Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [2]
• The Trail knows neither prejudice nor discrimination. Don’t expect any favors from the Trail. The Trail is inherently hard—there is no easy. Everything has to be earned. The Trail is a trial.
• Leave your cultural “level of comfort” at home. Reduce your material wants while concentrating on your physical and spiritual needs.
• Basic needs—food, clothing, shelter? Keep it light, simple, and frugal.
• It is far better, and less painful, to learn to be a smart hiker rather than a strong hiker.
• Leave your emotional fat at home as well. Feel free to laugh, to cry, to feel lonely, to feel afraid, to feel socially irresponsible, to feel foolish, and (most importantly) to feel free. Relive your childhood and play the GAME of the Trail. Roll with the punches and learn to laugh in the shadow of adversity. Be always optimistic—things could always be worse; don’t become mired in the swamp of sorrow.
• If your goal is to walk the entire Appalachian Trail, then do it. People who take shortcuts do so because they are usually shorter, quicker, or easier. So where is the challenge and honor in that? We have enough of this in the real world.
• Expect the worst. If after one week on the Trail you can honestly say that it is easier than you expected, then you will probably finish your journey.
• We all have our own temperaments, levels of comfort, and thresholds of pain. If these are congruent with what the Trail requires, you should succeed on your pilgrimage.
What follows is an informative and inspiring narrative of a young woman’s successful traverse of the entire Appalachian Trail after she finished her undergraduate education. She took many of these snippets of long-distance hiking wisdom to heart, and she was granted great rewards of insight, beauty, and truth that will last her all her life and impact the people who have the good fortune to meet her. I’m proud to be one of those.
Becoming Odyssa is a frank and fun story of a young female pilgrim becoming more than she ever was before through hard physical effort, perseverance, and her ability to adapt and be flexible. She learns to appreciate the simple pleasure of flowing by foot, gazelle-like, through the magnificent Appalachians from Georgia to Maine. It is a journey to be appreciated and honored. Knowing what she has done since her maiden voyage of 2005, I’m confident this will only be the first book of her accomplishments in the long-distance hiking realm.
It is both an honor and a privilege to introduce you to Jennifer Pharr Davis’s story of becoming Odyssa.
Warren Doyle, Ph.D.
Director, Appalachian Trail Folk School
Founder, Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA)
1
LOVE
JUNE 20TH, 2008
ABOL CAMPGROUND, ME, TO THE TOP OF
MOUNT KATAHDIN, ME—3.87 MILES
Mount Katahdin is one of the toughest climbs on the Appalachian Trail, but you don’t feel it—at least, not like you would expect. Northbound thru-hikers who journey up the mountain are too consumed by the accomplishment, and Southbound hikers are too overwhelmed with anticipation to focus on the difficulty of the path. Hikers remember their emotions on the mountain more than its unique geographical features. It is a peak that has launched dreams and fulfilled goals. It is a summit that will change your life.
My wristwatch alarm went off at 3:30 am. finally. Despite my warm sleeping bag and soft foam pad, I had hardly slept at all that night, waiting to hear the rhythmic beeping that now filled the tent.
Sleepless nights were not unusual in this season of my life. I thought back to a week and a half ago when I didn’t sleep in anticipation of my wedding ceremony the next morning. Twelve days ago it was pure excitement and an unrelenting smile that kept me from sleep, but this morning, anxiety and adrenaline filled the darkness. In both cases my elevated heart rate and insomnia were the result of starting a new journey—a journey down a road that I believed I had been uniquely designed and created to explore.
Brew, my new