07/14/2026
Day 5
7/1
Connecticut behind me, New York ahead and somewhere between 3 and 4:30 that morning, the sky decided to remind me who’s really in charge out there.
There’s a particular kind of fear that comes with a storm in the dark. It’s not the thunder itself, it’s the not knowing. Not knowing how hard the wind will push, where the lightning will land, whether the rain will find every seam in your (water resistant tent). You lie there awake, saying all the prayers, doing math you can’t solve, bracing for something you can’t see coming. I’ve felt this exact fear before,
Out on the trail. That year we did the New York section of the AT, watching lightning split the sky 30 feet from where we stood, close enough to feel it in my chest. Some fears you don’t forget. You just learn to carry them differently.
And maybe that’s the real trail lesson for the final stretch. The AT doesn’t ask you to stop being afraid. It asks you to lie there in the dark, listen to the storm do what storms do, and still get up in the morning and keep walking toward the finish line. Fear and forward motion aren’t opposites out on the trail, they travel together. Every mile past a storm like this one is proof that not knowing the outcome didn’t stop us from showing up for it.
Somewhere around 4:30 am that morning the thunder moved on. You’re still here. That’s the whole point.
