was feeling it as we both came to the same conclusion.

We had been hiking for over five hours now on Hekla, one of Iceland’s still active volcanoes, once thought to be the gateway to hell. Two days before the hike I had decided to hike Hekla by myself. After traveling in Iceland for 11 days with a friend, my last two days I was alone. This was the perfect time to try something new, adventurous, a bit crazy. I wanted to push myself and prove I could do it. Year of no fear, right?

The day before, without an exact location for the trail head, I decided to go and search out the volcano. From the main road it was a visible giant looming over life below. I thought I’d keep it in my sights while driving, and eventually with enough searching on dirt and gravel roads I’d find a sign that might point me in the right direction. Unfortunately, time and fuel passed by as I continued perseverating about hiking Hekla. By 3am I was still without a destination and running on fumes. About to give up and head back towards Reykjavik, out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign that said The Hekla Center. I quickly swerved into the driveway and realized it was an information center. An immediate feeling of relief came over me as I realized I could sleep in the car for the night and ask for directions to the trail head in the morning. I took one last look at Hekla’s summit as I curled up, exhausted, in back seat of the car.

The next morning, I inquired at the front desk at the information center as to the location of the trail head.

“Are you all by yourself?” the hostess questioned cautiously. “Will you be hiking by yourself?” again questioning with a nervous gaze.

“YEP!” I said with an overwhelming amount of confidence.

“Do you have the Iceland Emergency App?” she replied. I could tell she was trying to balance the fine line of being helpful while not deflating my enthusiasm.

This was not the first time someone had suggested this app. The day prior I was telling a gas station attendant my plans and he had asked the same question. I figured if the universe was telling me twice, then it was something to pay attention to. I asked about the app and she helped me download it to my phone.

“There have been a lot of people who go out on a hike and end up needing an emergency evacuation. Tourists keep emergency personnel busy this time of year,” she mentioned with a scornful grin.  Her words immediately reminded me of my mother, who told me not to die on my 21st birthday. I didn’t die but I was damn near close after getting my stomach pumped. She was putting negative thoughts out into the universe, and I didn’t want it to come back to haunt me. I thanked her for the app, got information about the trail head and headed to the car. Before I could leave the building a colorful poster caught my eye.

Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Civil Authorities (Almannavarnir).

Keeping the advice and warnings in mind, I made my way to the trail head. After turning off the main road, driving the single lane, winding and rugged dirt road through the ominously barren landscape was almost enough to make me turn around. Year of no fear, year of no fear, I kept thinking to myself. Finally, after a half hour of driving while debating if I should continue, I reached the starting point. Luckily, I wasn’t alone.

 

I pulled up to find one other brave soul parked next to the trail. We caught each others gaze for a split second, nodded and proceeded with our preparations. After peering at his gear, goggles, gloves, backpack, hiking boots, I felt a bit unprepared and nervous. I started to second guess my decision for wearing my Nikes and wool socks. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this?

When he started to hike, I decided to get rolling and stay near him. If anything happened, he would be close in proximity to help if needed. Upon further inspection the whole trail seemed to be covered in snow. I was regretting my decision to not buy hiking boots, but that thought wasn’t going to help me now.  I trudged on.

The trail itself was narrow, steep, and slippery, iced-over from the repeated thawing and refreezing. My Nikes weren’t cutting it, I was slipping and having to catch myself every other step. My goal was to keep the other hiker in my vision, he was my carrot, my motivation. If he could do it, so could I. Hiking boots be damned.

There came a point when the trail plateaued, and the hiker stopped to catch a drink. I hurried my pace to catch up with him and I did. We introduced ourselves briefly and went on our way again. At first it seemed as if he had no interest in hiking together as he hurried along ahead of me. But to my surprise he turned to me and asked if I would mind trekking together. I was relieved, but kept it hidden and responded with a simple, “Sure.”

His name was Peter, a forestry service worker in Germany, located in small town outside of Berlin. He told me of the occupational hazards and moving up through the ranks. Once he almost cut off his foot with a chainsaw, but all he could think about was how expensive his boots were to replace. He has since become a driver, a far less dangerous position. Peter was also traveling around Iceland on his 4×4 vehicle. He had it shipped over from Germany for the trip so that he could get through all of the F roads (interior, gravel roads that are usually impassable by regular cars especially in the Winter and early Spring). We bonded over our adventures and love of the outdoors. He told me of his adventures in Norway and the Swiss Alps, and I shared with him my solo backpacking hike with my dog along the AT in Shenandoah. We also talked about the possible eruption, and the 30-80 minutes window to get off the mountain. We joked that if we experienced seismic activity, we’d be rolling down the mountain to escape.

