20 Emotions You Will Experience at the Beginning of Your Thru-Hike

1) When your family drops you at the trailhead and questions your thru-hike one last time:

2) As soon as you begin to climb Amicalola Falls:

3) Reaching your first shelter:

4) Meeting people the first night:

5) Listening to someone snore in the shelter:

6) When you get to Blood Mountain, you’re like:

Then:

7) When someone offers to shake down your pack for you:

8) Most discussions the first week:

9) Validating your ultralight (or not ultralight) gear choices:

10) Some days got you like:

11) But most of the time you’re like:

12) Any time you take off your pack:

13) Eventually “hiker hunger” hits:

Then:

And your first AYCE Chinese buffet:

14) You get back into town and forget how things work:

15) Finding out the Post Office actually closed at 1pm not 4pm:

16) When you sent yourself the same food in every maildrop:

17) Then you take your first hot shower on the trail:

18) Getting back on trail after sleeping in a motel bed:

19) When you find out Gatlinburg has free wine and whiskey:

20) By the end of your first two weeks:

lead image via