Take A Hike

Alumni test their physical and mental limits by tackling two of the world’s most difficult trails

By Jim Raper

As they rode through the dusty California countryside southeast of San Diego on the morning of April 29, Jason Waicunas ’00 and Matt Lee ’01 were not so talkative as they had been in an interview eight weeks earlier on the ODU campus.

They had joked during the interview about eating tarantulas and wrestling bears, but at the same time spoke confidently of their intention – and ability – to conquer the trail. They had talked the talk. Now they were about to walk the walk.

By planes and cars, they had traveled more than 2,600 mile from their homes in Norfolk and Raleigh, N.C., and their destination – the southern tip of the Pacific Crest Trail – was just a few miles away. Ahead of them over the next 160 days would be another journey of 2,650 miles. This would be the walk.

“The riding is almost over,” said Waicunas, speaking by cell phone. “In an hour we set out on the hike.”

The PCT, which is one of the best known and most difficult recreational trails in the world, follows a mostly south-north and high-country corridor between the small border town of Campo, Mexico (elevation, 2,000 feet), and Manning Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada (elevation, 3,800 feet). In between, the trail dips into 19 canyons and several desert stretches and climbs through 60 major mountain passes, many of which are higher than 10,000 feet.

As the crow flies, the distance from Campo, through California, Oregon and Washington to Manning is only about 1,000 miles, but the zigzags and undulations of the trail make it nearly three times that long for the hiker.

Practically all of the 300-some people who attempt a through-hike on the PCT each year start in Mexico in late April or early May. Departing at any other time of the year from Mexico, or at anytime from Canada, guarantees icy going in the Cascades or blistering heat in Southern California. Trail conditions are tough enough when the weather cooperates, and only about 10 percent of those who start a PCT through-hike have the physical and mental toughness to complete it in one season.

By May 6 Waicunas and Lee had reached their first resupply stop in Warner Springs, northeast of San Diego, and were able to dispatch an e-mail. They had settled into their trail identities of NaborJ and Chowder, respectively. “Everybody has a trail name,” Waicunas explained.

In eight days they had hiked 110 miles, negotiating the chaparral slopes of the Laguna Mountains, the hot and arid Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the cooler, but grueling, climb to 9,000 feet over the San Jacinto Mountains.

Temperatures had ranged from 40 to 90 degrees. They had seen three rattlesnakes and one tarantula. They had gotten soaked twice, once while fording a stream and later in a downpour. They had eaten more instant noodles and drunk more powdered milk than their planning had predicted.

“Through-hikers can eat a lot of food, anytime, anywhere,” NaborJ wrote. They had, bit by bit, relieved themselves of unnecessary pack items. On the second day, “I realized I was carrying too much weight, about 50 pounds.” And they had met a dozen or more fellow hikers with trail names such as Teapot, Pepper Man and Jump Back Julie. Each person has been “one-of-a-kind,” the e-mail dispatch said, but “we share a common bond of being through-hikers for a season on the PCT.”

A group of them who had arrived throughout the day of May 6 in Warner Springs decided to spend May 7 resting. “We have all shared stories about our first week on the trail. We have been swimming, washing gear, eating a lot of good food and knocking back a few beers to ease the pains that accompany a fresh set of hiker feet. So far the experience has been unlike any other, and I can’t wait to see what lies around the next corner,” NaborJ wrote.

A B.F.A. graduate and now a professional photographer, Waicunas got his nickname years ago when he was growing up in Norfolk. It has something to do with him being neighborly. He is the one who did the talking when the two were interviewed at ODU early in March. He is clearly, too, the dreamer. He decided during a short hike in Washington state in 2002 that someday he would take on the entire PCT. His goal is to shoot photos and make recordings that he will turn into a book/DVD about his adventures.

Waicunas wanted to have a hiking partner and he asked his college buddy, Lee, a geography major who is a native of the Virginia Peninsula, to join him. Lee agreed immediately, but first he was obliged to complete a two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia. “I had my own thing going on over there, eating goat stomachs, teaching English and learning their language, but I stayed in touch and J sent me books to read about the trail. I’ve never seen anybody plan anything like the way he has planned this.”

Chowder, as the name may imply, is a linebacker-sized young man who likes to eat. He is also a poet and a globetrotter who will set out at a moment’s notice on a geological field trip. Once the PCT hike is over, he intends to continue his education in geology. His intensity is such that you believe him when he says he will be a geology professor some day, and when he points toward his buddy and says, “We’ll finish this hike, even if I have to carry him.”