 

As we got closer to the top, our conversation was interjected with breaks to catch our breath, drink some water, take in the view and scout out the best route. By this time the trail was covered under feet of snow and we were improvising our way to the top. We were now looking out for signs of loose snow, hidden fissure and unstable footing. In order to get any kind of footing, we were both digging our shoes into the snow and using all four of our extremities to get to the next spot.

After about an hour of digging and climbing, we reached the summit! It was exhilarating to catch a peek at the surrounding landscape through the fog, knowing what it took to get here. Peter knelt down to touch the ground. It was warm. We took some summit selfies and bragged about how fast we got to the top. It only took us about 2 hours to reach the summit when the guidebooks said it would take about 3-4. The hard part was over. Or so we thought.

Orienting ourselves on Peter’s map proved more difficult to do. The fog was pretty thick, and it was hard to identify the surrounding features below us. He had a GPS, but it wasn’t working. We looked around for our tracks leading back down the mountain. A snow covered trail meant we had to rely on keeping our original footprints in sight to get back to the cars. We decided on the direction and picked points on the slope as our guide. Quickly, I realized this was going to be the most challenging part of the trek.

Even though we could see footprints, we were second guessing if they were ours. At one point, Peter and I were torn on whether to head the left around some crags or stay right down the slope. I had this gut feeling to stay left, but I trusted his judgement so we went right. About an hour on this path and we realized right wasn’t right at all. We took out his map, tried to orient ourselves again, picked a point to the left and trudged on. A half hour later we came to red markers and we followed them down the mountain. I was comforted to be back on a marked trail. But Peter wasn’t convinced this was the way back to the cars. He convinced me that it was a trail to the main road and that we should head to the right, up over some hills and we would catch the trail to the cars there. Against my better judgement, I followed.

In the distance, we could see a trail marker, a long white stick protruding out of the snow. Despite being exhausted and cold, this marker gave me added energy knowing that once we reached that marker it was an easy path down. By this time, Peter and I were silent. I was trying to calm my breathing and keep my thoughts positive. We stopped about 100 yards from the supposed “trail marker” only to find that the reflection and shadows at a far enough distance deceived us. I started to think about that lady at the information center and the Iceland emergency app. Goddamn foreshadowing or law of attraction, which ever it was didn’t matter and wasn’t going to help me now. I debated whether to send out an emergency signal with the app. My stubbornness prevented me. I didn’t want to become one of “those tourists” the woman had talked about with disdain. That was going to be my last resort.

Now, the sky was indistinct due to the heavy fog setting in and the wind was picking up. A light rain started to fall and panic set in. The wind penetrated my layers and my toes were starting to go numb. Peter took out the map one last time in hopes of orienting ourselves with some possibility of recovering the trail. After about fives minutes of deliberation, he suggested we start hiking towards the main road. It was the safest bet, instead of wasting more energy to find the trail. We could see the main road far off in the distance. At this point I knew that this day hike was going to turn into an overnight “adventure.”

“Shit” I exclaimed, shivering in the whipping wind. I was on the verge of tears, but I couldn’t let him see me cry. “I guess we are in for a long night.” It was at that point that I realized I might have been in over my head. Unprepared. Naive.  An over inflated ego. What ever you call it, I was feeling it as we both came to the same conclusion. We had been hiking for over fives hours now. I was mentally and physically exhausted but I knew I had to prepare myself and accept my fate for the evening.

We lumbered on silently. In my head I let out a little prayer to get us back safely and efficiently. We had now been hiking Hekla for six hours. As we stumbled up over a little hill, I saw the red trail markers. We agreed to follow it down, as we had originally thought it would lead us to the main road. Now the road was our new destination. We walked down around the hill and to our amazement we could see a car. My heart fluttered a bit. The car didn’t belong to either of us, but it gave us hope. We pushed further around another hill and there in front of us were our cars.

