Forgiveness Walks » Thru-hiking

It’s Time!

Regina — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:52:37 +0000

I just got off the AT having completed my Ridgerunner position. Those eight weeks on the inspiring, motivating, and scintillating Trail crystallized my commitment to creating and offering coaching and guide services for women to walk through our limiting beliefs and physically empower us to step confidently and knowingly into our joyful purposes.

My head is spinning with a tantalizing array of ways to do this! What I need now is some real women who can’t wait to go on a hike and have a list of “buts” blocking them. They’re ready to begin the inner journey that can free them to take their outer journey. I have the tools to facilitate that and want to have a dialog with women to create the programs and services to address this need.

Do YOU want to go hiking and think you CAN’T?

Contact Regina and let’s talk!

http://forgivenesswalks.com/contact-regina/

Summer hiking on the Appalachian Trail

Regina — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:23:56 +0000

The Appalachian Trail in summer is sooo inviting! This part of the trail on Cold Mountain, in Virginia, could be sporting Maria VonTrapp singing ” the hills are alive with the sound of music!”

Feel the freshness of wind, drink in the fragrance of tall grass,breathe in, no DRINK in, crisp air and sunshine! That’s the AT! Come join me! I’m imagining all sorts of walks that could be done to rejuvenate, to reevaluate, to reeliven! To explore! To try something new!

Starting this fall, I’ll be offering short walks in the Atlanta, GA area, for tasting the wonders of walking in Nature. I’ll also start a series of online classes to entice potential long-distance hikers to the joys of staying out for one to ten days on the trails in Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. Stay tuned! If you’ve always wanted to get out hiking but didn’t know when, where, or how, this could be the program for you!

I LOVE HIKING THE AT!

In joy,

Regina

Hiking: Make it fun the first time!

Regina — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:51:00 +0000

I love my job as a Ridgerunner for the Applachian Trail Conservancy! While doing my job, I get to walk on the wonderful, beautiful Appalachian Trail every day! And that’s not even the best part. The best part is that I get to meet people at trailheads who are just considering walking this path. They’re so eager and curious to explore this legendary path.

When I speak with them, all the memories of my months of hiking come back in a flood of grandeur. That feels great! Then, I encourage them to join me, keeping three things in mind:

For your first hike:

1. Make it EASY! Choose a path that’s simple to walk. Ask for a suggestion from another hiker, check a guidebook, or check a map with elevation information.

2. Make it SHORT! Go out for a couple of hours, then a day, then an overnight. Work up gradually to a week.

3. Keep it FUN! Take along food you enjoy, a liter of water for every four hours, and come back BEFORE you’re tired.

Get started gently on your treks and you’ll be building up to longer, farther, and continually better walks. I’ll see you on the trail!

Be sure to read my previous post “A ‘Thru-hike’ beings with short walks”!

Contemplate Earth’s Beauty

Regina — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:51:33 +0000

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
— Rachel Carson

My daily walks on the Appalachian Mountain ridges of Virginia confirm the validity of Rachel Carson’s words. As an Appalachian Trail Ridgerunner for the past month, I’ve walked the same 80-mile section of this famous trail twice. I’ll start out on the same section again today, monitoring the conditions of the trail, meeting hikers both experienced and novice, and basking in the beauty of the mountains.

Indeed, the more I walk the trail, the more I feel a deep connection to enduring qualities, those expressed by Nature. In the very rocks themselves, eons of slow change hold stories formed long before history began. In the trees, season upon dependable season of patterns hold lessons of patience. In the cautious animals – the deer, the bear, the lizards – I see Nature’s totems, reminding me to embody gentleness, introspection, and adaptability.

The beauty of Nature in these mountains is limitless, only requiring my attention, my willingness to take the time to walk the pathways set aside for re-creation. I join Rachel Carson in encouraging you to create time for yourself to “contemplate the beauty of the earth” wherever you are.

What are your thoughts about the healing qualities of experiences in Nature?

In joy,

Regina

Walk With Me

Regina — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:29:08 +0000

It’s a rainy, work inside day today! Sometimes, even a thru-hiker like me is grateful to have the choice of sitting dry at my computer, remembering, dreaming, and planning hikes.

Today, I’m remembering my summer walk on the Benton MacKaye Trail, a 300-mile journey through the forests of the southern Appalchian Mountains.

Enjoy this short video, put to the music of Here II Here’s Walk With Me.

On this trip, I experienced a true solo hike – I walked alone most of the trip. In fact, south of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, I only saw three other hikers – going the opposite direction! Nonetheless, I learned that hiking solo gives me plenty of time to go within, a journey that’s worth taking.

