@Mik said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

That's pretty elitist-metaphysical.

It's the freaking AT. I'm not talking about what some day-hiker should do, every time they go out in the woods. I sure as hell look forward to diner food once I get done a day-long walk. I'm talking about a certain kind of through-hike.

I know quite a few through-hikers (and far more would-bes). A great many would-bes feel stuck in their lives, and they have this idea that they'll go hike the AT to find themselves. That's a very common reason you'll come across.

A fine idea—we've been doing that sort of thing for tens of thousands of years—but if that's the goal, then you need to take that seriously. You need to keep the phone at home and stay out in the forest. Civilization is what put you in this existential crisis in the first place; freaking commit to the very place you went to find answers.

Fun hikes or doing the thing for the challenge is ay-okay. You're not obligated to have an existential experience when you do the AT. But a lot of folks go there explicitly for that, and either give up or come back finding out nothing about themselves because they didn't take that process seriously.

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