I jumped for joy while letting out a sigh of relief. We were both so excited that we hugged each other. It didn’t matter how cramped, or achy or cold my body was, I could see the end of this hike in sight and I was oh so relieved to see it. Peter and I looked like little kids skipping down the mountain. A few times we almost rolled down as we forgot, nor didn’t care about the icy trail. Within 30 minutes of finding the red trail markers we were back at the car. In total, we were on Hekla for 6.5 hours.

Peter and I said our goodbyes and wished each other safe travels. I was extremely glad I found him on the trail, as I could have experienced the possibility of being lost and alone on the volcano. I had planned this hike with the expectation of adventure for my last day in Iceland. Man, did I get it and more.

When the Perfect Doesn’t Work Out Perfectly Part 1

On By Brittany BigleyIn Adirondacks, Adventure, Backpacking, camping, Hiking, TravelLeave a comment
View from second vista on Giant Mountain

“You’re doing what?!” my mom screamed through the telephone.

“I am going backpacking on my own, with B-dawk in the Adirondacks,” I reiterated,  pausing because I knew what was coming next out of her mouth, a list of all the different things that could possibly go wrong.

“How will you get around? Do you know what you are doing? What if something happens to you? Do you know the kind of people that are out there? And what they are willing to do to a pretty girl like you?”

Silently, I thought of each answer. Walking. Kinda. Well, I guess I’m screwed. Hippies and adrenaline junkies. And no, what are they willing to do?

“Mom, I’ll be fine. Stop worrying.” a half-assed attempt at reassuring her, obviously to no avail. She continued on her tangent of worried thoughts, explaining that she has lived longer, has more experiences to pull from, and that I wouldn’t know how she felt until I became a mom.

I love my mother, but after a certain amount of time listening to her ramblings, her voice transforms into the teacher from Charlie Brown, incoherent utterances of something resembling words. My mind just blocks everything out until I hear a question or statement in which I need to respond.

“Hello, you there?” She questioned.

“Ah, um, can you repeat that?” Shit, she caught me.

“When will you be back?” Repeating her initial question.

“I’ll be coming home Monday. If you haven’t heard from me by Monday night, then you have something to worry about.”

My mother wasn’t the only one who thought I was crazy for embarking on this trip. My co-workers and friends all tried to talk me out of going, stating some of the same reasons.

I just have to do it, I thought to myself. I have something to prove to myself and to everyone else who thinks I can’t or shouldn’t do it. But the reservations of the people around me started to eat at my confidence. What if something DID happen? Would I be able to handle it? Questions about basic survival skills bounced around in my brain. By the time Friday came around, my nerves were working overtime. I had tripled checked the route in which I was taking, shared my route with a few key friends and family members, maniacally reviewed my supplies repeatedly until I was sure I hadn’t forgot anything.

My dog, BDawk and I, at the trail head before we start our hike.

I left for the Adirondacks after work, on a Friday evening, the sun setting,  an eerie start, almost like foreshadowing, to the adventure. It took six hours to get up to the Chapel Pond Parking lot, where my dog and I were going to spend the night in the car. When we got there, it was one o’clock in the morning and I had barely kept my eyes open the past two hours of the trip. My phone had lost service an hour ago, but luckily my GPS had continued to work despite the loss. I pulled out the blankets and cozied up in the back seat. My dog, who by habit sleeps next to me in my bed, had trouble trying to find a spot that was close enough to me. He struggled to find a comfortable position as I had trouble with nodding off to sleep.

In the morning, I was startled by the sound of French Canadian hikers, readying their caravan to start the day’s trail. Now was a good a time as ever to start, I thought to myself, despite having had an unsettling night of sleep due to the constricting nature of my car and the cold temperature.  I readied my things, double, triple and quadruple checking I had all of my gear and supplies for the trek. I grabbed my dog, asked the friendly Canadians for a quick picture, and we were off on foot.

For the first quarter to half mile, I was surprised to find that I was scrambling up rocks, definitely huffing and puffing, quickly realizing I need to get in better backpacking shape. This realization did not help my nerves. “Am I going to be able to make it all the way?” I scrutinized every detail of my experiences hiking, my present athletic condition and my current mood, as I climbed. Out of breath, I staggered up to the first vista. The first vista point was a nice place to re-energize, take some pictures and reflect. BDawk and I were able to look down and see Chapel Pond, the parking lot and the starting point to the trail.

