Start: Pontboset/Finish: Bard, 6.2km, +173, -587
As I wake up early, I know today's the last day. I can't believe I'm saying goodbye to the mountains, but I know I've had enough. It's a strange feeling, trying to balance my love for the mountains and this deep sense of loneliness I've been carrying with me for a while now. At some point on the trail the alone-ness turned into loneliness, and my love and adoration of the mountains is no longer enough to overcome this feeling that is seeping through my pores.
So I know I must go.
I wake up far too early for such a short day. Heading out, the rain that fell overnight cleared the air, and the temperatures continue to drop. It's not cold just yet, but the air is crispier. The smell of woodfire smoke coming from some of the houses in the village is almost intoxicating.
On the way down
I take a deep breath, taking in the smell of autumn, the yellowing leaves underneath my feet. The chestnuts, all green and thorny, dotting the trail. And as I think of these things, I slide and fall. A nasty fall. My leg twists on the wet leaves. My palms crash down on the beautiful chestnuts, their thorns penetrate deep into my skin.
I take a moment to collect myself, do a mental check of all my limbs. All good. Nothing broken. My ankle, the one I've sprained two years ago, is a bit sore, but nothing more than that. I pick myself up, take a hesitant step, and within a few minutes the pain is gone and I'm good a new. Except of course for the chestnut thorns, who I will be digging out of my palms for weeks to come.
And suddenly, just like that, I'm walking on a paved road, and next to a half-full trailer park, and I'm at the river Dora, and it's over. I'm back at the Aosta valley, a few km up the road from where I started.
And it's already slipping away. As if it never happened. As if it wasn't me. There are old men sitting on the bench, looking at me, and I want to run over there and tell them: do you know what I've just done? I want someone to congratulate me. Someone to wait for me with some flowers and a medal. Something to mark the occasion.
I can't even find an open café to drink a celebratory drink in.
So instead I go to the train station and wait, on my own, in the deserted platform, for the train to Aosta. What an anti-climax.
And I can't help but think of goals, and fears and my inability to give myself a big slap on the back and a congratulation. I’ve done it. What this really is, it doesn’t really mater. It doesn’t matter what the plan was vs. reality. It doesn’t matter that the full trail should have taken me longer. I spent 26 days on the trail, on my own, hiking up and down and up again, doing what I wanted. I’ve dreamed of this with my entire body aching from want for so long, since the moment the seeds of this trail were planted two years ago, into the days of global pandemic and country-wide lockdown, when I've spent hours looking at maps and tracking down blogs, when the thought of combining the AV1 and AV2 into one full circle just wouldn't go away. Back in those days, it all felt like a fantasy sustaining me through a crisis, not like something that might materialize. I told myself to put it aside, to let go, but the more I tried, the more it held on, clawing its way deeper and deeper into my thoughts. I fell in love with the trail, and couldn't, wouldn't, let go.
And now I've done it. I'm dreamed it. I've planned it. And I've hiked it.
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