This is a blog!

Congratulations!
There are 4.6 billion web pages out there, and by some twist of fate, you wound up on this one!
It's pretty cool, if you think about it.

    Anyway, if you hadn't figured it out already, this is where I will be detailing the day-to-day events leading up to, during, and possibly after my 2015 Appalachian Trail thru-hike attempt.

    Given the spotty nature of cell phone reception and the limitations of lithium ion batteries, I'll obviously not be updating every day (at least after I start walking.) I will, however, try to update when I can.

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    So, I assume that most people reading this blog will be friends or family, and will already know me fairly well. If we haven't had the pleasure of meeting, keep reading for a few weeks. I'm sure you'll get to know me just fine! (Also, leave a comment! New friends are great)
For those who may not know me so well, I suppose I should introduce myself:

Hi!
I'm Alden, and I'm a 19 year old from North Carolina.
    I enjoy rock climbing, snowboarding, hiking, reading, video games, and savoring the first sip of a really good cream soda.
    Having completed my Junior year of high school a year almost 2 years ago at a fantastic boarding school in New Hampshire (shoutout to any of you Huskies reading this!) I found myself faced with what seemed like a Herculean task; College.
 College decisions. College interviews. College essays. College tours. College counselors. Everything college-y. Most daunting of all was coming to terms with the fact that in 12 short months, I would be in college.
    Now, there's a reason that the adolescent years of one's life are referred to as "the blunder years." And blunder I did. From my 7th grade diagnosis with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (more on that in a later post- Trust me, it's gonna be a fun one) to my 3-day suspension from school Sophomore year, I blundered a lot. And blundering, of course, is the best way to learn (which is why I still do it)
    Nearing the end of my summer as a rising Senior, I felt trapped by the collective weight of these years. I had spent the last half-decade of my life making mistakes, learning from them, and constantly trying to grow and reshape who I was as a person as a result of what I learned. It seemed so incredibly unfair that, come graduation, I had only 3 months to reflect on the ups and downs of this rollercoaster of self-definition before taking the next huge step out into the whole, wide world. I will always remember the night in early August, when I stayed up literally until the crack of dawn, thinking about all this. Around 6:30 in the morning, my mom came downstairs, and saw that I was still awake. At this point, I promptly burst into tears, and told her that there was no way I was ready to start college in a year. I didn't know how she would react; Would she be angry? Sad? Disappointed? Any number of negative scenarios were running through my head. Turns out, she just smiled and said something along the lines of, "Alden, we've been waiting for months for you to tell us that. Let me go get some coffee, and we'll talk."
    That's how I ended up taking a gap year. I graduated in May 2014, having committed to a fantastic school- Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah- and with an approved request for a 1-year deferral. Since then, I've taken a 90-day trip through Peru, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic with a program called Rustic Pathways, sightseeing and volunteering in hopes of broadening my horizons and learning more about myself (noticing a theme yet?)
For the record, I accomplished both of those to a degree I could not have hoped for.

    That brings us to today. 2:13 in the morning, on the 16th of January. Right now.
My room is a mess of warm clothes, camping equipment, and literature on backpacking the Appalachian trail. My goal is to be packed up and ready to start walking on February 15. However, because I cannot realistically expect my frozen corpse to show up at college in Utah and actually get a degree, I'll most likely be delaying my departure until early March, when cold and snowy mountain nights will be a bit less cold and snowy.
I suppose I should leave the details for my next post; It's late, I'm tired, and I've been typing a lot.

Old friends, glad to see you here!
New friends, drop a comment or Facebook me! I'm stoked to meet you.

Thanks for hiking with me!
-Alden