[at-l] Baltimore Sun Earl Shaffer Story

[chance317@yahoo.com (Denise)]

Here's another article about Earl Shaffer... I copied it below
in case the link doesn't work. :)

Denise

<http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bal-sp.thomson12may12.story>

A true Appalachian trailblazer
Candus Thomson -- On the Outdoors 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally published May 12, 2002

He died last week at a York Springs, Pa., veterans hospital of
liver cancer. 

Earl Shaffer was the first man to walk from Georgia to Maine on
the Appalachian Trail in one trek. But his death, at 83,
received little or no notice. 

Shaffer was famous, but he didn't wear his achievements on the
outside of his pack. He didn't like a lot of fuss. 

He also didn't like people snoring in trail shelters. 

Yes, he was crotchety. But in a good way. 

He loved the songs "San Antonio Rose" and "Polka Dots and
Moonbeams" for their key changes and strong beat. He loved black
raspberry ice cream. He loved simple things. 

In this Gore-Tex-laminated, fleece-insulated, GPS-triangulated
world, Shaffer went into the woods in a pith helmet, down vest,
plaid shirt, blue work pants and ordinary tan leather boots with
the heels shaved down for better traction. He stuffed his
belongings in an old Army rucksack. 

A Pennsylvania native, Shaffer walked the trail the first time
in 1948 as a World War II veteran. It was supposed to be a buddy
hike, but Walter Winemiller, a neighbor and fellow outdoorsman
from York County, had been killed in the fighting on Iwo Jima. 

Shaffer set out from Mount Oglethorpe, Ga., (the original
southern terminus) on April 4, 1948, and reached Mount Katahdin
in Maine on Aug. 5. He saw only two other hikers during his
2,160-mile trip.

"He was the Lindbergh of American hiking," says Dan "Wingfoot"
Bruce, head of the Center for Appalachian Trail Studies and a
seven-time thru-hiker. 

"He showed it was possible," he says. "Until that time, it was
believed doing a thru hike was too difficult for the human body
to take. Earl hiked with that knowledge. If he had a few bad
days on the trail, he didn't know he wasn't falling apart. 

"Since Earl, no one has had to confront that unknown. Sometimes
that's lost on people," Bruce says. 

When Shaffer told officials at the Appalachian Trail Conference
that he'd walked the trail end to end, there were some raised
eyebrows. But skepticism turned to admiration, and Shaffer ended
up being the group's corresponding secretary for more than two
decades. 

"He was a genuine hero," says Larry Luxenberg, a New York
financial adviser and 1980 thru-hiker. "He set a great example.
He stayed active in the hiking community. As corresponding
secretary, he was the one who personally gave advice to the
thru-hikers those first 20 years." 

Shaffer hiked the trail a second time in 1965, going north to
south (the southern terminus moved to Springer Mountain), and in
so doing became the first hiker to do the trail in both
directions. 

He was awarded honorary membership in ATC in 1985, one of only
45 people so recognized in the past 47 years. 

But he wasn't done. To mark the 50th anniversary of his first
hike, Shaffer walked from Georgia to Maine once more, finishing
just two weeks shy of his 80th birthday. 

>From that first hike in 1948 until March of this year, the ATC
has received reports of 6,605 thru-hikes. 

This weekend starts "Trail Days" in Damascus, the little town in
southwestern Virginia where the Appalachian Trail and Main
Street are one and the same. More than 20,000 thru-hikers, past
and present, hold a reunion with the townspeople who consider it
an honor to look after them. 

Shaffer had been an honored guest and parade grand marshal. He
gathered a huge crowd three years ago, when he showed the slides
from his 1948 hike and compared that to the 1998 trek. 

In his final days, Shaffer talked to family members about going
to Damascus this year, although he knew it wasn't likely.
Instead, the hikers on the trail in Virginia sent him a huge
card. 

"It's like losing part of the family," says Dave Patrick, owner
of Mount Rogers Outfitters. "I got to know him over the years
and he'd stop in. But he'd always attract a crowd, and it got
hard to spend time with him. 

"These young folks now are hiking the trail in lightweight gear
as if it were something new. But Earl was doing it a long time
ago," says Patrick, who was 5 years old the first time Shaffer
passed through town. 

During Trail Days, a campground will be named for Shaffer, and
participants in a non-denominational service next Sunday will
have a moment of silence for him. 

Ironically, the man who didn't crave the spotlight was about to
have it shined on him again, introducing him to yet another
generation of hikers. 

A book of his poetry and writings, accompanied by photos by Bart
Smith, had been published last month. Shaffer was busily
conducting interviews and autographing a print of Mount Katahdin
from the book for a fund raiser when he found he was terminally
ill. 

"Poetry and photography kind of go hand in hand. They work on
the same side of the brain," Smith says. "It's frustrating that
he died when he did because he had so much more to say." 

Shaffer wanted to be remembered foremost for his poetry and his
service as a radio operator during World War II. The Appalachian
Trail Conference and the Earl Shaffer Foundation are working out
the details of a suitable tribute. 

But hikers such as Tom "Sloetoe" McGinnis, a 1979 thru-hiker,
are coming up with their own tributes on the Internet. McGinnis,
who recalls he last saw Shaffer in January at the Pennsylvania
Ruck, writes: 

"Like other pioneers in human performance, Earl Shaffer showed
us what was possible - he took a single-year thru hike out of
the realm of fancy and impossible, and put it squarely into the
possible, the feasible, the doable - for anyone willing to try.
To this day, the numbers still favor determination over all
other characteristics, among those that attempt an Appalachian
Trail thru hike and are successful. ... The numbers show that
while those that start tend to be experienced young men with the
latest gear, those that finish are young, old, male, female,
experienced, and not, with the latest gear, and with shredded
remnants. What all these thru-hikers have in common is grit. A
quiet grit, that they share with Earl Shaffer." 



Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun 
   




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