Re: [at-l] Tuba guy

Got in.  Here it is.

Chainsaw




Tuesday, October 31, 2000
A brass accompaniment to his journey
Hiker's Charisma lends a little oompah to his long trek

When he reaches Springer Mountain in Georgia this winter, Scott Rimm-Hewitt
just might be the first tuba-assisted thru -hiker of the Appalachian Trail.

By ISAK HOWELL
The Roanoke Times

   INTERIOR - It was a sparkling autumn day along the Appalachian Trail, the
silence interrupted only by the clacking of the falling leaves, the ripple
of Stony Creek and the deep, brassy tones of a bass tuba. Trout anglers down
the road looked off into the trees, wondering how a symphony had landed in
this remote Giles County valley.

    It was Scott Rimm-Hewitt, standing on the footbridge over the creek and
blowing a rendition of "Linus and Lucy" through the hemlock stands. The Boca
Raton, Fla., native is passing through the New River Valley on what is
likely the first end-to-end hike of the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail with a
tuba.

    Rimm-Hewitt, a 24-year-old graduate student at the University of North
Carolina-Greensboro, started heading south from Maine more than four months
ago, and plans to finish in Georgia in mid-December. His bass tuba, named
Charisma, adds 30 pounds to his 70-pound load.

    "I wouldn't hike any other way," said Rimm-Hewitt, who goes by the
nickname "Super Scott the Tuba Man" on the trail.

    The music student saw it as a challenge, a way to hike the trail without
losing his tuba chops and a way to meld his love of music and the outdoors.

    "There's something about the arts and nature that grasps me," he said.

    Rimm-Hewitt also credits Charisma with saving his life. Charisma's bell
is badly crumpled from a tumble the hiker took from a Pennsylvania cliff in
September. He said he fell head-first and the tuba took the blow from the
rock that would have hit his head. He ended up with stitches in his right
leg, but he hiked 26 miles the day after the operation and Charisma still
sounds good.

    "If it wasn't for this bell I think I would have crushed my head," he
said.

    When it's not protecting his skull, the tuba is the center of impromptu
concerts at trail shelters. He said one show in New Hampshire had 50 people
doing the Chicken Dance at the Lake of the

   Clouds. He and Charisma move easily between the swingy "In the Mood" to a
ringing "Amazing Grace" and on to Pink Floyd and Bob Marley tunes.

    To train for the hike, Rimm-Hewitt ran with a friend while wearing a
pack loaded down with phone books, a VCR, a toolbox, anything he could find.
Then, in April he ran the Boston Marathon with the tuba on his back. He
finished in 5 hours, 15 minutes, including his stop to serenade the crowd.

    None of this convinced the doubters he has met along the trail, folks
who insisted idea was quaint but doomed. He won't listen.

    "You can do just about anything if you put your heart into it," he said.
He puts his heart in the tuba, as well as his down sleeping bag and his
peanut butter, which he crams into the bell. To save weight he doesn't carry
a tent or underwear and he carries only half of his music book.

    Rimm-Hewitt stayed with a friend in Christiansburg long enough to
tailgate at Lane Stadium Saturday and catch the Virginia Tech football game
at a local watering hole. He and Jeanne Hart, his stepsister who lives in
Snowville, are making their way along Peters Mountain toward Pearisburg
today, a hike of about 20 miles.

    Rimm-Hewitt still has some frigid nights ahead, pushing through the
Great Smoky Mountains in November. But he is far enough along to start
thinking about his next adventure.

    "I've been told I should maybe do a tuba bike," he said, thinking out
loud about a cross-country tuba trek.

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