Dispatch from Harper's Ferry, W. Va. -- September 2, 2004

Within an hour or so I should be on my way out of Harpers (which actually does not have an apostrophe) Ferry after three complete days off.

My previous crowd has caught up, along with some southbounders I thought I had passed so decisively as never to see again.

The section of the Trail between Duncannon and Harpers Ferry, the two "psychological" halfway points for southbounders and northbounders, respectively, was a slow learning process for me on something I was beginning to fancy myself somehow immune from. That is the accumulation of long-term wear and tear and even, worst of all, fatigue.

The first to arrive, and most innocuous of all, were the so called 1,000-mile calluses. These have formed around my big toes, the "ball" of my feet, the outstep, and especially the heel. From the rear my heels look like Ionic columns due to the sheer physical mass of the calluses that have formed a ring around the heel. I see these as assets. They distinguish me from hikers of lesser miles and I insist they actually do make me more stable and harden my feet against their daily abuse.

My beard by now is also a bit of a medallion. The dark bushy wool on my jaw and neck immediately distinguish me from other hikers but also from any other nook of society. It is thick and full enough that I can take a rest from writing and thrust the pen along my jawbone and have it hang in the unshorn wool. The beard and the smell make it so there's no doubt in anyone's mind what I am. I am a thru-hiker; they're used to us. Some like us; very few love us; most have just learned to live with us in their midst but their appreciation stops there.

Most noticeably these days as I play the waiting game with my stiff, finicky knee, I am feeling the effects of long-term fatigue. I have good days and bad days -- good days where I still feel that initial maturity of hiking ability I first felt in western Maine and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This feeling is true hikers' high, nirvana on a daily basis, moving over difficult terrain like you're floating, summiting peak after peak, descending and re-ascending with effortless bounceback, your legs feeling like oiled pistons. Bad days are those on which the long-term fatigue manages to override your "wheels" and causes you to tire quickly, become unstable and arythmic, and as a result, irrational and self-deprecatory.

Anywhere south of Duncannon till where I am now, I have been growing unsettlingly familiar with long-term fatigue. It reminds me of the role that humility plays in a hike of this length. It reminds me that, while confidence and determination are what set me apart from the amateur night that quit in the first 100 miles, it is time to acknowledge the fact that having defied the odds so far, it's time for something to go wrong. Kind of like my eerily not-at-all rainy Spring in Maine made it hard for me to complain when it rained for 6 days straight in Vermont.

In 8.6 miles I will be within 1,000 miles of my destination. In a major way, it's about time something went wrong. I am going to hike today, but I'm going to keep today to 12 miles. Tomorrow won't be over 15. I may not break 20 again for a good while, at least until I am sure that my knee is sure of itself and its function again.

A friend of mine that I met in Bombay, with whom I've been e-mailing ever since, who has taken interest in my hike, wrote to me today reminding me of the importance of mindset and mind function with any ailment. Being static in Harpers Ferry for three days has gotten me in a bit of a trough, feeling torpid, useless, motionless, inept -- all the things a hiker cannot afford to feel. And especially my knee needs good brain chemicals to circulate as soon as possible. It is actually in the interest of my knee that I am hiking today, just to get out of this town that has held me too long now, where the cheapest stay is too much, where the phones get knocked out for days at a time, where my money evaporates. Today is a beautiful day for hiking. Even from where I sit, I can see the ridge I'm going to walk in a little while. Virginia for the next 540 miles.

Me, Bjorn