Hiking Log – Love of his life
This is part 20 of excerpts from the trail log which was located on a New York portion of the Appalachian trail. For the post which explains this series, click here. Each new edition includes a quote from a hiker, along with this writer’s insight into what the person might have meant. Your interpretation may be different!
Following is my selection of this week’s thoughts of a hiker.
12-23-18
Took a hike alone to spend some time reflecting on the love of my life! Hope to bring her back to this spot and show her this entry. What a beautiful spot. Almost as beautiful as she is.
Log Retrieval
For the last several years, my husband and I took an annual hike down the Appalachian Trail until we reached the box that keeps our trail log safe. Yesterday was 2018 log-retrieval day, and sometime in mid-morning we took off on our “mission.”
The trail log is located approximately a brisk hour’s walk from the road where we park. The first part of this trail section tends to be a bit wet, so someone installed a bunch of 2x4s to make the walking a bit easier. But once past that, most of the trail is very hilly and rocky. The first part of the walk is definitely uphill, then flat, then a bit more uphill until we arrive at the actual box (pictured in the photo on the right).
Is the trail log there?
There is always a bit of trepidation when opening the cover of the box. Did someone take the book? Was it ruined with rain? But I opened the lid and luckily found the 2018 trail log intact. It was still in the plastic bag with the same pens we left a year ago. Happy as could be, I sat down and read a few entries, starting at the end of the log since it was opened to that page.
Featured Hiker
And one of the first entries I read is the quote featured here. This person took at least a few hours to do a hike on this late December day.
As is often the case with hikers, reflection is the perfect use of brain space during a hike, especially when hiking alone. This hiker was thinking of the love of his life. Because this was written only a few days before Christmas, I wondered if perhaps he was planning to propose to her on Christmas day. And when he said “Hope to bring her back to this spot,” I thought he might have been wondering whether she would say “yes.” If yes, he’d be back with her, and if no, he wouldn’t.
So I had a brief dilemma. Should I leave the 2018 log in the box? If he did return with his love, and he went to show her the entry, it would still be there. But I quickly came up with a better idea. I took the page with his entry out of the 2018 log book, and I carefully placed it in the back of the 2019 log book, where it should stay safe, ready for his return.
Come back, hiker, come back.