Backpacking
I have always loved camping, a lifestyle learned with my parents during family vacations to NY state parks and through scouting. But backpacking had to await marriage to Chris, who had been introduced to backpacking by her adventurous father. In the summer of 1987 I conceived the idea of hiking on the AT with 5 of my sons, ranging in age from 6-14. Poorly prepared and naive, we set out to hike the NY section of the AT, some 90 miles. We scheduled a resupply at 40 miles (5 days) to allow Chris to pick up Daniel, age 6, figuring that by tehen he would have had enough. (He was heartbroken to have to quit the hike). We used the occasion for a massive equipment upgrade prompted by what other hikers were carrying. My older boys (9 and up) and I finished the remaining 50 miles and were firm converts to trail life, a commitment that lasted for many years, and for me, the trail still calls.
In July, 2004 I completed the Appalachian Trail at the summit of Mt. Katahdin in Baxter St. Park, Maine. The AT is a 2200 mile wilderness trail starting at Springer Mt. in Georgia, and traversing 14 states on its way to Baxter State Park in Maine. It is one of the most challenging back-packing trails in the world, and normally takes 5-6 months to hike end-to-end. I completed my hike in sections, starting in 1987 with 5 of my sons hiking the New York section, and returning most summers to bite off another 150 miles or so. Over the years, their summers were increasingly preempted by jobs or college, and I spent the last 4 years hiking alone. The physical and mental challenge the AT poses is second to none and offers lifetime lessons in perseverance, self-confidence, trust, gratitude, and wonder at God’s magnificent creation.
The summer of 2011 found me hiking across England’s “waist” on the Coast-to-Coast national trail from St. Bee’s in the Lake District on the west coast to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire on the East coast. It was memorable for many reasons: the beautiful Lake District, the farms of the Yorkshire Dales, Hadrian’s Wall, the North Sea, canals, and the many welcoming pubs at days’ end. But my favorite memories are of my hiking companions – my son Tim who joined me for the 1st week, and two Brits who remain good friends to this day.
Ohio has two distinctions important to me: (1) Three of my grandchildren grew up there, and (2) it has the Buckeye trail, a 1440 loop around the state. In 2006 and 2007 I spent a few weeks getting better acquainted with my grand-kids on the western and southern sections of the trail, delighting in both while Grandma Chris visited our daughter. It was also my grandson Noah’s hiking initiation, important because years later he joined me in Australia on the Bibbulmun Track. Finding camping spots on the Buckeye was difficult, more often than not requiring us to depend on the kindness of strangers – fire stations, roadside parking areas, trail-side landowners, and farms. The few state-park campsites we were able to get to were like luxury hotels.
Isle Royale is a 40-mile rocky island in Lake Superior within site of Canada, reachable only by boat. Boatels are situated at either end of the island, with a backpacking trail running the length of the island. It’s remoteness provides a unique and unspoiled experience – it has a small population of wolves and moose, both of whom either crossed the winter ice from Canada, or (in the case of the moose) swam from the mainland. In 2013 Chris and I spent a week there – her to enjoy the scenery and the nature hikes around the eastern end of the island, while I backpacked to the western end. I saw several moose near my campsite and heard wolves howling every night. It is a little unnerving if you need to make a late-night nature call.
In the summer of 2019 I was back to England to hike the Thames Path, a 180 mile path down the Thames River from its origin as a tiny spring near Cricklade in the Cotswalds, all the way through London to Woolwich. My 3-week trek included about 150 miles along the river through the English countryside, and the last week spent in London with my wife Chris and our granddaughter Mykah. It was memorable for the beauty of rural England, the historical sites that are part of our heritage, and introducing Mykah (seen here at the top of the London Eye) to the delights of London.
The Bibbulmun Track runs 1000 Km through Western Australia’s outback from Perth on the west coast south to the Southern Ocean and then east to its end at Albany. In September of 2013 my Grandson Noah and I decided to hike it over a month and a half. Hiking in Australia was a very unique experience for me: the air is subtly scented with the alien fragrance of eucalyptus trees; you see kangaroos, emus, koalas, and echidnas; venomous snakes are everywhere, and most surprising to us – Western Australia was cold and wet much of our hike, not hot and dry as we had supposed. Resupply towns were few and far between, increasing the amount of food we had to carry, but also creating a holiday atmosphere when we did arrive at a town. The Bibblmun track was designed to be Australia’s version of the Appalachian trail and while less than a third of the AT’s length, as a backpacking adventure it was near the top in my experience.
In 2015 my wife Chris and I visited East Africa, combining a missionary trip to Uganda with a visit to good friends in Kenya and a safari in Tanzania. In Kenya I climbed Mt Longonot, an ancient volcano with a 15 km trail to and around the crater rim, and in Tanzania I hiked up Mt. Kilimanjaro to the Shira Plateau – the farthest I could go without scheduling a guided ascent up the peak. Even so, it was an awesome hike. The mountain’s place in African culture as well as western literature makes it very satisfying just to have been at its doorstep, so to speak. At 19,340 feet, it is the highest free-standing peak in the world (from base to summit), Had I known how to arrange a trek to the summit before arriving in Tanzania, I would have been very tempted to devote the necessary 7 days to the ascent, much of which is required for altitude acclimatization.