Aaron Unscripted A blog about technology, the great outdoors, and other musings…

Reflections on the CDT

I've been meaning to get around to this post. A post on the reflections I have had about my CDT attempt. It seems there have been a few different waves of thought and reflections have changed as time has passed.  I will try to capture some of those waves I have encountered, however tainted those views have become as my thoughts and ideas have progressed.

On returning, It took me a lot longer to recover then I thought it would. My digestion didn't change for weeks, and only after I started a strict session of eating "paleo" did it really start to turn for the better. My initial ideas where that I would return somewhere down the trail to catch up, or to at least get to some more scenic parts of the CDT. It wasn't until I started going back to the gym that I notice just how physically draining getting sick had taken from me. My strength and conditioning was destroyed. I don't know when, but at some point early on the idea of returning to the CDT just slipped from my thoughts.

I had been following the progress of everyone I had started the hike with loosely. Social sites like Facebook really make the task an afterthought. I do recall a moment in October some time. I had come upon one of those FB updates, and I thought about just how long they had been hiking, and how many things I had gone and done (although trying to think of the things I did... I can't really think of anything substantial). At that moment I came to realize that I may have had a lot more of a romantic idea or thought on my journey,  a walk in the woods from Canada to Mexico.  Later, I remember having parallel thoughts while having a conversation with a friend and tattoo artist while my friend was getting some ink done. It was a meandering  conversation touching on a lot of things dealing with the business of tattoos and types of clients that the artist worked with. The tattoo artist made the comment about how many people are simple in love with the idea of a tattoo, and not with the rest of the things that go with getting a tattoo itself, like the pain you go through, or the lifetime commitment.  Perhaps I am more in love with the idea of backpacking to such an extreme, but not nearly as committed to the rest of the things that it requires.  Don't get me wrong, I do love backpacking, but my love is only in the capacity of witch I have done it. The extreme I have gone to (thus far) is a distance of just over a hundred miles and a duration of a week and a half. I wonder how far I could push it before my love dissipates.

In following my friends trip, their journals seemed so repetitive, the themes, and the excitement they communicated. I found myself forcing my way through some of them, easily sidetracked onto other things. There was something missing. I try to put my finger on it but it seems a bit fuzzy, and perhaps I can get my hands on it but it still seems to allude me.  I think I have this idea that it would be supper cool to travel these remote areas, and to see the towns along the way. The problem comes when I try to think about the time frame in doing so. On one side, on foot, the process is long and slow. On the other side, you are constantly on the move pushing the journey forward never able to take in a location, in essence it's moving fast. It's a strange contrast. Enjoy the journey, or have the presents to take in the location. Somehow this contrast makes for dull repetitive accounts, if not also a dull repetitive adventure.

For some of the above reasons I may have the making of a section hiker over a through hiker.

I have some media from the hike, mostly video, not many pictures. I'm not very content with the way I ended up documenting my trip. First of all, I don't really have a clue how to edit down and use my video. It's at 1080p, very crisp and you can see a lot of detail, but it's really not in a useful format. It doesn't fit a model for me to easily share it. The sharing part being a large reason for me to be on the hike. I'm not sure if any of it will see much of the light of day. In hindsight, I think It may have been much more... in some sense, to just leave the camcorder and only take the camera (it also does video). I also wish I would have written more in the moment, and not in a capture-of-the-events-that-just-took-place or hindsight style. I think in the moment is hard to make a habit of. I would put it off because I ether thought I didn't have enough to write yet, or I felt too exhausted to write it all down. The two have a way of feeding off each other. I also would of liked having a bit more voice time with the camera instead of silent shots.  Perhaps creating this habit before I took off for the trip would have worked out better, not to mention capturing the planning and preparation phases.

In the end, I had an absolutely amazing experience. I would totally do that trip again. However, I'm still up in the air about ever getting around to through hiking the CDT.