A”Thru-hike” begins with short walks

Regina — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:35:10 +0000

My hike of the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one trip started well before I set foot on the Trail in Maine. It started as a glimmer sparked by my dad’s unrealized dream when I was a child. I only remember him mentioning the Appalachian Trail a few times and I didn’t even try backpacking until I borrowed his canvas rucksack for a weekend trip with my college friends.

My AT journey started with the statement, “Now that we live in Georgia, maybe we could go see the Appalachian Trail.” My husband and I had lived in Georgia with our three sons for two years, and that casual suggestion inspired a Sunday drive to the nearest AT trailhead to our Atlanta home. That was Woody Gap, about 15 miles north of Dahlonega, GA. A couple of hours after leaving home, we arrived at Woody Gap where a gravel parking lot, a wooden kiosk, and a concrete block privy greeted us.

Nearby, a narrow trail beckoned us up a mountain, rather unceremoniously I recall. “This is the fabled Appalachian Trail?”, I remarked. As we entered the woods and passed a worn wooden sign that read Blood Mountain Wilderness, I noticed that the trail was just wide enough for one person. It wound up the mountain, rather steeply, too. Still, this footpath called me somehow. Within minutes, still climbing the narrow, rocky path, I started feeling a thrill of excitement.

Voices, and visions of hikers, began drifting into my mind. I tingled with the realization that hundreds, if not thousands, of others had gone before me, walking this same path! Legends like Grandma Gatewood, a woman who had walked the trail alone in her sixties, had stood right here! Now, here I was, on the Appalachian Trail myself! “If I just keep walking”, I thought, “I could go all the way to Maine!” I was hooked!

We only walked two miles up to Preaching Rock that day before descending back to our car at Woody Gap. But, my heart never left! I was lured by the AT like Ulysses by the Sirens!

It took another six years to begin my thru hike at Mt. Katahdin, Maine, but I as I look back, I realize that those years comprised a thorough and natural training for my seven-month walk. A few weeks from that first visit, we returned to the Trail, this time walking six miles from Jarrard Gap to Woody Gap. We had just one car, so my husband and I hiked alone in opposite directions, doing a “key swap” in the middle. I was impressed with how quickly that walk went. It took just under three hours, and I thought that the trail was simply beautiful! I was hungry for more!

Over the next three years, we hiked the southern 100 miles of the AT in 6 sections:

Garrard Gap to Cooper Gap (9.2 miles)
Gooch Gap to Amicalola Falls (24.5 miles)
Garrard Gap to Neels Gap (5 miles)
Neels Gap to Unicoi Gap (27.2 miles)
Dicks Creek Gap to Unicoi Gap (17.6 miles)
Dick’s Creek Gap to Deep Gap, NC (17.7 miles)

On each of these weekend hikes, we refined our gear, trying out new equipment, letting go of non-essential items, and learning the ways of the trail. We used a two-car shuttle system. This allowed us to take one-way walks, but required many hours of driving on the winding mountain roads of north Georgia. The 17.7 trail miles between Dick’s Creek Gap and Deep Gap required about 600 miles of road miles in the two shuttle cars! We were ready for more hiking and less driving!

Our trips got longer as our enjoyment of the trail got stronger. The next 600 miles of the Trail were walked in just 4 trips!

Arriving in Damascus, VA

Wallace Gap to Fontana Dam (57.8 miles in 5 days)
Fontana Dam to Hot Springs, NC (109.2 miles in 10 days)
Rt. 19E to Hot Springs, NC (114.9 miles in 14 days)
RT 19E to Catawba, VA (294 miles in 25 days)

My pack got lighter as I learned about lightweight backpacking and how to focus paring down the weight of the “big three”: pack, sleeping bag, and tent. I dropped the fanny-pack topper from my pack, bought a women’s length mummy bag, and made a silnylon tarp from a RayWay kit.

Our month-long section from 19E to Catawba, VA galvanized my love of the
AT and my desire to hike the whole thing – all 2,173 miles from Georgia to Maine. My husband’s job got more demanding, however, and during the year following our month-long section, we didn’t hike the AT at all! It was on a winter overnight to Springer Mountain that I crooned that in a year I could be completing a southbound hike of the AT. My husband responded that he didn’t really care if he finished the trail. My heart sank, but not for long. “I’ll just have to do this myself!” I thought. And the planning began!

At that moment, my 2007 Appalachian Trail Thru-hike began. I didn’t know then that it was to be a life-changing journey, both personally and professionally. And that’s another story!