2184 to Clarity

T-18

Most of you who are reading this probably know enough of my background to fill in the gaps.  Currently, I am associated with the Kansas Speleological Society, Kansas Herpetological Society, USATF, and currently competing for the Kansas City Smoke.  The Kansas City Smoke is a USATF Elite Development Club that was established in 2002 to provide training and competitive opportunities to emerging elite, post-collegiate distance runners based in the Missouri Valley Association, gaining USATF elite development status in 2004 with five team members qualifying for the Olympic Trials in the marathon alone between 2004 and 2008.

Over the years, I have held many jobs-many of them being volunteer/non-profit to “floor technician” to camp counselor and many in between that grand spectrum.  This last semester in college was highlighted by my teaching and coaching experience at Girard High School (USD #248) in Girard, Kansas where I taught one section of freshman/sophomore world history and four sections of American history.  This is where and when I truly found that secondary education and coaching was my niche.  I became intrinsically passionate about conveying history in my own and unique way as well as coaching predominately the distance athletes.  The experience is one that I will never forget and getting to know each and every one of the students, athletes, and faculty truly enhanced my life.  As of now, I employed by Backwoods which is an outdoor specialty goods retailer in Overland Park, Kansas.  This is not only an awesome company to work for, but coupled with great and hilarious characters, much of my employee discount has helped me to purchase or “update” much of the gear necessary to successfully conquer Mother Nature in the months to come.

Where did this all stem from?

So here’s what you have probably been waiting to read this whole time: why did I decide to tackle this immense undertaking and to go 3.5 months off the true grid of humanity and attempt to traverse the entire length of the 2,184 mile long Appalachian Trail with a fully loaded pack in one hundred days or less?  If you do the basic arithmetic, that would require 21.84 miles per day for 100 days.  If that doesn’t sound daunting enough and to break it all down to analytical form, that is 152.88 miles per week for 14.29 consecutive weeks over the undulating terrain of the rugged and ancient Appalachian Mountain Range, high-pointing the infamous summits of Mount Katahdin in north central Maine, Mount Washington in northern New Hampshire, and Clingman’s Dome in Smoky Montains National Park of eastern Tennessee. 

However, also consider this: the world record is 47 days, which demands 46 miles per day.  Although to be fair, these are contracted endurance athletes who have a multifaceted support crew meeting them at every town, hamlet or junction on the trail carrying all necessary gear and not to mention a plethora of auxiliary people like a masseuse, nutritionist, dietician, etc.  Nonetheless, that pace is truly blistering and defies what most of the human race is capable of.  The reason that I decided to tackle this crazy venture are due to a multitude of complex reasons.  First, I initially received literature on trail guides, data books, thru-hikers’ companions, and National Geographic’s: America’s Wild Spaces on the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail among other sources.  This has intrigued me for the last four years or so.  I had joked nonchalantly in the last few years with family that I would one day backpack the entire trail.  After this last year of school (taking a full six years and 181 hours with no break to complete my undergraduate degree) along with other aspects in life that simply went awry, I decided that this is the right time in my life for me to do this.  However, I did not want this to be a solely self-centered venture.  I wanted to do something that I would be truly proud of besides the personal goal of challenging myself and the most coveted long distance hiking trail in America and meeting my one hundred day goal.  I wanted to help and benefit others as well.

For months of dreaming and mentally planning this, I thought that being an endurance athlete, just completing a long sought after education degree and becoming a future educator and coach, being an outdoor enthusiast, and harboring an established humanitarian/community service background, that everything would coerce itself into place for me to formulate this insane and epic plan that is rapidly turning into reality.  Other motives in history that got me on this track were individuals like Aron Ralston.  Most of you know this name if you are a canyoneer, climber, or have simply watched 127 Hours.  Aron was an amateur (but very experienced) outdoor adrenaline junkie that would habitually go on solo canyoneering treks in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.  He became famous when his arm became pinned in a precipice, resulting in his war of attrition with time and the elements until he broke and cut the lower half of right arm off below the elbow to survive.  Another inspiration is Christopher McCandless who inspired the independent film Into the Wild by the venerable and renowned author, John Krakauer in recent years.  Others have been Karl Meltzer and Andrew Skurka, an ultra trail runner and lightweight endurance hiker respectively.  The last person that really inspired me to do this has been dead nearly 31 years to the day.  This individual is Terry Fox.  Terry Fox was not only a humanitarian on his own exponentially higher level, but was also an amazing athlete and had the biggest heart of anyone that I have ever read or researched in contemporary history.  Fox was a standout basketball player at the NAIA institution of Simon Fraser University in the Canadian province of British Columbia in the late 1970’s.  During his tenure he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer that afflicts extremities.  To save his life, his traditional basketball career was cut short when his right leg had to be amputated.  Handling life with grace, tenacity, and wanting to support cancer research, he decided to run across Canada on a whim to raise money for this cause.  He began in St. John’s Bay, Newfoundland with no goal in mind and ran the equivalent of a marathon a day with a primitive leg prosthesis.  How long did he keep that pace up one might ask.  The answer is 135 days until he was forced to quit near Thunder Bay, Ontario due to his progressive exhaustion from his cancer coming out of remission.  Nine months later at the age of 23, he tragically died.  Today, he is one of Canada’s national heroes and thanks to his humanitarian efforts and athletic competitiveness, he ended up raising an astounding $500 million for cancer research.

