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I had a hard time sleeping the night before I left. No matter what I tried I could not help but going over my gear list in my brain, over and over and over. Had I forgotten anything? Had I overlooked some critical item? Was my body going to hold up to the strain? 0530 came faster than I had hoped, and my lovely Girlfriend slept in the car for the 2 hour ride to the trailhead.
I got out of the car, did a final check of my pack, drank 1/2 Liter of water, and started hiking. Immediately I hit a large hill, and I noticed the trail was nothing like I had expected. I knew that the AT was not a well cleared and smoothly surfaced hiking path, but I had no idea that it was as hard, rocky, and demanding as it is. By the time I got to the top of the first of many hills, I was already wondering why I decided to do this. A light rain had been falling all morning, and the sky looked like it was going to be coming down heavier, so I quickened my pace in spite of my already sore legs and panting breath.
On the AT you are rarely on flat ground, you are usually going steeply uphill, or steeply downhill, and they are both equally bad. The trail itself is rooty, covered in boulders and rocks, steep, usually muddy, and unyieldingly hard to hike on. Every step requires careful placement, or you will be going down. And in some places, a fall means bouncing from rock to rock down a steep hillside, or worse, right off a ridge.
