{"id":1601,"date":"2015-05-25T22:34:25","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T22:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aweewalk.com\/?p=1601"},"modified":"2018-04-17T01:11:24","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T01:11:24","slug":"the-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/?p=1601","title":{"rendered":"The end"},"content":{"rendered":"

I camped the last night once more on postage stamp of ground where it was hard to tell which end of the tent was higher than the other. \u00a0(That’s a problem when it comes time to lie down.)<\/p>\n

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Once more I put things back into their respective bags, and put the bags back in the pack in their appointed place in their appointed order. \u00a0It was a little sad.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Then I headed on down the road, 9.8 miles to the sea.<\/p>\n

This part of Scotland is bucolic and manicured rather than empty and haunted. \u00a0Most of the walking was on roads. There was little traffic. The sun was out and it was beautiful. For the first time, I zipped off the legs of my pants.<\/p>\n

I passed a farm in which a bunch of cows were running around in what appeared to be delight. \u00a0They got to the end of a pasture and went through a maze gate into the next field, all but one female. \u00a0She didn’t like the maze, but also didn’t like being left behind, and bellowed plaintively. \u00a0The rest of the group ran to the end of the field. \u00a0One of them, a young male, began bellowing himself when they reached the far fence. \u00a0He wasn’t happy that his mother was unhappy, so he led the group back. \u00a0He’s the dark brown one turning around.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>I went by a strange structure, of which I’d seen one other on the walk. \u00a0It looked like a coast-watching station, although it wasn’t in view of the water. \u00a0No idea what it’s real function is.<\/p>\n

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I went over a few hills, but the vertical ascent for the day was only 837 feet, so it wasn’t hard. \u00a0Coming down a single-lane road I stopped at a collection of trash cans (“bins”) for farmhouses up a dirt road. \u00a0A man drove by in a car and stopped. \u00a0I thought for a moment he might object to me offloading a bag of empty freeze-dried food envelopes. \u00a0But he wanted to congratulate me on almost making it. \u00a0He’d obviously seen other Challengers. \u00a0He told me that when I got to Stonehaven, I should go down to the beach and get fish and chips at a place called The Bay. \u00a0It was the best in town.<\/p>\n

So I did.<\/p>\n

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I was originally supposed to end at Dunnottar Castle, a medieval castle 2.5 miles south of Stonehaven. \u00a0It’s where the Scottish crown jewels were hidden from Oliver Cromwell’s army, and also where Franco Zeffirelli filmed “Hamlet” in 1990. \u00a0But the five-mile roundtrip would have taken too long, so I headed to the train station.<\/p>\n

But first I had someone take a picture of me.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>I took the train to Montrose and at 3.45 p.m. on Friday became the next-to-last person to check in after completing the Challenge. \u00a0Some things don’t change.<\/p>\n

That night at the celebratory dinner at the Park Hotel I sat across from a woman I have to tell you about.<\/p>\n

Her name is Heather Werderman. \u00a0At 31, she was one of the younger people on the Challenge this year. \u00a0She walked at least part of the way with a German man who was with her at dinner.<\/p>\n

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Heather is at the extreme end of the minimalist backpacking movement (although she says there are people to the left of her). \u00a0Her pack weighed 9.5 pounds without food or water. \u00a0Mine weighed 40.75 pounds with four days of food. \u00a0(I didn’t carry water). \u00a0How does she do it?<\/p>\n

She doesn’t carry a tent. \u00a0She has a tarp that weighs 1.3 pounds that she erects as a roof with her trekking poles. Under it she puts a \u00a0ground sheet that can be staked with the edges up so that water flows under it. \u00a0She has a sleeping bag that weighs just under one pound and comes only to her shoulders. \u00a0She wears a down hood \u00a0when it’s cold. \u00a0She carries no stove, eating cheese, cereal and snack foods. \u00a0(Pop Tarts are a favorite). She has a cell phone and carries a rechargeable battery, which is her luxury item.<\/p>\n

She goes hungry a lot. \u00a0She can never climb into her shelter on a cold and wet day and have a cup of hot tea. \u00a0When she finished the Appalachian Trail in 2011 she weighed 103 pounds, down from her base weight of 127 pounds. \u00a0She is one of about 300 people who have done the “Triple Crown” of American hiking: \u00a0the Appalachian Trail; the Pacific Crest Trail; and the Continental Divide. \u00a0The last doesn’t have a trail much of the way, and requires map-and-compass navigation at an average altitude of 11,000 feet. \u00a0The distance is 2,700 to 3,000 miles, depending on the route. \u00a0It took her five months, some of it hiking in hip-deep snow.<\/p>\n

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Two people have done all three trails in a single calendar year–a feat that requires walking about 30 miles a day, with only a few days off.<\/p>\n

Heather walks April through October. \u00a0Before the Challenge, she was hiking in Spain; after it she was going to Sweden. \u00a0In the winter she returns to her home in Bristol, Tenn, and gets IT contract jobs, which she bids for on the internet. \u00a0The work is not esoteric and the jobs are not high-paid, she said. \u00a0But they are enough to underwrite her lifestyle.<\/p>\n

“I like to be nomadic. \u00a0I like to meet people like that,” she said. \u00a0Then she added this: \u00a0“I hate walking. \u00a0I don’t enjoy it for the physical exertion. \u00a0I just like to see something different every day.”<\/p>\n

Long-distance hiking for her is a combination of obsession, worship, and mortification of the flesh. \u00a0She couldn’t be more different from me. \u00a0Yet I recognize some of all three impulses in my choice to do The Great Outdoors Challenge once, and then again.<\/p>\n

In any case, it’s over for this year. \u00a0Who knows if I’ll do it again. \u00a0I don’t.<\/p>\n

There will be one or two more posts of a family-historical nature, not about the Challenge. \u00a0But they might interest you.<\/p>\n

Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n

Oh, I almost forgot. \u00a0In Stonehaven I did go down to the water and put my feet in the sea.<\/p>\n

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I camped the last night once more on postage stamp of ground where it was hard to tell which end of the tent was higher than the other. \u00a0(That’s a problem when it comes time to lie down.) Once more I put things back into their respective bags, and put the bags back in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scotland2","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2530,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions\/2530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}