Thanks to Kendra Peek at my hometown newspaper in Danville, Kentucky, for writing an excellent article about my journey along the Appalachian Trail. I survived the White Mountains of New Hampshire and will be crossing into Maine tomorrow for the final 300 miles.
Boyle High School grad Bramel working to complete 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail trek
By KENDRA PEEK kpeek@amnews.com | Posted: Tuesday, September 2, 2014 5:08 am
SOMEWHERE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE — A Boyle County High School graduate is working his way through the wilderness of the United States as he completes the more than 2,000 miles that make up the Appalachian Trail.
As of Tuesday, 50-year-old Kurt Bramel was in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. In his last leg of the journey, he hopes to reach the end at Mount Katahdin, Maine, this month — the ultimate deadline being Oct. 15, when Baxter State Park, the home of Mount Katahdin, closes for the season.
“In all, they say about 3,000 hikers this year have started out to do what I started out to do. Only about 20 percent will make it to the end at Mount Katahdin. I plan to be in that 20 percent,” Bramel said in a phone interview. At the time, he was in Hanover, New Hampshire, near Dartmouth College. While he had traveled about 1,700 miles at that time, the last 440 were some of the toughest terrain of the 2,185 mile hike.
“There’s so many things that can go badly,” he said. “The mountains coming up are very steep and difficult terrain.”
A 1981 Boyle graduate, Bramel has lived in Baltimore for the last 25 years or so. His interest in hiking is a relatively recent phenomenon.
“I did take up hiking around Maryland, maybe in the last couple of years. Not anything extreme, day hikes, maybe three to five miles down at the state park,” Bramel said. “Then I started doing longer hikes. Then all-day hikes, with a backpack.”
He began doing research for longer trails and discovered the Appalachian Trail passes through Maryland and that people would hike the entire trail, from one end to the other, “which seemed kind of crazy.”
“The more I started thinking about it, the more I wanted to give it a try,” Bramel said.
He started out doing weekend trips in Maryland, to see if he could handle the camping aspect, something he hadn’t done since he was a Boy Scout.
“It was completely different to me. It was kind of spooky the first couple of nights,” he said. “Now, I’ve gotten to the point where I sleep better out in my tent in the woods than I do when I’m in town — even if I’ve gotten a hotel room, I can’t sleep. I feel like I need to be out in my tent in the woods to get a good night’s rest.
“It will be a strange readjustment when this all ends, to get back to the normal routine.”
He went on a few experimental weekends in the fall and winter months.
“It was pretty cold. One of the weekends that I chose to try an experimental backpacking trip, there was actually about four inches of snow on the trail throughout the mountain. I did OK with it,” he said. “I figured if I could be OK in those extreme conditions, that I could probably handle anything the trail would throw at me.”
When Bramel committed to do the trail, he went in February and spent the weekend hiking the portion closest to him, to prepare and to give himself a break later on.
“It takes about six months for the average person to complete this. I thought there would be no better time than this year to do it. So, at age 50, I drove down to Danville and met up with my family,” Bramel said.
From there, his brother Steve took him to Amicalola State Park in Georgia. The Appalachian Trail actually begins at Springer Mountain, but there’s an eight-mile approach trail that starts at Amicalola State Park.
“A lot of hikers will drop out before they even reach (Springer) Mountain, because they haven’t prepared well enough,” he said.
The culture on the trail is different, Bramel explained. Although most hikers start out on their own, as he did, they don’t stay that way for long. With everyone working toward the same goal and facing the same struggles, it’s easy to become part of a group of hikers. Bramel has joined up with others, and the pack has become known as the Highway Shrimp Gang. In the same nature, “out here, we really don’t know anybody’s real name.” He has become known as Fitty Shrimp and others in the group have taken on similar, shrimp-related names.
For those who started in a group, Bramel said, it was common to see the numbers slowly dwindling down over time.
“At this time, you don’t see more than three or four people in a group,” he said.
“I’ve kind of been with the same people on and off since way back, the first of April. I still from time to time see people who I met way back in March, even. They just kind of show up on the trail and it’s like, kind of shocking, ‘I haven’t seen you for three months or four months.’ It’s great to see people out here, because you just don’t know who got hurt or who gave up and went home until you bump into them again.”
