The state of Pennsylvania has a nickname – “Rocksylvania”. In talking to hikers leading up to entering this state, I’d grown quite nervous that my Bedrock Cairn sandals with over 1,000 miles on them would not be up for the task of stepping through this state. In fact, if you’ve been following along with my gear choices and the rationale behind them, you’ll know that from the outset, I knew there was a non-zero probability that I’d need to switch to trail runners, or perhaps even boots in order to make it through PA.
This post, then, is dedicated to a flip flopper I met hiking southbound in Virginia, who had started this half of his journey from the Pennsylvania / New Jersey border. We stopped and chatted for about five minutes. At this point, I’d hiked about 1,000 miles, and he’d hiked about 200. If you know me, you’ll know I’m not a particular confrontational person. After we’d been chatting for a bit, he noticed my sandals. His reaction was not a new one, however, it’s the reaction I more typically receive from non-hikers or section hikers. “You hike in THOSE?!” he asked. “I sure do,” I reply, “this pair’s gotten me from Georgia to here, and I’ve enjoyed it”.
“Mark my words, you will NOT be able to hike through Pennsylvania in those.”
Challenge accepted. I looked him straight in the eye and said “it was great talking to you, but you can hike your negative attitude southbound with you, I’ve got no room for that”.
I reunited with AquaDog and crew for much of the walking in Pennsylvania, and I took to using mental tricks to lessen the difficulty of the terrain. I refused to say the word “rock”, or acknowledge that they even existed. We’d joke about the immature grains of sand, the pebbles, but convince ourselves that it really wasn’t that bad. And to tell the truth, it really wasn’t! Sure, some days the walking was slower than I would have liked, but the reason for this is because we spent much of our days scrambling over a jungle gym of boulders. You will never hear me complaining about that!
My high school track coach, Devon Hind, wrote a poem called “It’s All in the State of Mind”. The whole team was required to memorize this poem, and beginning the first day of track season, the cohort of folks that had not yet committed it to memory got to enjoy running stadiums each day at practice. I was a part of this cohort until coach finally threw in the towel at about the 20th day of practice. Maybe you’ve noticed a theme here about people telling me that I have to do something or that I can’t do something.
I mention this poem because I lamented not knowing the words when I was hiking through Pennsylvania. Whenever the hiking was tough, I’d recall the title, adjust my attitude, and keep walking. I know it’s simplistic to reduce everything to one’s attitude, but in my experience on the Appalachian Trail, it rarely (if ever) hurts to be positive.
Cheers,
Billy
Billy Goes Hiking 