“This is actually happening, I am doing this all on my own,” I thought. Although, I would have preferred some company, I wanted to do this hike all by myself. I just had to prove to myself that I can do it.

I heard the French Canadians getting closer, so I decided to continue on. At this point, I let BDawk off the leash.

After the first overlook, we came to a lake serenely sitting among the backdrop of trees on the mountains in the distance. The reflections of the fallen trees and debris caught my eye. After taking some pictures, we crossed a man-made bridge and continued to scramble up more rocks.

Although I was wheezing for air, things were going smoothly. I felt confident about the day, and the trip thus far.

Then BDawk and I arrived at the second overlook point on the trail…..

When the Perfect Doesn’t Work Out Perfectly Part 2

On By Brittany BigleyIn Adirondacks, Adventure, Backpacking, camping, Hiking, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

In order to get to the top of the second look out, there was a massive, steep, and polished boulder that needed to be passed. BDawk couldn’t and didn’t want to try and pass it. He had become spooked of steep boulders while hiking the AT in Virginia that summer. It was evident that the experience in Virginia had a profound effect on his willingness to climb. I continued to encourage him to climb on his own, thinking he would try to get up the rock if he knew I was up there. I even tried to help him, but his lanky legs resisted every inch. Suddenly, he became so spooked and agitated that he darted off into the thick brush, disappearing within seconds.

“It’s okay,” I reassured myself. “He does this on trails at home and will always make it back to me.”

Five minutes passed.  I continued taking pictures with my phone from the top of the vista.

Ten minutes passed. I walked around the trail and vista point to see if I could find him.

15 minutes passed. I sat, panicking, at the top of the vista, thinking about my mom telling me, “Make sure you don’t lose BDawk!” Damn, her and her fucking comments.

20 minutes passed. An old, stocky, weathered hiker asked me if he has a bear bell on him. “The bear bell would at least alert the bear, before he could sneak up on it.”

21 minutes passed. I’m frantically thinking about BDawk’s lack of bear bell and how that could prove fatal.

28 minutes later, I hear the jingle of his collar. A sigh of relief came over me, as I had just resigned myself to the notion of coming home without a dog. I tried one more time to get him to go over the boulder, to no avail.

“What the hell am I going to do,” I questioned myself. That was the only trail I had considered, my only option. Quickly, I started to trouble shoot. Thoughts of abandoning the trip popped into my head. “I’d feel like a failure if I quit now,” I thought. I still had something to prove to myself.

My mind immediately thought of the trail split, at the lake a quarter mile back. I took out the map to evaluate my options. At the lake the trail did split, the trail to Giant Mountain (which I was on) went right and to the left a trail to Roaring Brook Falls. “It is the only other option,” I sighed, disappointed that I couldn’t follow through with the original plan. But  seeing that I didn’t have any other options besides abandoning the hike altogether, I decided to go with it.

The hike down the trail seemed more difficult than I had expected. The steep incline of the trail seemed exacerbated by the fact that  I was heavy with emotions of anger, disappointment and anxiety.  I hadn’t anticipated my dog not being able to complete the trail with me, what could go wrong next?  In addition, each new group of hikers we passed seemed to rub it in that I wasn’t going to reach the very top, a subtle yet still painful dig at my self-confidence.

We returned to the lake and I took a minute to take in the beauty surrounding me, while trying to regain composure over my emotions.

I started thinking about my hiking partner, my ex-boyfriend who had been on all of my previous hiking and backpacking trips. He always kept me in a positive mood. But this time I had to rely on myself to keep my emotions in check. This time I had to rely on myself for every aspect of the trip. Fuck. I took a few more pictures to quiet my mind and to remind myself that I am surrounded by pure beauty.

We continued on the trail towards Roaring Brook Falls until I found a decent place to set up camp. After setting up the tent, I emptied the gear, organizing the necessities that I would need for starting a fire, setting a bear bag, making dinner and feeding B-Dawk. I was able to put up the tent and bear bag  effortlessly, a small victory since I had never been in charge of either task on my previous trips. These small victories kept me positive for the time being.

Finally settling in at my “campsite” for the night, my mind continued to race with thoughts of my incompetence. Swiftly, in a desperate rush to avoid the negative loop, my mind shifted to another thought.

“Fire! I must start a fire!”

