It is July of the year 2000. I finished my thruhike almost one year ago. It took me just under 5 full months, and I am happy I completed my goal. I still have mixed feelings about many of my experiences along the way, but that is a part of life.
Toward the end of my hike, I didn't want to get off the trail. I slowed down, took a day off, and enjoyed the scenery. I wish I had the time, because I would have kept walking to New Brunswick to finish the International Appalachian Trail extension that starts at Katahdin and ends at the Atlantic Ocean on the Eastern tip of Canada. What would another 600+ miles be after walking 2200+ miles already (side trails included)?
I remember my finishing weight: 180 pounds. I could barely use my legs for anything other than slow, steady walking. I had no feeling in my toes, poor feeling in the rest of my feet and lower limbs, painful trigger fingers in both hands, poor gait, a secondary arch in my Thoracic Vertebral column (concave instead of convex), incredible thirst, frequent urination, light headedness, continuous tachycardia with a resting heart-rate of 120+ beats per minute, hypertension, possible fractures of the 5th tarsals of each foot (I didn't bother with X-rays but the bones were definitely rotated 90 degrees to the sides.)
Unfortunately, things got worse before they got better. It took about 5 months for the feeling to completely return to my feet, but those 5 months of feeling were spent with intense stabbing pains shooting up my legs and through my toes. The hypertrophic muscles of my feet slowly atrophied to a normal human size so I could again wear sneakers. (Shoes still take some work.) The tachycardia returned to normal after about 4 months of medication adjustments and physical therapy. My spine is still not normal, but my osteopathic classmates have helped my spine return to a less extended posture in my upper back. This probably helped correct my heart rate and hypertension, as well. (Refer to medical textbooks dealing with the sympathetic chain ganglia.) I'm quite sure some of the back problems were due to the step-voltage I received from the nearby lightning strike on top of Franconian Ridge. I still feel fortunate that things didn't turn out worse.
Overall, I remember the time I spent with friends and the time I spent by myself the most. I worked hard to get to the end of the trail while enduring the hot, humid summer of the Mid-Atlantic states, only to realize that the best parts of my trip were at the beginning. My attitude became just as callous and focused as predicted by past thruhikers. I gained a new respect for the STRENGTH of nature to take care of itself. I have come to realize that the people who try to "preserve" nature are doing nothing by gardening. Yeah, it looks civilized, but it's not nature. The natural woods in Baxter Park were a thick, tangled mess of shrubs, trees, and vines, with briars and flowers mixed within. Huge moose ran wild and trampled whatever they pleased, trees and all. Large hairs bounced through the tangles as if they weren't solid. The flies and other animals seemed to have little trouble surviving in the unkempt forests. With all my bitching about the muddy trails of Maine, I have come to realize it was my favorite part of the trail, for the same reason I was annoyed--it was natural and I was still used to the civilized parts of the trail.
I show my photos to people and yearn for the ability to take them on my trek. Not just visit the sites, but actually experience the starvation, thirst, heat exhaustion, hypothermia, burns, bites, shocks, scrapes, piercings, and other uncivilized conditions. This is not to make them suffer, but to help them understand just how free one can feel after surviving.
Anyone planning to thruhike the AT, here are my only words of advice: Go hiking and camping a few times in the rain to see if you like it. Find 6 months for which you will have no responsibilities whatsoever. Buy as little gear as necessary, but get excellent, all leather boots that fit a bit loose. Break in your boots. Plan to do only 10 miles or less per day to start. Then do it however you want. It is worth the $3000 or less that it will cost to do it.
I skipped about 2 miles of AT in New Hampshire because I chose to go over the tops of every Presidential Mountain rather than around the side where the AT is routed. I am proud to say that I hiked past every single blaze of the Appalachian Trail from the Summit of Springer to the Summit of Katahdin without taking easier bypasses or blue-blazes. I hiked the Appalachian Trail!