[at-l] Hiker weathers sea- to-sea expedition

[mdpaige at comcast.net (Mike Paige)]

Hey ya.

LB> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LB> Carrying a backpack bearing only food, water, camera and
LB> equipment, Andrew Skurka, Trinity '03, is staring down the trail
LB> with about 7,640 miles to go, but the weather is on his mind right

After reading that article, I sensed I met someone just like that on
my through-hike. I googled his name and found out what his trail
name was... indeed, I did meet him.

My girlfriend, Ketchup, Elvis, and I, had just hiked into Four Pines
Hostel, got a ride to the convenience store, and we picked up this guy
sitting outside. Paul Revere was the trail name he was going by. We
asked him when he started and he gave us some ridiculously short
answer, especially in comparison to present company. He had started on
May 3rd, and we had started March 17th. All of us had walked the 684
miles to get there, but he'd taken just one month. At this point, we
had experienced a lot of faster hikers going by, as well as a ton of
people telling us, "You're not gonna make it." We were well
established as "slow." But this was by far the fastest hiker we had
met... this was beyond a fast hiker, this was a painful obsession. So
we followed up with questions about how many zero days he'd taken, if
he'd stayed at any hostels and the answer was none... his shortest day
was 3.2 miles and he felt bad about not doing enough.

Actually, we were pretty shocked at his answer... It was the very
antithesis of our hiking attitudes. We were out there to have a good
time, enjoy nature, enjoy the crazy mix of people, and basically enjoy
living. I can understand hiking faster, but he was obviously there to
make some sort of statement. To me, one of the greatest things about
the trail were the people, and sharing and taking part in the whole
experience with them. Walking the trail in 95 days isn't too conducive
to that kind of thing. I think this guy is a bit confused when he says
he's a people person in the article.