Blood Mountain Trail Report

2,185 Miles Between “The Safe Choice” and Knowing Oneself.
By Neva Warren At fourteen, I didn’t see anything standing between me and hiking the Appalachian Trail. At fifteen, I saw Mount Katahdin standing between me and completing the Appalachian Trail. Months earlier, I had hiked 3 miles of the Appalachian Trail while on vacation in Shenandoah park, and decided that I wanted to hike the 2,185 miles myself. I read books about the trail (like Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” and Jennifer Pharr Davis’s “Called Again”), tried three different backpacks before finding the right fit, and went to seminars on the subject. I trained on the available terrain in Florida: the flat Suncoast Bicycle Trail, walking up to 12 miles a day, four days

On the very first day, I injured my ankle, but I refused to back down in spite of the tougher-than-expected terrain. I wedged sticks vertically into my boot to support my ankle, and continued hiking on the unpredictable terrain. On the fourth day, I hiked through hail, high winds, and ice over the optimistically named Blood Mountain. I arrived at the base of the mountain with frost on my clothes, weak legs, and tears on my face, but my resolve didn’t waver. In fact, I didn’t truly consider ending my hike until I hiked all the way to Pennsylvania. After hiking over 1,200 miles, I felt exhausted, and Katahdin still wasn’t in sight. I sat down with my mother and we discussed the pros and cons of quitting my journey little more than halfway

If I had known how much pain the trail would cause me, would I have started? I surprised myself by realizing that yes, I would still have started my hike even if I had known that it would be the most difficult thing I’d ever done. My mother told me, “Never quit on a bad day”, advice that I took to heart. If I had quit every time I felt tired, I wouldn’t have won the USA Cycling Championship when I was nine, nor gone on to the world championships of bicycle motocross to compete. I weathered every storm, every twisted ankle and scraped knee with a renewed belief in myself. I decided to partner with a group called “Hike for Mental Health,” raising money for mental health research and to end the stigma surrounding mental illness. I made new friends with other hikers, though the crowd grew sparser as hikers quit from the immense strain. I continued my hike, summiting the 6,289-foot-tall Mount Washington, descending a stone climb in the dark, only feet away from a raging waterfall, steeling my nerves to make it to Katahdin, the northern terminus. On October 22nd, 2013, I successfully completed my 2,185-mile