>>3904>>3905It isn't that bad! I love the hot and humid weather! 95F and 80+% humidity with a chance of pop up thunderstorms that cause tornadoes? Yes please. That's my favorite time of year. Anything before 70F feels like a freezer to me. In the dead of winter I hate it so much. Makes my bones hurt and I can never get warm enough.
Hiking is really really fun. I love it so much. Walking up and down the local mountains is my favorite thing in the world. I love it when I'm 3+ miles from the trail head and I meet a fellow hiker. I've yet to meet anyone that wasn't nice on the trail.
One of the things on my bucket list is to do a thru-hike that takes several months on the AT. A trail that runs from the heart of the Southeast all the way to Maine. Going up and down the mountains the entire way and camping out every night. I need to do it soon while I still can. I was going to go in 2020 but they closed the AT. By the time it re-opened I didn't have the money saved up to do it anymore. Since it requires several thousand dollars in funds you need for eating and buying other supplies while you're walking through multiple states up and down their mountains on foot. Need plenty of extra cash to walk off trail now and again to visit interesting towns along the way and sample the food in the local diners.
If I had the money I'd already be working on obtaining the triple crown of hiking in America. There are two other trails like the AT. One is on the west coast of America. It's called the Pacific Coast trail. It goes from the Mexico border all the way to Canada and you hike the mountains in California and the other states along the way the entire way. The other trail which looks the most interesting is the Continental Divide Trail. Which goes from Mexico to Canada through the Rocky mountains.
After getting the triple crown I'd love to go to Japan and do the Kumano Kodo and Shikoku Pilgrimage. The Kumano has tons of shrines to visit along the way. Most people no longer do it on foot because there are bus tours. But I want to do it on foot to see if I run into anyone interesting and would love to visit all the shrines. A few dedicated Japanese still do it on foot and I'd really like to camp out with them.
For now I just hike my local state park. I've been on every peak multiple times. It's amazing up there. I love sitting on the top of the mountain and watching people below go about their day. They look like ants and the cars look like toys. I always meet interesting people when I'm sitting up there and I love to meditate.
Also taking certain drugs makes it really fun. Before my hiking buddy died we'd often take things like LSD, shrooms, MDMA and other substances like that. I really need to see if I can get some aMT for an all day hike. I've heard it's amazing. It's hard to come by now and I only know one person that ever had some. But they've passed on now and he never brought me the little bit he promised before he died in a car wreck. We usually say on top of the mountain for hours eating food we'd hauled up, smoking weed with anyone we met up there and just having a great time in general. Then we'd come back down off the mountain and check out waterfalls and stuff in the valleys. I typically do 10-15 miles of hard hiking when I go.
Then I sleep really really well once I'm back home. Usually takes 2 days to recuperate if I over do it. I often stay out on the trail so long that it's well past sunset by the time I'm back to my car. I love sitting up on the mountain and watching the sunset.