Back North

I set off for Anchorage on my birthday, and arrived 14 days and 6,226 miles later. Armed with a forgetful mind and an unfamiliar new camera, I managed to take no photos of the friends and family I saw along the way, and didn't really capture how beautiful much of the scenery was. However, here are a few snapshots from along the road.


The red rocks for which Red Rock Canyon state park, where I spent a night, got its name. I swear that the entirety of Oklahoma was flat, except for this one scar in the earth. Sweet scar, though.


A well-situated mission in New Mexico. After dashing across Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, the land of enchantment was a welcome sight. I always forget how beautiful that state is until I'm back in it again.


The smog in LA doesn't make for great breathing, but the sunsets do seem to be consistently good. I also caught one from Venice Beach, standing amongst the medical marijuana doctors and other characters, but forgot my camera.


This sign was posted at the front of my brother's apartment in LA. I stayed with my cousin.


A bit of the view looking out from my friend Virginia and her husband George's house on the Oregon coast. Up on the hill overlooking a bay, they were in a really beautiful spot.


Yep, the Oregon coast is awesome.


Sunset on the Oregon coast. Not more than 30 seconds after the sun dipped below the horizon, the clouds on the right began to drop rain on us. Perfect timing.


After skiing, wandering, and frozen-pond skating with my friend Seth in Squamish, British Columbia, I pointed north towards the real cold. The next four days the temperature didn't get above -30.


Once deep enough into Canada, everything was snow covered.


There's a stretch of Canada where a large herd of buffalo roam. Hitting one would not have made my day, but these guys seemed more interested in trying to conserve energy and stay warm than in wandering along the road.

When I pulled into Anchorage, it was considerably warmer - almost 0. Nice ending to a long drive.

AT Wrap-up

This is a much-delayed post-script to my AT journey, but I figure later is better than never. If you've got 15 minutes to spend, we put together a little slide show of some of the better photos from the trail. The first song in the slide show is called "Welcome Home, Son", by a band called Radical Face. I thought of this song often as I hiked. By the time we'd started hiking, I'd already been back from Afghanistan 6 months, and I'd only been deployed for 7. Still, hiking the trail felt to me like a re-introduction to the US, especially parts of the country that I'd forgotten existed. It would be easy to think of the route that the AT follows as traveling a very slow road from Boston to New York, then Washington, and finally on to Atlanta. In some respects this is true, and I think that one of the great features of the trail is that someone can be a hiker and, within an hour or two, also be a tourist in some of the biggest and most unique cities in America. At the same time, I was constantly astonished by the small farms and towns we encountered, not just in rural states like Maine and Vermont, but along the entire trail. More than that, I am still amazed to reflect on the kindness and generosity shown us by total strangers; people giving of their cars, homes, food, and time, often for no better reason than because it seemed like the right thing to do. I suppose that was the re-introduction that took me most by surprise; not to the greatness of America's natural beauty, but to the greatness of its people.