Beginning the Quest to Nowhere
Today, I decided to walk 1779 miles with 75 pounds thrown into a backpack. I heard about a “Walk to Mordor” challenge going around where people walk a couple of miles every day, tracking their milage as they go. The goal of the challenge is to one day reach 1779 miles of walking(the distance which Frodo walked from Bag End to Mordor), and then the people of TikTok can smile upon their trendiness and say “One does not simply walk into Mordor… but I did it!”
The trend seemed fun! I’m a somewhat experienced backpacker, and I figured it’d be a breeze. Too much of a breeze. I thought to myself, “That sounds like fun, but real adventurers have gear to carry.” Sadly, I have no swords nor armor, so I lugged out my brother’s old 75 pound weight vest from the closet, threw it in my pack, and set off. Well, not quite. See, I realized that adventurer’s also have a party. Therefore, I chose my Pomsky Mina to be my Samwise Gamgee. She needed gear too, of course, so I put a backpack with 4 pounds on her, and we set off on our quest.
I should clarify the rules of our quest before I get too carried away with myself. I was tracking my distance on walks, but I could only track distance while my pack was on. That way, any walking I did outside of that was equivalent to time that the adventurers of “Lord of the Rings” would spend foraging or fighting orcs. If I wasn’t carrying my gear with me, I wasn’t traveling. An adventurer needs his gear. With that rule in mind, I started walking. I was listening to “The Shire” by Howard Shore on repeat, as I had 145 miles to walk until I exited The Shire. Oh, by the way, I was keeping track of milestones so that I knew, at all times, where I was in Middle Earth. I figured, since I know where I am, I might as well check out a map to look at my route. It was at this moment that I realized, I’d be walking from the Northeastern portion of a continent to the Southwestern portion of a continent. It’s one thing to say you’ll walk to Mordor, but the reality was finally settling in that walking to Mordor would be no easy feat. The shire is a fair distance away from Mordor, and I was on the far side of it.
That said, I’m a college student with a summer to burn. Besides, how will I ever become a travel writer if I don’t travel anywhere (even if I’m only walking around my own town) or write anything (even if I’m writing for free)? My first walk was somewhat uneventful. I quickly discovered that it’s nice to backpack in Tampa. The homeless people don’t try to shame you the same way when you carry one. I saw one homeless man who was sitting beneath a Dwarf Palmetto outside a gas station. He had a backpack of his own, ragged clothes, and a book(which he was reading). He glanced up at me for a short moment, but he was ultimately paying me little mind. Even so, I gave him what change I had and went on my way. I would put a picture with him here, but I didn’t ask him to take a picture with him because I felt it would be insensitive. Writing about this interaction feels insensitive enough as it is, as it’s one thing to give a homeless person money, but it’s another thing altogether to parade it about. The man wasn’t a lowly hobbit for me to parade on display. He was a human being who was hurting. Even so, writing a journal means recording such events, so you all get to read my ramblings on the subject(or you can not. As I’ve said, I’m not getting paid either way). Instead of his picture, I’ll share a picture of my face as I trudged my first steps.
Backpacking Tampa also gives you a lot of time to think. I came up with a couple ideas for my fantasy novel and jotted those down. I thought back to my time canyoneering in Robber's Roost Canyon. I looked at the beautiful veins of sap running down the leaves of the proud Florida Oaks. Yep, I was bored. That said, I more than accomplished my daily minimum milage requirement to reach Mordor in a year. After doing the math, I’d need to walk at least five miles a day to make it to Mordor in roughly a year’s time. I’d walked, in my first day, 5.09 miles. I’d planned to walk more later in the day, but my friends needed help moving, so I did that instead. I’m glad that I didn’t walk any further, because I was more sore than I expected after that first day. I’d taken longer walks with heavier packs, but I knew that this weight wouldn’t be sustainable for an every day walk, so I lowered my rig down to 53.5 pounds for the sake of my back. With that weight reduction, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow will begin with a day two goal of 10 miles.
