How It All Goes Down
- Earl V. Shaffer was the first person to walk the AT from end-to-end in one summer. Before that, people doubted if such a feat was even possible.
- The other option for travelers on the AT is a section hike. On a section hike, one tackles small chunks of the AT at a time, which means that some section hikes take an entire lifetime to complete.
- All of that is to say that Bryson feels good about his decision. Still, he finds himself unnerved to be back in civilization amidst the "gas stations" and "Dunkin Donuts" of the world (1.9.13).