Final Thoughts

Growing up in New Hampshire, the Appalachian Trail and the White Mountains were in my backyard, and I often spent weekends hiking there with my Dad or my Boy Scout Troop. My involvement in the Outing Club began during my undergraduate years at Dartmouth, and it was while a student from 1974-1978 that my desire to hike the entire AT was born. Thru hiking had just started to capture the imagination of hikers, and only a few each year completed the 2175 miles. It would be another thirty years before I was finally able to walk that long path myself.
Life had other plans for my immediate future, which precluded following this dream: medical school, marriage, medical residency in Colorado and at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and raising a family. For fifteen years I had hinted to my partners in our Gastroenterology practice that I wanted to take a sabbatical. Adventurers themselves, they were willing to let me go. And it didn’t take much arm-twisting to convince my oldest son, Sean, age 24, to come along. He had just graduated from Middlebury College that February, had no job or immediate plans for one, so the timing was right for us both. In addition, my father (Paul J. Lena ‘50, DMS ‘51) had died in January, and now he would accompany us, some of his ashes resting in a small Nalgene bottle in my pack.
Our adventure began on “Step it Up Day,” April 14th, on the top of Springer Mountain, Georgia. We were greeted by a blinding snowstorm, inappropriately clad in shorts. As a result, our trail names were bestowed upon us by other hikers, and we became “Maine-iacs Uno and Dewey” for the next four months. Friends and family were able to follow our travels on our web blog, to which we would post pictures and weekly updates from internet cafés or libraries in towns. Occasional phone calls kept family up to date on our whereabouts and kept us informed of life in the real world.
We often stayed at shelters. These provided quite a social experience, where we found instant community and in depth discussions, which usually revolved around food. Most days we finished an exhausting 20 miles, barely able to cook our Lipton Rice dinner before falling into a hiking-induced ten-hour coma. Occasionally, “trail angels” provided a barbecue on a mountain bald, or left Whoopie Pies at road crossings or cold Cokes in a stream for us to find. Once a week we would hitch into a nearby town to eat greasy hamburgers or “Hiker’s Special” breakfasts. We became connoisseurs of diners. And along the way, Sean and I reconnected with old friends from North Carolina to Maine, many of whom treated us to “more than one pot” meals, cold beer, and sublime hot showers.
There was time to think, during those long miles in the “green tunnel,” to reacquaint myself with that Dartmouth student of 30 years ago who dreamed of a 2000 mile adventure. The daily challenges of sore feet, aching muscles, hunger, cold, and boredom served to intensify the joys. I experienced exquisite views, had mountaintop wild ponies eating from my hand, walked through a blooming rhododendron forest, and swam in clear waterfalls. Re-climbing the familiar White Mountains of my youth in the company of my son and my father’s spirit made this journey the long awaited fulfillment of a dream.
On September 6, 2007 our 2174 mile hike came to a successful completion on the summit of Mt. Katahdin, an old friend often climbed at home in Maine. After 144 days, 8 pairs of shoes, and 288 Snickers bars, we were home.