Almost, but not quite yet.

Well its June 1st! And… no I have not started hiking yet. Bear with me though, much has happened in a short amount of time!

Here are a couple reasons I have not started yet.

1) Snow. Most of the trails on Mt. Katahdin either just opened or have yet to open because of snow and ice buildup. I figure a few extra weeks to let this go down wont hurt either me or my chances of finishing.

2) This is the really big one: my hiking partner bailed on me. Its not entirely her fault—she couldn’t get enough money in time. With her job she never really could, she was just hoping for a miracle that never came.

I’m not going to lie, the loss of my hiking partner—the one person who had been alongside me since we started planning this eight months ago—was a big blow, but I’ve taken it in stride. However, this development was one that left me with a pretty significant change-up. Mentally, it’s an interesting experience knowing you would be with someone through it all, and then abruptly find out you’re going to face it alone. You experience a maelstrom of emotions very quickly, but ultimately I figured: You know what… oh well. I would rather hike NOBO solo but that’s not an option. I have already put so much time and money into this, I’m not letting it go to waste.

Through all of this I decided to push my departure back to mid June, allowing me more time to pad my bank account and mentally prepare. And by leaving mid June, my chances of pairing up with fellow SOBO hikers will be greatly increased.

What have I been doing to keep sane while waiting to leave you ask? Well, mainly its this super excited thing called working. But every once in a while we have a chance to get out and have some fun, whether its kayaking, biking, going to the movies or even a club, I try to keep busy, which brings me to a not-so-humorous story, at least the way I tell it, that explains the above featured image.

I went kayaking with my family on Memorial Day to a lake barely three minutes from our house. The inlet of the lake is rocky and fast-moving when the water is high, but running parallel is a slow-moving creek deep enough to paddle a good distance, so my sister and I paddled upstream and portaged across to the inlet. She wanted to carry each kayak individually through the woods, not wanting to make another trip, I told her, “Just do it like this!” Eventually we got to the inlet. Lo and behold, the water was not high enough, and we spent a good deal of  time trying not to get caught on rocks as we paddled back down into the lake.

So, this really is a short update but I wanted to let everyone know where I was and that I was still alive. I hope to provide some more interesting material (perhaps interesting material in general would be more accurate. =P) as I actually get out on the Trail.

Stay tuned! As I promised, I still plan  on putting my gear list out here at some point.

Anyways…

Peace out, thanks for reading.