Sturgeon Bay Man Hikes 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail
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“Neither snow nor rain nor heat” opens the creed of the United States Postal Service, but it just as easily applies to the most recent adventure of Sturgeon Bay resident Kevin Quinn, who, in August, completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.
Spanning 2,190 miles and 14 states along the eastern United States, the Appalachian Trail is one of three major long-distance hiking trails in the country, joining the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide trails in what is known as the Triple Crown of Hiking.
More than three million people visit the trail each year, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), though just a few thousand hike its entirety. Since 1936, when ATC Chair Myron Avery became the the first “2,000-miler” after flagging and measuring the original route, approximately 18,300 hike completions have been recorded by the conservancy.
On Aug. 28, 153 days after setting off from Springer Mountain in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, Quinn arrived at Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine and the end point for the northbound thru-hike.
It was a year and a half after Quinn, who retired to Sturgeon Bay with his wife Patti in 2016, began planning this ambitious adventure. His thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail would mark a new high for the 63-year-old, whose past 13 years have included climbing 30 mountains on six continents, highpointing 11 states, and thru-hiking trails in Mt. Rainier National Park and Australia.
A longtime Washington, D.C. resident, Quinn was familiar with the physical demands of the Appalachian Trail. He was part of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, one of 31 trail clubs that help maintain the trail, and had hiked portions of the trail in Maryland, Pennsylvania and northern Virginia. Those considerations played a pivotal role in his decision to retire from his job at the National Institute of Mental Health and plan his trip.
“It’s the most iconic of the long-distance hiking trails,” Quinn said. “It was the first one named a National Scenic Trail by the federal government and it had the reputation of the three major, long-distance hiking trails for being physically the hardest. I thought, well, if I’m going to do one of the three and I’m this age now, I better do the one that has the reputation for being the hardest first.”
Kevin Quinn at McAfee’s Knob in Virginia on his way north on the Appalachian Trail. Submitted.
For a year, he read Appalachian Trail guide books, broke in four pairs of hiking boots, and prepared dehydrated meals for what would be five months of traversing the scenic, wooded, rocky and wild footpath. A meticulous planner, Quinn had an idea of how things would go when he departed Springer Mountain on March 29: a solo endeavor spent in the wild of the Appalachian Trail with as few trips into nearby towns as possible. And no hitchhiking.
It didn’t take long to learn what it meant to be at the mercy of the Appalachian Trail, lessons he detailed in humorous posts on his blog, “The Gray Mountaineer” (from which he borrowed his trail name). Blizzards, rodents, rain and self-doubt were the realities of his first month on the trail. It was something Quinn had read about in his guide books.
“This is really hard, you’re going to stink really bad, you’re going to be hungry and you’re going to want to quit,” he recalled reading. Those realities weren’t the end of the sentence. “Then there’s all these positives.”
It turned out other people were a big part of those positives. Quinn found comfort in sharing his experiences with other hikers and meeting new people at what’s called “trail magic” – a tradition of charity in which individuals or groups offer hot food, drinks and camaraderie for hikers or other forms of goodwill, like providing rides or helping find lodging options.
It helped make the mountainous areas of southern Maine and the rocky trails of Pennsylvania more bearable, and helped Quinn stay committed to his long-held belief in the spirituality of hiking. He reveled in the “grapevine” of Appalachian Trail life, hearing about the current legends of the trail, like the 82-year-old hiker known as “Grey Beard” who recently became the oldest person to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.
By the end of his own journey, Quinn found himself a changed man – more sociable and less committed to a stringent schedule. Those lessons will prove valuable as he eyes two more hikes he hopes to add to his resume: the 500-mile Camino de Santiago in Spain, and the 2,659-mile Pacific Crest Trail that winds along the West Coast.
“It’s a challenge but it’s a challenge that you can deal with,” he said. “Life isn’t meant to be easy. This is an opportunity to really give yourself a lot of confidence and you can overcome things. “It is a life-changing experience; you become a different person as a result of doing it and it’s one of those good life-changing experiences. If you have the time and the inclination, it’s a good thing to do.”
To hear more about the Appalachian Trail and Quinn’s experience conquering it, attend his presentation at the Sturgeon Bay branch of the Door County Library on Dec. 13 at 2 pm. To read his blog, visit graymountaineer.wordpress.com.
