Tony's Hiking Adventure
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It was either sit in a chair and vegetate or get out and do something, so I chose the latter. Since retiring ten years ago (1/30/2015), I’ve sailed small boats three times to the Virgin Islands and Antigua (once through a hurricane), chartered a sailboat with family and friends in the Virgin Islands, visited Italy for a total of seven weeks and Paris for a week, hiked 1,946 miles of the Appalachian Trail, through hiked the 485 mile Colorado Trail and the 800 mile Arizona Trail and hiked over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. I, also, went on numerous other small adventures. It’s been fun so far, and I’m looking forward to more hiking, sailing and traveling.
The year 2021 was another year with the coronavirus. Although fully vaccinated, I contracted Covid 19 in July while in Maine to hike the last part of the Appalachian Trail. Stuck in Andover, Maine with no medical facilities or practicing doctors, my latest attempt to complete the AT was thwarted again. I went home after a week and twenty-one miles of hiking. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be able to complete the trail while still physically capable of hiking the tough Maine terrain. Time will tell.
Travel in 2022 got easier. Airline restrictions loosened. And although Covid 19 vaccines do not stop infection, the infection symptoms are not as severe, which I found out in Maine.
My plans to finish the Appalachian Trail are on hold for now. Two goals to hike part of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and through hike the Tahoe Rim Trail around Lake Tahoe have moved to the front of my priorities. Unfortunately, I started the PCT at the end of April 2022 and promptly sprained my ankle. The next day I tore a tendon in the same leg, and I had to get off the trail. After nearly a year of physical therapy and exercise to strengthen my left ankle to compensate for the loss of the tendon, I rejoined the PCT in 2023 at the spot where I was forced off in 2022 due to my injury. My hiking goal was Kennedy Meadows South. I bested that and ended up doing 750 mile. In 2024 I hiked 275 more miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in the state of Washington. My goal was to do all of Washington and Oregon. Unfortunately, forest fires put an early end to those plans after I was evacuated off the trail for the second time. Oh, well. There is always next year.
I’m not sure what I’ll be doing in 2025, but it won’t be sitting around that’s for sure.
