In 1983, at the age of twenty-four, I was working as the entire overnight shift at a gas station in New Haven, Connecticut. The endless nights dragged on. I gradually came to feel trapped, living in a tiny world where it always was nighttime. By mid-April I was fed up. The next morning, I gave my two weeks’ notice. Two weeks and a couple of days later, I was hiking the Appalachian trail.

I had intended to begin hiking the Appalachian Trail for the second time in March 2025, forty-two years after my 1983 thru-hike. That was a long and convoluted journey, but nothing compared to the twists that brought me to the realization that I wanted to do it all again in my sixties. I will probably write up a long-story-short version of that for my next post, but I am more interested in posting trail stories and trail pics here. If I create that second post it will be the last until the hiking begins this April.