It isn’t uncommon to face injuries on the trail. Bramel himself suffered from shin splints early on, which can be difficult for someone attempting to walk all day. It was then that he and his group decided to take a “zero day,” which is a day that they stop and rest — a good decision, Bramel explained in his blog,
kurtshikingadventures.blogspot.com.
They’ve learned along the way, he said.
“Early on in the hike, everything is a challenge, and there are a lot of mistakes that are made. I’ve learned you kind of figure it out as you go,” Bramel said. “You just make mistakes, learn from them, make adjustments. After a month or two of everything, it was so odd at first, it just becomes second nature.”
Encounters with bears, rattlesnakes and rodents have all become normal parts of the hike.
“Things that would really freak you out if you’ve never been exposed to it — it’s not a big deal anymore; you come to expect anything,” he said.
“I guess being out and doing this on foot, you really see how beautiful this country is. I’ll never forget all the sights that I’ve come across,” Bramel said. “Every day, the trail brings some amazing views and features.
“I’ll never take that for granted. If it’s a quarter of a mile to go to a scenic overlook off a trail, I’ll always go and look at it. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the opportunity to do this again, so I’m not going to let those chances go by.”
Bramel also has learned how wonderful people can be. The Appalachian Trail, which runs through 14 states, is cared for largely by volunteers.
“It’s quite an operation.
“Even for people who really aren’t able to come out and do critical work on the trail, a lot of people will just come out and support hikers — set up a tailgate party with burgers and hotdogs, or they’ll leave an anonymous cooler of cold soft drinks at a trailhead somewhere. We call it trail magic when we come into a situation like that,” he said.
“It’s really quite the scene out here. One thing that this has taught me, it’s made me realize that most people are really, really good. A few people are really extraordinary. I’ve just been really lucky to meet so many of them.”
Besides the supporters on the trail, Bramel is incredibly grateful for the support of friends and family. His motivation for hiking the Appalachian Trail wasn’t just to satisfy his curiosity. Bramel is also using it to raise money for his cousin, Rich Jeanette, who is waiting for a kidney transplant.
“I saw that some of his friends in Fremont, Ohio, had been doing fundraisers fro him to help support him when he has this procedure,” he said. “It just hit me, this was a way that I could help.”
So, Bramel created a GoFundMe page, called “A Kidney for my Cousin.”
“Whenever I would update my blog or make a Facebook update, I would try to mention that I’m trying to help my cousin with some upcoming expenses,” he said. “People just started donating — people who don’t even know Rich. There were a lot of generous people who kicked in.”
Out of everyone, Bramel said, his parents have probably been his greatest fans.
“My mom was pretty skeptical at first about this. Then I think her skepticism turned to panic when she realized that I was really going to do this,” he said.
Bramel has enlisted the help of his mother, Sharon, sending her gear when the weather became too warm for it and having her send the gear back when it turned cold again. “I just got five pounds of gear from my mom yesterday, along with some peanut butter cookies. That was pretty awesome.
“She has been my No. 1 trail angel.”
To keep up with Bramel’s travels, his mom uses a 48-inch map of the Appalachian Trail, which she dates when he calls.
“She might not admit it,” Bramel said, “but I believe if I didn’t make it to the end of this, she would be as disappointed as I would be about it.”
As he nears the end of his journey on what Bramel calls “an American jewel,” he shared that his perspective has changed while on the trail.
“Things that used to seem important are not as important as figuring out where you’re going to get your next food supply and where the drinking water is going to come from — if a spring is safe for drinking or not.”
While spending about six months hiking part of the American Wilderness might seem crazy, Bramel said he doesn’t regret the decision at all.
“If I’m crazy, there’s a whole lot of crazies out here with me,” he said.
Follow Kendra Peek on Twitter, @knpeek.
SO YOU KNOW
To follow the rest of
Kurt Bramel’s hike, visit
kurtshikingadventures.blogspot.com.
Information about the Appalachian Trail can be found at:
