It’s 10 PM. I’m three hours into a 12 hour nighttime snowmaking shift. My good buddy Clax has done me the favor of setting up a WordPress site. I open it up and it greets me with “this is your first post, start writing!”

For the first time, I’m at a loss for words. I sit in the spacious, loud, and dusty compressor house and stare blankly at my phone screen. Write? Me? Now? My eyes feel bloodshot. My body never quite adjusts to working nights. I feel like I’m functioning at about 60% capacity at any given moment. I suppose if I’m going to write about anything, this place is as good a place to start as any.

The Only Henniker on Earth

It seems fitting that I should be starting this WordPress site here in Henniker, New Hampshire. After all, this is where everything began. The town where I went to college, where just down the street I decided I wanted nothing to do with the degree that I’d worked so hard to get. There’s a river with a rope swing that my cross country coach jumped off of in November after we won our conference championships. There’s a ski area where I spent any and all of my extra time working and playing. There’s a studio apartment above a Chinese restaurant with no heat where I spent countless hours fantasizing about hiking the Appalachian Trail.

That’s where this all began, where my life so spectacularly slipped sideways. The AT was my first long distance hike, and they say you never forget your first. After I finished it, I couldn’t conceive a world in which I was not a part of the thru-hiking community. It “ruined” me. I let go any notions I had of ever having a “normal” life. Jumping from one seasonal job to the next, I simply craved the out-of-doors. Which, in kind of a roundabout way, brings me to why I’ve even bothered to create this website.

The Opportunity of a Lifetime

I really enjoy writing. It gives me a way to sort out my thoughts and express myself in ways I can’t do with the spoken word. While I was on the AT I kept a blog. I’m working on moving those posts over to this site, but in the meantime you can read them on the Trek. I also blogged for that same platform during my thru hikes of the Long Trail and Cohos Trail.

I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to do another long hike – this time with a group of folks called The Push Beyond. In 2020 we are tackling the Great Western Loop, a 7,000 mile route that has only been completed by two people ever. It goes without saying that I will be blogging during this trip, although the how was somewhat up in the air. While having a platform that was already set up and had a large following was nice, I wanted something that I could call my own. And so, here we are.

Buckle up, grab some snacks, and enjoy the ride.

the.spitfire