[at-l] "Flyin' Brian" Hiker closes in on goal... Re: ULTRA Digest - 9 Oct 2001 (#2001-176)

[sloetoe@yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU> wrote:
> Date:    Tue, 9 Oct 2001 07:33:55 -0700
> From:    The Morelocks <r5653jk@EARTHLINK.NET>
> Subject: Re: Hiker closes in on goal
> 
> -------Original, but somewhat doubted, Message-------
> Subject: Hiker closes in on goal
> Does anyone know this guy?
> Ryoichi Morita
> *********************************
> By "know," do you mean "is he for real?"
> 
> I know one of his cousins, John Robinson - good finishes at Western,
> Hardrock, and Nolans this year, another cousin, Eric, does more or less
> the same thing.
> 
> Brian has been mentioned on the 'list as he has progressed this year.
> Appears he is going to make it.
> 
> He is real.
> 
> Run gently out there.
> 
> John M. -- funny, all we ever need is time...
> 
### I've missed the original post, but will say that I'd lent some [small]
advice and  encouragement early on in Brian's planning, and have kept up
with the progress throughout the year, with various hiking friends around
the country doing the same.

### [Again, I apologize it this is a repeat...] This past Sunday morning,
I woke up to find that Brian had camped in the campsite I'd shared with a
dozen(?) "at-l" (Appalachian Trail e-list) friends at the annual Gathering
of the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association in Hanover, New
Hampshire. (They had yakked it up late into the night, but I [and my 7
year old sons] were so exhausted that we slept right through it.) I was
introduced and he *warmly* shook my hand (I'm sorry, but it was a *nice*
handshake -- sure, but not at all "hard" [words are obviously failing me;
more sleep would help], and then I introduced my sons.

### He leans down and looks at them kind of nonchalant and says "So, do
*you* do any long distance hiking?" and they pip up and say "Well! We just
finished the Long Trail [in Vermont] this summer!" Now, Brian had just
peeled off the roughly 150 miles from Bennington to Hanover in the
previous couple of days, and so knew the 109 miles of the AT that coincide
with the older LT route, and his eyes opened wide in [I believe] genuine
astonishment, and he said "Wow! That's pretty good!" Flyin' Brian said
that to my kids. They beamed. It wa a moment. Definitely worth a 1000 mile
drive.

### Another mention of Brian on the at-l this morning notes that another
throughhiker -- who had completed the trek in a pretty uncommon 100 days
--apparently went out with Brian intending to keep him company for a few
days. He lasted one, estimating Brian's speed approaching the Whites(!) at
a truly flyin' 3.0 mph.

### This guy's the real deal. And a peach, to boot.

Happy Trails,
Sloetoe
AT'79
LT'01


=====
Spatior, Nitor, Nitor, In Nitor!

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