The Appalachian Trail – that world-famous 2175-mile-long trek from Georgia to Maine – teaches lessons to everyone who walks it. From what I can tell based on the stories I’ve heard, most of them seem to end with “hiking this trail has opened your eyes, and now you can never live in the city again.”

But the Massachusetts-based Eagle-Tribune newspaper found an incredibly articulate 21 year old from Andover to write about his Trail experiences once a month while hiking, and the most recent entry on trail lessons is a great reminder of why we wake up early on the weekends and slog our gear up miles of dusty trails for fun … or, maybe if you need it, a reminder of how you should be doing that sort of stuff more often.

Tags: appalachian trail, motivations