My Story

So, where do I begin? I guess the beginning would make the most sense, but that's so cliche. But in accordance with trying to keep some sense of the stories to be posted here, it seems I'd better just start from the start.

It's summer 2009, I just graduated college and desperately wanted to do the "just graduated college" thing. Backpacking Europe was out of the question, because as I established in the first paragraph of this post, I'm not a fan of cliches. So what was I to do? Hiking the AT had always been a dream of mine, and I'd dabbled on multiple sections of it more times than I could remember. But I got out of school in late May, and a good Northbound start date was in EARLY spring. On top of my poor timing, my college handed me a couple of last minute schedule mishaps that set me 6 credits back upon my time of graduating, which meant summer classes (read: easy online music courses). So the timing worked out better to do a country-wide bicycle tour. I won't get into too much detail here, that whole trip is covered extensively on another blog (if you can find it). Let's just say that as soon as I started pedaling, all that kept running through my head is how I'd top the current adventure with the next one. Answer: thru-hike the entire Appalachian Trail. So upon returning from the bike trip I had a mental seed planted in the mind garden that I would soon hike the AT after getting some job experience under my belt.

Fast forward to about 5 days after returning from California via train. I'm at my old college visiting friends and sharing the stories of my trip, when I get a message from a girl whom I know of, but have never actually met in person. As is turns out we don't quite share the same circle of friends, but more so a loose fitting Venn diagram with my social life and hers overlapping just slightly. This intriguing girl is Ashley, and she is expressing interest in the AT and inquiring my advice about gear and such, under the notion that I have already thru-hiked it myself. While this was flattering, it pained me to break this "experienced thru-hiker information station" aura I had inadvertently projected somewhere and tell her I had never done it, but I planned to. As it turns out, it has been her dream to thru-hike the AT as well, and she offered her start date to me as a gesture for a car pool to Georgia, about a year and a half from our date of contacting each other. I was on campus anyway, so we decided to meet up and have a picnic lunch. The rest is a long exciting love story, needless to say now we are a happy couple ready to start a long and arduous but rewarding journey together in a matter of weeks.

I have been waiting for this trip to start for so long now. Never in my life have I known how long beforehand I would be doing something for certain. That day is coming up on us like a bat out of hell, and I couldn't be more ready. I give my notice at my job this Friday, and I'm glad to be doing it. I don't live by way of regrets, and to pass up this opportunity just to stay at the most unfulfillable workplace imaginable would be a moral crime to myself. I have no doubt in my mind that Ashley and I will make it to Maine, and I never will no matter what we encounter out there on the path. She's the strongest girl I know, and I stand by her over one hundred percent. There are no words for the excitement I feel when I think more than five solid seconds about this hiking trip, I just know that the next 3 weeks of work is going to seem way too long.

I'll end with a quote a mentor of mine put in my head a long time ago, it's simple and eloquent, and sums up an array of travel quotes I have read over the years:

"Process, not product."

Thanks for reading!

-Cole Bear out