Post B

Bill Bryson's memoir is a journal of his travels through the Appalachian Trail. Having gotten past his departure from civilization onto the Appalachian, I know everything he did, or wanted us to think he did, in preparation for the trail. It somewhat bothers me that he never wrote about practicing with a weighted down pack, or at least hiking without one. Being a backpacker myself, I know the most important thing you can do to prepare yourself for the trail is to get your body ready. In preparation for my own trip to a scouting reservation, I climbed Stone Mountain (Atlanta, Georgia) with a 50 pound backpack for 2 weeks in advance. All seasoned backpackers would consider this necessary for such an endeavor, and some would even think my preparation was not enough. Either Bryson truly did not prepare himself for his hiking tirp over the AT, or he left that part out of his memoir. He may have wanted to make his trip look more hopeless to the reader, or he might have thought that it would make the book to boring. Maybe this simply explains that he is an average middle aged man, and not a seasoned hiker who would know to prepare.