The 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail between Georgia and Maine is older, better marked and much more traveled than the PCT, which is generally considered to be the more rigorous test for hikers. Portions of both trails have been used by recreational hikers since the 1920s. The AT became a continuous footpath in 1937, whereas the full PCT was not formally opened to through-hikers and equestrians until 1993. When Congress authorized the first National Scenic Trails in 1968, they were the only two trails given the designation.

NaborJ and Chowder have never met Max Brown ’03 and Lonnie Johnson ’06, whose trail names are, respectively, Big Foot and Dart. But the latter could have given the former some advice about hiking. They, together with two friends from their hometown of Seaford, Va., walked the AT during 157 consecutive days last year.

Another ODU alumnus, Reese Lukei Jr. ’70 (aka Sagwagon), is a fount of knowledge about hiking. Lukei has traversed the entire AT, plus about 1,600 miles of the new coast-to-coast American Discovery Trail, which he helped to establish. (See companion story below.)

“When I hiked the AT it was as much a mental challenge as it was physical,” Sagwagon said. Big Foot and Dart agreed. The first day of their hike, even before their legs were begging for mercy, it was their minds that got weak-kneed. “We were like, What have we done? This is serious,” Dart said.

Sagwagon (from the term “supply and groceries wagon”) believes that long-distance hiking offers an escape of one sort or another. This is particularly true, he said, for young people who want a respite between school years and career/parenting years, or for people who are winding down careers and want to get away while they still have the fortitude for wilderness treks.

Big Foot (he wears size 15 shoes) and Dart (he tends to be hyperkinetic) are cases in point. Dart said when he gets his degree in finance next year he may put off “the real world” awhile longer by hiking the PCT. Big Foot, a business administration major who works for a building supply company, grinned and nodded. He, too, is single and has not made any major career decisions. He said he would love to taste again “that sense of really having accomplished something.”

The two of them had been looking forward to the AT hike since they were Boy Scouts together a decade ago. “After you get done, you miss it,” Dart confessed. “It’s amazing how many times I catch myself daydreaming about the trail.”

NaborJ spent much of 2004 contacting camping and hiking product manufacturers to enlist them as sponsors of his trek. In exchange for featuring products in his reports from the trail, and in his book, he asked for a free tent, or free boots, a free camp stove or free water purification kit. By the time he and Chowder departed, they were wearing or toting about $7,000 worth of donated items. Together, they expected to spend another $10,000 from savings on the project.

If they complete the through-hike, and especially if their adventures are published in a book, NaborJ said, the investment will be a good one. An advance look at their reports can be found at www.trailjournals.com, filed under the name of Neighbor J.


Reese Lukei Jr. ’70 And The American Discovery Trail

Most hikers are familiar with the well-established triumvirate of north-south through-trails in the United States: the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.

Reese Lukei Jr. ’70 is the driving force behind a fourth trail that is 6,500 miles long – more than double the length of any of the other three – and follows a mostly east-west course from Delaware to California. It’s called the American Discovery Trail (ADT), and if you’ve never heard of it, there is a retired accountant living in Virginia Beach who is out to fix that.

Lukei (pronounced LOO-kye) has always loved the outdoors. He grew up in Norfolk, and fondly remembers hiking and camping with the Boy Scouts. In his adult years, he has taken up biking as well, and he regularly chooses bird watching over TV watching.

In 1977 Lukei became a charter member of the American Hiking Society, and in the years that followed he and his wife, Melinda, a freelance writer of genealogy books, would organize hikes, white-water rafting trips and rock climbing ventures for friends and his co-workers at a Norfolk accounting firm.

Twenty years ago, when Lukei was 46 and a partner in his firm, he decided to cash in his career chips.

“Most people wait till they are 65 or older to go off and do things that they’ve always wanted to do, something maybe a little crazy. Well, we figured we couldn’t wait that long.”

He and Melinda bought a motor home and set out on a series of adventures. They explored national parks and wildlife refuges. They ventured into Canada and Mexico. Along the way they took time to hike and ride bikes. A grand idea began to consume him. Why not connect a bunch of the local and regional trails, and make one long trail stretching coast to coast?

As a board member of the American Hiking Society, Lukei started work on the idea in 1989. Two years later when the American Discovery Trail project was ready for a national coordinator, he was the natural choice.

He says it took some “cajoling” because states, localities and organizations that already had trails didn’t want a new national trail “coming in and taking over.” The ADT pitch was consistent, however: all existing trails would continue to be administered separately. The innovation was to connect them.

