For three years, my dad prepared to hike the Appalachian Trail. For three years, he mulled over the gear he would carry, test-ran dehydrated meals and instant coffee brands, did trial runs in a sleeping bag in his frostbitten Ohio backyard and watched thousands of hours of other hikers vlogging their A.T. adventures.

Each summer, we took section hikes where he got a feel for his trail legs, his boots, his water filtration system, and worked out the perils of carrying one’s home around in a backpack. One year, in upstate New York, my bear bag was plucked from a tree limb by a cub and devoured; another year, we encountered wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands of Virginia. We sat on cliffs chewing strips of bison and dried mango and fell asleep to crackling logs and other campers’ snores.

Each time, despite disagreements and missed trail blazes, some new line of communication was opened, something from years of estrangement repaired.

On Jan. 2 of this year, my 66-year-old dad retired from his job as an engineer in the auto industry. On Feb, 10, after dropping his car and supplies for restocking at my house in New Orleans, he took a flight to Georgia and made his way toward Springer Mountain. There, at the threshold of the trailhead, he registered his name, extra-early in the season, and hiked the first of the A.T.’s 2,193 miles.