In the picture above, you are witness to what happens when a ginger head lays unattended for five months.  Despite it’s inherent ability to repel women, the beard will remain an indefinite resident of my face.

But that’s neither here nor there.

Over the past five months, I have done my best to paint you a picture of what life looks like on the Appalachian Trail- with words.  Today, I paint this picture with, well, pictures.

The video below highlights some of my favorite pictures taken over the course of my five months on the Appalachian Trail.  I’ve been off the trail for less than a week and this slideshow already makes me feel super nostalgic.  I’ve been told that the AT will leave a permanent emotional mark.  I’m starting to understand this first hand.

Luckily I can tell people the tears on my face are merely beads of reverse-gravity beard sweat.

Quick side notes:

1)  All of the pictures were taken with my iPhone 4

2) The songs in the video below, “The Day is Coming” and “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)” are from My Morning Jacket’s latest album Circuitular.  I listened to this album no fewer than 30 times, therefore it has a strong emotional connection to the trail for me – thus my reason for the selection.

3) I saw a total of one rainbow while on the trail (photo included in the video).  It just so happened to appear while I was listening to Radiohead’s album In Rainbows.  Coincidence?

4) The video is actually much closer to six minutes. I didn’t think that “Five Million Steps in Six Minutes,” had the same ring. No need to point this out.

Enjoy.

Update: apparently YouTube is blocking the video because of the songs….trying Vimeo….stay posted.

Problem = resolved.  For anyone who’s interested, this is how you can legally bypass YouTube’s audio copyright block.