I was excited when we moved from Bloomfield to Bath, back at the end of 1995, because we’d be living close to the Finger Lakes Trail. And in the spring, guided by my official Steuben County road map, I started thoroughly enjoying it. It must have been a year or two later that I pulled a membership brochure from the registration box east of Aulls Road on M13, figuring that if I was going to keep walking on the trail, I ought to pay something to help with the upkeep.

And on I went, cheerfully hiking, until late October 2005, when I started to feel – off. And on November 1 I crashed. Losing weight. Dropping blood pressure. No interest in food. Constantly falling asleep. Losing muscular strength. Forgetting things. And feeling cold – horribly, horribly cold. I’d lie in a warm bath as long as I could manage, but would soon be shivering again. Our cat was my best friend, pressed up against me as I lay covered up in bed wearing multiple layers of clothing.

Not much hiking in the spring of ’06, though I just managed to lead a hike uphill along the Mitchellsville Gorge. As we approached the County Route 13 my vision suddenly became like a photo negative for about sixty seconds, and that was the last hike. By June I had lost almost 60 pounds, and I couldn’t sit up without a chair back to support me. I figured that I had less than a month to live, and most of my family and friends figured the same. At just about the last possible moment doctors pulled the right diagnosis out of a hat. Addison’s Disease – a vanishingly rare wasting condition, incurable but easy to treat, with steroids twice a day to replace those that my body no longer generates. I started taking them on a Saturday, and on Tuesday noticed just a little spring in just a few steps. One August day I had an explosion of strength and energy, climbing steep trails all over Mossy Bank Park.

But that was it. Just one day. I ate again, I regained weight, I stayed awake, I no longer suffered that Dante-esque cold – but I was still worn down, and beaten down. In February ’07 our elder son Josh dragged me out to Penn Yan and Keuka Outlet Trail, and we managed a few hundred yards each way, despite a cold wind and about three inches of snow. After we finished I was shaking at Dunkin’ Donuts – not from cold, but from depletion.

We went back a week later, and we even got an early spring that year, with snakes and frogs and turtles and all. I’d walked the entire route (a rail trail) before, and with Josh’s help determined to do it again, and by summer I had! (Twice, in fact, walking out and back in segments.)

I returned to the FLT, and at some point I completed walking the Main Trail from one side of Steuben County to the other. (Twice) Then I decided that I would work very deliberately on my recovery by completing Bristol Hills Trail. I had done much of B3, so piece by piece I finished it below Bean Station Road, then went on toward B2. The BHT has a lot of ups and a lot of downs, and some are steep and some are long, so it was a struggle for a guy doing this in order to recover his strength. And in early July of 2010 I walked from the north and west into a little shop in Naples and celebrated with a sandwich for finishing the BHT. Once I’d hiked back to my car I gave myself a round of applause for having end-to-ended it twice.

It took me a couple of years to get the new Crystal Hills Trail done (twice), and a couple of weeks later I started on the wonderful Interlaken Trail, just finishing (twice) before winter weather set in.

Being alone in the woods and the fields gives my PTSD soul a world of good. But now… literally… where do I go from here?

Though my Addison’s is under control, I still only get a few hours of output each day, and that’s EVERYTHING – hiking, driving, paying bills, writing articles, washing dishes – whatever. So driving an hour, hiking for two hours, and then driving back, withdraws four hours from the bank for that day, which is pretty close to the limit.

Soooo… I re-hike trails, of course. I’ll surely do the Interlaken again, and probably the Crystal Hills. I’ve just replaced my maps, so I’ve already started doing re-routes. There’s much of the Greenway Trail I haven’t done, and trails in Keuka Lake State Park. I’m doing the Outlet Trail again this year (and I’m almost done!).

It’s a blessing that my wife and our sons are incredible supporters, and are willing to live with my limitations. I owe the world to them, and to Josh in particular for dragging me out that day… and to my doctors… and to the Outlet Trail… and to the Bristol Hills Trail. And to the Finger Lakes Trail, a footpath across New York [the parts I can easily reach, anyway], forever.