By 2000, the coast-to-coast trail was a reality (www.discoverytrail.org). The ADT links five national scenic trails, 23 national recreational trails and many other lesser known trails – 200 in all – creating an unbroken route from Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware to Point Reyes National Seashore near San Francisco.

In his book, “The American Discovery Trail: Explorer’s Guide,” Lukei writes: “The ADT begins in Delaware near the location of our nation’s first Dutch settlement, passes the birthplace or homesite of several of our presidents, wanders through some of our most productive farmland, winds through some of our largest cities (mostly on trails), traverses some of our most magnificent landscapes, crosses part of our most arid desert land, and visits many small communities.”

Nearly a fourth of the U.S. population lives within an easy drive of one portion or another of the trail. Its accessibility is enhanced by the split between Cincinnati and Denver into a northern and southern option. The ADT, in fact, passes through several large metropolitan areas, including Washington, D.C., Kansas City and San Francisco. Even so, hikers and bikers stay on trails rather than roads for most of the city miles.

Lukei says the ADT is awaiting official designation as a national trail, which only Congress can grant. The White House did declare it a National Millennium Trail in 2000, and he has won several national awards, including a Take Pride in America medal, for his volunteer work on the project.

So far there have been several successful – and yearlong – through-hikes of the trail, Lukei says. Most who have completed the trail have used bikes for at least some of the journey.

In 2004, Lukei estimates, he walked or biked 25-30 miles of the ADT, lifting his total to about 1,600 miles. To finish the next 5,000 miles he’ll need to pick up the pace. Or he may let his three offspring put the Lukei footprint on most of the remaining miles. One of those is another ODU graduate, Debra Burke-Williams ’92 (M.S.Ed. ’95), who is a communication disorders specialist for the public school system in the Florida Keys.

Lessons Learned:
A-Trail Wisdom from Big Foot and Dart

Maxwell Brown ’03 and Lonnie Johnson ’06, known respectively among through-hikers as Big Foot and Dart, picked up some A-Trail wisdom on their 2,160-mile hike last year. “You can read about the trail and talk to people all you want, but till you do it, you don’t know squat,” Brown says. Here are some of the things they learned.

• Don’t bother packing deodorant. “One hiker got the nickname Speedstick because he was rubbing it into his armpits. We all laughed at him,” Johnson recalls. “It’s amazing how you get used to your odor and the odor of the other hikers. You don’t smell it. But you come up on somebody who has bathed that morning, and you smell them before you see them. They smell like soap. Eight of us went into town from the trail to see the movie ‘Dodgeball,’ and (we) pretty much cleared out the theater.”

• Make your peace with mice. “You’ll see more mice on the trail than you can shake a stick at,” Brown says. “You have to get down with it. They’re everywhere in the shelters, crawling all over you at night.” Johnson remembers, “One guy zipped up his pack with a mouse in it, and after a few hours on the trail the mouse fell out. It had gnawed its way to freedom.”

• Forget the boots; wear sneakers. “I started out with boots but I got rid of them after about 100 miles,” Brown says.

• Accessories make the hiker. “Absolute must, poles (walking sticks), two of them. Hikers who didn’t have them all bought them. And you’ve got to have your music. A little MP3 player/radio is perfect. Doesn’t weigh anything. Listen to Rage Against the Machine going uphill and to Bob Marley going downhill,” Johnson advises.

• Don’t get fancy with your grub. “Don’t bother with fancy trail foods. A Snickers bar is 10 times better than a trail bar and costs one-fourth as much,” Brown says. “A Lipton dried meal (noodles or rice) or Idaho Spuds brand instant four-cheese mashed potatoes are just fine,” Johnson adds. And the No.1 food tip for hikers? “Peanut butter turns snacks into meals,” they say in unison.

• Gorge when you get the chance. “Not many people know what it’s like to eat $14 worth of food at one sitting at McDonalds,” Brown says. Adds Johnson, who ate the equivalent of two full “Thanksgiving-sized” dinners at one buffet restaurant, “You come to crave fresh vegetables and fruit when you’re on the trail.”

• Pray for “trail magic.” “We called it ‘trail magic’; that’s when ‘trail angels’ leave out a cooler or box with sodas and other goodies for hikers. Or sometimes people would come out and (set up stoves) and cook pancakes for hikers who passed by,” Johnson says. Adds Brown, “Trail magic can make your day.”