July 5, 2026. East Middlebury to Middlebury.
I thought about this all last night and then again all day today while hiking the measly seven miles further into Middlebury for my next planned AirBnB stay (legal camping options are limited).
My body does not want to do this. By “this,” I mean subject itself to another round of grueling 10-20 mile hikes day after day after day while carrying a thru-hiker backpack and spending most nights outside. Not for many weeks/months at a time, anyway. I finished my AT thruhike last year by hiking 800+ miles on an injured/swollen ankle, with the very last 200 miles also with a fractured toe, and my nervous system is going haywire right now. My body remembers constant pain management, even though I had many moments of pure happiness and joy, and even the seven easy and mostly flat miles today had my body recalling the pain from the AT. This did not happen on my training hikes last week. This is my body knowing I have planned weeks of continuous backpacking and tensing up remembering what happened last year.
I have a long list of USA goals which, combined, I call my LifeQuest. Specifically, my goals are to hike all the National Recreation Trails and visit and hike within all the National Park Sites, National Wildlife Refuges, and the National Natural Landmarks. The overall aim is to see and hike within as much of the USA’s natural beauty as possible, and also to visit a healthy dose of historic places. I finished New England in 2024, and my quest brought me to most areas of each state, and I loved it.
Hiking all the National Scenic Trails was also part of that LifeQuest. I have done the AT, the NET, the Natchez Trace (the trail itself, not the Parkway), and most of the Ice Age Trail. For all of New England, I feel I did not see as much beauty and variety hiking the AT thru those states as I did doing all the NRTs and visiting all the National Natural Landmarks. For example, hiking the Cross-VT Trail combined with hiking Camels Hump and Mansfield (NNLs) & driving to the northern NNLs immersed me in more of the gorgeousness and variety of Vermont than doing the AT through that state.
I guess the main thing I am trying to avoid in the future is running my body into the ground to the point where it takes many months to heal. I did finish my AT thru-hike (2200 miles), but my left leg still hasn’t fully recovered. I have extensive vein damage in that leg and hiking has always helped it, but hiking for many weeks/months on end while carrying a backpacker’s pack (base weight is 17 pounds) puts one’s body into survival mode, and my leg eventually rebelled. My cholesterol levels after the AT were still high months after finishing, and I never had cholesterol issues in my life pre-AT. I sleep well about half the time when camping, and good sleep is crucial for one’s health. There is a point of diminishing returns and potential bone density loss/artery hardening/joint injury when it comes to hiking long distances and health, and I feel I can better manage all of this by not backpacking for more than a couple weeks at a time or by slackpacking every day for longer hikes. I don’t think I can finish all the NSTs by only doing them in 160-200 mile segments. Not with all my other goals. The National Recreation Trails though, yes.
Of the 1350+ National Recreation Trails, many require backpacking – for example, the Mountains to Sea Trail (over 900 miles), the Wonderland Trail, The Tahoe Rim Trail, Ouachita Trail, and parts of the Pacific Northwest Trail. For the most part though, the NRT backpacks aren’t more than a couple hundred miles, and on most of those I can platinum blaze and/or do small miles without having to carry tons of food (doing less miles each day usually requires carrying more food which means a heavier pack, so fewer miles comes with a heavier pack trade-off). I will hike all of those, along with the many hundreds of shorter NRTs. So I am not finished with backpacking by any means. Also, I don’t want to totally eliminate the NSTs from my LifeQuest. Maybe I will do a hundred miles of each NST in each state instead. For example, a hundred miles of the NCT in each of the NCT states. That way I will still feel like I am experiencing at least a part of the trail in each of its states without harming my body.
That is where my head is at right now as I sit in a Middlebury AirBnB and try to configure the rest of my life in a way that keeps me as healthy and as active for the longest amount of years possible (I of course understand that many things are beyond my control in terms of accidents and illnesses).
All that being said, I do want to finish the Ice Age Trail. I really like the people of Wisconsin. Under 250 miles to go on that one, and it’s possible to shuttle myself with a bike and slackpack if I so desire.
Two more days and I am finished with Vermont. If I feel the same way by Crown Point, NY, I’ll leave the trail, rent a car, and finish the rest of my
NY LifeQuest including day hiking a various hundred miles of NY’s NCT.