I thought if I could start a fire and keep it going, then maybe I would feel less incompetent. To me, keeping a fire going was a matter of my survival for the night. The ground was wet and there was a damp, chill in the air. I was skeptical that I would even get a spark to catch, yet I scavenged around my campsite for any kindling that was remotely dry.  Then in the distance, I spotted a Birch tree shedding its bark, in large, papery stands, perfect for starting a fire. I grabbed two handfuls of bark, and returned to the kindling I had scavenged. Methodically, I broke down the tree branches into more manageable pieces, continuously thinking about how to start the fire. I decided to lay down the largest piece of bark on the ground and tear the other pieces into thin strips, easy enough for any spark to catch hold of it. I put the meager pile of strips down, hoping that my logic would work. I took out my zippo lighter (yea, I cheated, you backpacking purists) and struck the cog. Instantly the spark started to smolder and caught hold of the bark, creating a tiny flame that continued to consume the thin strips. Immediately seeing the flame, I felt a simultaneous feeling of accomplishment and urgency.

“I can’t let that flame go out!” I told myself. In my mind, letting the fire go out would add to insecurities and incompetence. I hurriedly yet strategically placed the kindling over the flame, hoping it would grow. Slowly it did.

For 3 hours I sat staring into the fire constantly thinking about life: my recent breakup with my ex of 5 years, a failed attempt at dating a coworker, a run in with a crazy man who threatened me and my dog with a knife 20 feet from my house, a recent car crash that totaled my car, an unstable father and his ailing health and the various emotions that went along with all of that. As much as I was nervous to go out backpacking by myself, I felt like I needed this time. It was time I needed to escape the crazy, to sit in silence and reflect on what had happened, what was happening and try to figure out what needed to happen next.

I started thinking about what all of these recent events meant. I started second guessing my breakup. Maybe I really did want to focus on a family, settle down and that traveling was not as important to me like it once was. I sat by the fire and let the warmth surround me. I hoped it would fill the emotional void I had in the pit of my stomach.  As the darkness consumed the light of day, the fire died down and the kindling ran out. I decided to go to the tent and read to quiet my mind.

I took out On the Road by Kerouac and started reading. I was temporarily comforted in knowing that Sal, Kerouac’s protagonist, would have been able to relate to my fear of being alone despite my quest to find solitude. I read until my eyelids became heavy and then disappeared into my cocoon of a sleeping bag to go to sleep.

Although I was heavy with emotions, I slept lightly. The mixture of the cold air, hard ground, and my own anxieties did not provide a good night sleep. In addition, B-Dawk, who was not equipped to sleep on the cold ground without a crash pad, was shivering profusely. He huddled next to me to absorb any heat from my sleeping bag. Eventually, I ended up giving him my jacket to use as a blanket.

In the morning, I made breakfast, gathered our things and decided to head back to the car. The three day adventure was cut down to one night. My emotional state and lack of gear to keep B-Dawk warm at night prevented me from wanting to stay any longer. We returned to the trail, taking in the beauty one last time before returning to our car. The remaining time, I decided to take a trip to Lake Placid, see the Olympic training center, and then over to Lake George just to say I saw it. I was disappointed that I was unable to finish the trail, get to the top of Giant Mountain and spend a few more nights out on the trail.

When I came back home, friends and co-workers had asked about the trip.

 “It was great!” I replied, lying through my teeth. It was better than telling them the truth, I thought.  No body wanted to hear the truth. I didn’t even want to admit the truth.

 REFLECTIONS ON THE TRIP:

It has been two months since going to the Adirondacks. Reflecting back, I can say that if I had been in a better state of mind and not dealing with all of the emotional crap, I would have enjoyed the trip. I have later realized that the trip was not as bad as I felt while there. The disappointment of not finishing the trail was the most painful part of the trip, but I have decided to try again in the Spring.  Most importantly: I SURVIVED! I was skeptical that I would even survive a night alone in the woods. I also learned some valuable tips about backpacking/hiking that I only could have learned through experience. Talking to other more seasoned hikers, it only gets easier with experience. In addition, looking back, it was a trip that needed to happen. I needed the growing pains as I learned a lot about myself, about what I want out of life, and my limits physically and emotionally. In the end, the trip wasn’t as perfect as I had expected it to be, but such is life, imperfect. It is the imperfections that keeps life interesting. Here’s to more life experiences full of imperfections, mistakes and the knowledge, strength and courage to overcome them!