I could go on and on about the whole process of getting to where I am at this exact moment before I embark on this ultimate test of adventure or about the people that drive and motivate me, but this is entirely too long.  I am honored to be in such close association with General Doc Foglesong and the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation.  This whole undertaking would not be half as meaningful if ALEF was non-existent.  I intrinsically feel that raising money for higher education for disadvantaged but great students and people in rural Appalachia is truly an honor.  Feel free to donate as much or as little as you would like to support this amazing organization.  For those individuals that do donate to the ALEF, a thank you letter will be sent to recognize any contribution you make.  All monetary donations are also tax deductible.  You will be able to donate as soon as the external link on the ALEF website is available until I get to the last 3”x6” signature white blaze of the AT atop Springer Mountain, Georgia, hopefully by Halloween.  I owe so much to my amazing family and friends.  You have backed me with many difficult endeavors that I have undertaken in life thus far.  There is no doubt that this will be the most sustained and singular physical challenge to date.  Thank you so much for your love and support.

In the Books...

After consecutive weeks of bargain shopping, calling a specialty store in an attempt to cut a reasonable gear deal in Shiloh, Illinois, applying for product sponsorships, factoring in finite calculations, counting hypothetical calories, picking apart trail maps, analyzing terrain, making numerous calls to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Shenandoah National Park, Smoky Mountains National Park, and Baxter State Park, employing myself full time to work as much as possible and pinching every penny, staging unsuccessful garage sales (yes, plural) I finally bought tickets.  Plane? Absolutely not unless I want to compromise our mortgage.  Train?  Still entirely too expensive.  Personal transportation?  That would be fine if someone would be willing to gamble on a 1,744 mile drive in my unreliable Chevy Impala.  Friends’ cars?  No one wants to drive to Maine and back and not be subsidized for gas.  Sketchy Greyhound bus filled with freeloaders and bona fide vagabonds?  Check.  Yes please.  So for a one way ticket, I paid $129.  Bargain, right?  Kind of.  Ready for the trade-off?  The irritating fact that it will take me just short of 45 hours with three transfers to get from inner city Chicago to Millinocket, Maine.

            So…after Matt Peharda and Erica Purdy’s to-be-off-the-chain wedding in Glen Ellyn, Illinois on July 20th, I leave the next day for the scantly charted territories.  I take a cab at 5:00 p.m. to the hood and wait for a 10:50 p.m. departure.  Are those prime conditions for a mugging?  Substantially.  After a sleep deprived 27 hours, I will make my first transfer in Washington, D.C., then off to the South Boston station, then for the last time in Bangor, Maine.  When I arrive in the small town of Medway, Maine at 7:40 p.m. on July 23rd, a gentleman by the name of Paul will pick me up.  He will take me to the Appalachian Trail Lodge in Millinocket, Maine, which typically caters mostly to “southbounders” (the very small minority of thru-hikers that dare to tackle the Longfellow and White Mountains of Maine and New Hampshire first).  For $70, I will be shuttled from Medway to Millinocket, be fed dinner the night of the 23^rd, given quarter for the night, be fed the morning of the 24^th, and will be shuttled into Baxter State Park (16 miles away).  This shuttle fee also covers the entrance fee into Baxter State Park, which alone is $48.  Quite the bargain.  I should be at the Katahdin Stream trailhead by 7:00 a.m. in which I will make the packless, 4,000 non-negotiable foot ascent and 5.2 mile trek to the summit of the most photographed and highest summit in Maine, Mount Katahdin.  It is at the summit where I begin my journey…


“I went to the mountains because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”


-Where I Lived and What I Lived For, H.D. Thoreau



Kia ora and have a great rest of the summer!


-Charlie Janssen