I was a backpacker more than twenty years before I ever entertained the possibility of competing in a triathlon.  I was about 13 the first time I strapped two days' worth of food and gear to my back and entered a forest devoid of automobiles, telephones or any responsibility beyond walking to the next spot and preparing my next meal.  When I was 16, I spent two weeks backpacking through the gorgeous and immense Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico where for the first time in my life I saw snow-capped mountains in the summer and ascended to elevations of over 11,000 feet.  It was quite an experience for a kid who grew up in the East.  Through high school and college my interest became a passion and grew into a need.  Every so often, I feel the compelling call to pack my gear, gather some friends, and head into the woods.  It's become part of my DNA.

Somewhere along the line it's gotten a lot harder to do.   Not physically, but logistically.  I often work well into my Friday evenings, attend my kids' sports events on Saturday, have church responsibilities on Sunday, and then enter back into the fray on Monday morning.  Most years I still manage a couple of trips into the woods, but it just keeps getting harder.   And this year, for the first year I can remember, it doesn't look like I am going to make it at all.  I had the trip to the Len Foote Inn that I described in an earlier post, but I'm talking about real backpacking, the kind of trip where there are no beds, no one to prepare my food and no permanent walls separating me from the elements.

(Memories from trips past - the Shining Rock area of North Carolina.  Again, I'm the good looking one.)

One of the many things that initially attracted me to my wife was that she'd spent the summer before I met her backpacking in Montana.  I hadn't encountered a lot of gorgeous backpackers before I met her, and within 4 months after our first date I popped the question.  My gift to her on her 24th birthday was a cold weather sleeping bag, and we spent our first Labor Day weekend as a married couple trekking through the North Georgia Mountains.  Then kids came, and now her equipment hangs sadly unused in the basement.  We often speak of that evasive "someday" when we'll hike the AT together.

Several of my like-minded friends have organized and invited me on trips this fall, but my schedule does not permit.  Today I sit in my glass cage looking out over the heavily wooded city of Atlanta, yearning to get to the mountains beyond.

There's almost nothing about the experience that I don't like -finding a map and planning a route, the obligatory trip to REI to sample new gear and buy high-tech food, driving with friends to the trailhead, the sound of my MSR Pocket Rocket firing up to boil water after the first days' hike.  Many of my most profound and enduring memories come from the trail -  reclining against a tree during a hundred beautiful sunsets, watching in horror and amusement as a taller-than-expected bear stood up and grabbed our bear bag and helped himself to our food, coming uncomfortably close to death during a surprise spring snowstorm without winter gear.  

The experience can be primal and perspective-shaping, pushing me down into the "physiological" level of  Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  Instead of worrying about whether my 401K investment selections will perform, I'm wondering whether I'll find water before the next camp.  For some, that would be stressful. For me, it's a rebirth.

But for this year I'll just have to remember adventures past and start planning for the next trip before another year passes without my waking to the smell of damp leaves and wood smoke, miles away from the nearest artificial thing.

(Dinner on the River in the Pisgah National Forest)