No one told Blaine Snyder to take a hike. He just did. And it was a very long walk.
Snyder recently returned from a 2,184.2-mile – give or take a few miles, but who’s counting? – trek of the Appalachian Trail. During his 153-day stroll the 24-year-old’s beard grew until it draped from chin to chest.
He lost about 65 pounds by the time he reached the trail’s end at Mount Katahdin. He had blisters on blisters. “I was a mountain man. Hairy. Stinky. Skinny,” Snyder recalls. “I had blisters, raw spots, numb toes and even lost a few toenails.”
Blaine Snyder along the Appalachian Trail, a 2184.2-mile hike that took him 153 days to complete.But through it all he always kept on his northward path. “The feeling of walking, traveling all day on foot, is really primal,” explains Snyder. “Humans have been traveling by foot for thousands of years. It opens a world of wonder and a way to see that world.”
Those sights represent many first-time experiences, plus memories Snyder says he will keep with him throughout his remaining journeys. “In the Shenandoah Valley I saw my first bear. He turned, ran, tripped and rolled – I scared him more than he scared me.”