A Walk in the Woods

   I read a book!  This deserves a moment of applause since my "time to read" is less than small (and usually involves me becoming more sleep deprived or my house getting embarrassingly messier).  Yes, maybe I read the first chapter a year ago and only recently picked it back up to finish, but finish I did.

   My Mom loaned me this book after I kept saying how much I wanted to hike the WHOLE Appalachian Trail.  The book documents Bryson's own journey on the trail.  He shares the ups and downs (both elevation and emotional) of attempting the trail, and he often kept me laughing.  Bryson shares lots and lots of interesting facts about the wildlife, parks, and towns he encounters.  It reminded me of talking to my own husband, who knows many random facts off the top of his head, such as the highest surface wind speed ever recorded which was 231 mph on the top of Mount Washington.  Or about how the American Chestnut, which was once one of the most common trees along the AT, has been wiped out by a blight.

   What surprised me about this book, however, was that despite his obvious love of nature and respect for the environment, Bryson has absolutely nothing to say about anything spiritual.  For me, you can not separate the beauty of nature from the spiritual life.  God's handiwork is so evident when I walk through the woods, that I simply can not imagine hiking for weeks and weeks through forests and over mountain tops without stopping at least once to be aware of a being much greater than myself.  For me, hiking the trail would be a spiritual journey... one in which I am able to disconnect myself from my material possessions and distractions, one in which I could pray with each step I took, and one in which I would welcome the growth and change that might take place in my heart as I trudged for months through isolated trails.  In fact, he only pokes fun at a religious young couple he meets towards the end of his experience.  So, as I finished up the final page, I realized that I very much appreciated reading about his experience, but that the trail would be something entirely different from my perspective.  But this was a good thing for me to understand, because I think the trail is probably a very different thing for each hiker that sets out on it.

   If you have any interest in the AT, this is a fascinating book to read.  As for me, I still want to hike the 2,000 (give or take) miles from my home state to Maine.  Perhaps being a thru-hiker is out of the question, since finding 5 free months to go and hike is something very few people in our country are ever able to do.  But now that I'm finally starting to be realistic about that, maybe Justin and I will take our kids out for 1 to 2 week stretches of the trail when they are old enough to carry a pack and hike many, many miles.  Even that is still years away, so for now I'll enjoy our camping trips and keep dreaming about hiking the Appalachian Trail.