hikers Quotes

“To tell you the truth, I’m amazed we’ve come this far,” he said, and I agreed. We had hiked 500 miles, a million and a quarter steps, since setting off from Amicalola. We had grounds to be proud. We were real hikers now. We had shit in the woods and slept with bears. We had become, we would forever be, mountain men.”

“A significant fraction of thru-hikers reach Katahdin, then turn around and start back to Georgia. They just can’t stop walking, which kind of makes you wonder.”

“Talking equipment is one of those things you just have to do, like chatting to your mother’s friends in the supermarket. ”

“I hate all the technology on the trail. Some AT hikers... carry laptop computers and modems, so they can file daily reports to their family and friends.”

“When you’re on the AT, the forest is your universe, infinite and entire. It is all you experience day after day. Eventually it is about all you can imagine.”

“Sometimes he would be proudly bearing my stick, which I had left by a tree when I had stopped to tie my laces or adjust my pack.”

“Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way [...] fifty miles at the very limits of conception. ”

“Now here’s a thought to consider. Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. ”

“I like my rough edges. Smooth women are too easy to climb. I don’t like easy. I want a man willing to hike mountains for me, or I don’t want a man at all.”