This article originally appeared on the The Trek which you can read here.
When my sister and I finally started out to hike the Appalachian Trail, we were a motley and mismatched pair.
She, an experienced athlete with actual backpacking experience and more chutzpah than you can stuff into a 60 Liter pack, and myself, an idealistic homebody working at a public library.
I romanticized the great outdoors found between pages of books by John Krakauer, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Bill Bryson, Cheryl Strayed, Lucy and Susan Letcher, Michael Crichton, David James Duncan, and all the rest. While my sister dragged me on actual real backpacking trips where I spent weekends in a state of heightened alertness waiting for a stranger or a bear to emerge from the woods and kill us.
Our first section-hike, 47 miles through the state of Georgia, did nothing to dispel my transcendentalist visions. But it introduced me to new concepts like dirt that graced my fingernails and shins, and how much uphill climbs suck.
“This is an awful lot of uphill,” I said once to my sister, thinking of those long stretches of meandering woods we’d traipsed through so often.
She turned to stare at me, “Myrt, that was the Foothills Trail. This is the Appalachian Trail.”
I stared at her as the impact of her words sunk in.
“It’s a mountain range,” she added.
I have yet to see my first Eastern Black Bear. Have not stumbled upon my first Copperhead or rattler luxuriating, stretched across the trail.
No grouse has yet erupted from dense underbrush to scare the crap out of us (though I have heard their groovy basketball dribble from afar). I have yet to be stung by a bee. But just the same, like you nomadic folks who can never leave the woods behind, I’ve been “bitten.”
I’m Myrt, and Walkie is my sis. Separately, Walkie is a petite powerhouse, and I would be lost without her on this trail.
Together, we’re the Yoga Sisters.
We start our next section in April, and in the meantime, I hope to explore topics that are new to me. My first section of the trail found me consumed with worry and doubt, but walking, just walking no matter how I was feeling, always took me to the next summit.
So, now that I know I can do this, this eternal walking through woods, I hope to share discoveries and explorations of such topics as nutrition on the trail, anticipated gear changes, and peeing in the woods.
Next up: To Bidet or Not to Bidet: On Packing Out Shitty TP
Thank you for sharing this hike with us, and thank you, trail!
Myrt & Walkie,
The Yoga Sisters
Rocks & Roots 