The Aftermath of a Thru-Hike
A lot of Appalachian Trail adventures are shared, but the aftermath of the feelings & emotions of a former thru-hiker, aren't shared quite as much.
Post-Trail Thoughts
It’s not really talked about much… the aftermath of a thru-hike. People sometimes mention post-trail depression but even fewer really talk about it - the culture shock to the system of returning to the ‘real world’. I'm sharing my post-trail journal entries and voice over because it’s not talked about enough, how hikers feel after the trail - after we’ve returned to reality.
I wrote the first entry below on 11/8/2023. I knew the trail would change me, but I didn’t know the end would make me feel the way it has. I didn’t know I would never look at the *real world* the same again. And maybe that’s a good thing? I’m still trying to figure that out… but here’s an excerpt from Treats’ post trail thoughts in November (2 months post trail). And the audio accompanying it (labeled ‘article voiceover’ above), I recorded in December.
The second entry I began writing after I summited Katahdin and I’ve kept adding thoughts to it as they come ever since.
Neither of these entries are concise or super edited for posting, they are simply just the thoughts I wrote down when I was feeling them. Because while we all get to see the beautiful side of adventures like a thru-hike we don’t always gets to see the darker side, and I think that sharing both is incredibly important.
I shared an excerpt from these post on my social media and someone mentioned they were somewhat sad to read. They are. But I’m okay. I just find it’s important to not always see the beautiful sides of a life-changing adventure but also the struggles behind it.
11/8/2023
I keep putting off writing this entry, these thoughts. I think because I don’t want to come to terms with the way I’m feeling post-trail. Because I had hoped all my previous coping mechanisms would work… and they kinda have, but mostly haven’t.
I miss the trail. I keep thinking there’s going to come a day or a moment where this life will feel normal again, but so far it hasn’t. And this isn’t to say I’m not happy to be home. I missed my mom, I missed Zeus, my sister, my bed, my little shak, my town, my mountains, the normalcy of a schedule and showers and watching rain from the indoors. But something is missing and I can’t quite put my finger on the exact way to describe it but I’ll try.
I think about the trail often, but it doesn’t seem real. I walked for 6 months and one day it just ended. It feels like a fever dream. Like maybe it never happened it all. The numbness and calluses on my feet tell me otherwise. But it’s still hard to shake the feeling that it was over too fast, that even though I soaked it in, it wasn’t enough and I want more…
I walked 2000+ miles and lived in the woods for 6+ months and no one knows. This may sound weird because I’m not one who wants others to know my business, but I want people to know, I want the world to know, because I want to share it, even if it’s just so I can keep living it. But most don’t know and they don’t ask. I’m just a muggle again. I blend in with my pack on and showering regularly again.
Everyday I wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. If I don’t get outside, if I don’t move my body, I stay in a state of grogginess all day. If I run, if I walk, if I hike, I seem to shake it. My body misses the trail, it misses the movement, it misses the constant fresh air.
I thought I would come back from the trail being more compassionate towards others. I thought the trail had changed my faith in humanity… and it did. But it didn’t change everyone else… and I’m back to my old habits of avoiding people again. The trail laid you bare, you were all each other had out there, and everything else didn’t matter. I miss those people, those connections, and I’m still trying to find a way to see those things in off-trail people.
I wrote this caption back in November. It is now May. I guess I’ve *assimilated* back into the real world… but sitting at a desk still doesn’t feel quite right. But the trail and the life I lead out there also feels very far away.
It’s a complicated feeling, coming back from an adventure like the Appalachian Trail - one I’m still trying to decipher. But for now, I’ll just take every little moment of adventuring, of creating, of feeling the sunshine on my skin, of all the little good things that my heart still longs for that the trail provided and cherish the moments that I do get… even back in reality.
*I wrote the audio for this entry in 12/20/2023.
PostTrail Thoughts - After Katahdin
*I started writing these thoughts the day I finished the Appalachian Trail (September 21, 2023). And I added to it as time went on.
What nobody seems to talk about or tell you are the moments after you touch that sign. How it doesn’t seem real. How everything you’ve worked towards for the last 6 months is finally right in front of you and now that you’ve made it you don’t quite know what to do.
I did what anyone named Treats’ would do. I sat down with the sign in view but far enough way so others could have their moment, and I ate a treat. I then went back and took countless more pictures because I was here and hell yes I was taking every picture I could think of.
But then, the wind was starting to get cold, clouds were going in and out covering up the sun, and we knew we couldn’t sit there all day. I went and had a final moment with the sign and slowly started to walk back down the path we had come up, turning every few seconds to look back at the sign, to prove to myself that I was really there, that this moment was real.
Because just like everything else, this big huge moment, had just been a moment. A beautiful, wonderful fleeting moment.
But then you’re walking back down the trail, descending whichever trail you chose (we did Abol) and that’s it, it’s done. It doesn’t sink in. I know in my brain that we’re done, that I’ve touched the end, but it doesn’t sink in.
It doesn’t sink in when we get our last hitch out of Baxter to Millinocket. It doesn’t sink in when we get dropped off in Millinocket and walk through town with our packs on and covered in dirt. It doesn’t sink in when I get to celebrate with my mom with champagne from the van. It doesn’t sink on our last night in a hostel or the last big meal we have with trail friends.
It doesn’t sink in for me, for days, weeks after I’ve finished that I am no longer waking up every morning and walking. I am no longer breathing in fresh air every moment. Waking up to birds chirping and cool breezes coming through the mesh of the tent. It feels weird - like I no longer belong but yet this world is also home.
—we finish, we do this amazing thing and suddenly it’s just done. Nobody knows what we’ve done. We’re not noticeable by sight or smell anymore and suddenly we’re just back. With no one knowing what we’ve accomplished, what we’ve experienced. And it seems silly but it’s like we lived another life, as different people.
And although we’re not the same people who stepped on the trail back in Georgia, although we feel different after our adventure, the world outside of the trail doesn’t seem different … even as I drive through places I’ve lived for years and new things are there, the world overall doesn’t seem different.
In some ways it felt like time had stopped while I was on the trail. In others it felt like I had paused while the world went on.
It’s a slippery slope to talk about the trail after the trail. It’s all you want to talk about yet talking about it, just makes you miss it more, like you’re now in the wrong place.
For some hikers, it’s a one and done thing. This was their trail and their heart doesn’t ache to do more, to go back. But for others of us, (like myself) going on an adventure like this lights a fire in your soul that you can’t quite extinguish. And you long for the trail, for the peace it brings, for the sense of freedom, to be connected with the outdoors, to be relying on yourself and those around you. There’s nothing I’ve found that quite compares to the feelings and emotions of thru hiking. Nothing I can say to describe so people truly can understand.
The Appalachian Trail changed my life, and I’ll spend every day seeking out the way it made me feel alive.
‘Treats’
Appalachian Trail Class of 2023
