GET Hiking Great Eastern Trail Newsletter Volume 6, Number 1, February 2017 By Timothy A. Hupp Please feel free to print out or copy and distribute this newsletter Kathy Finch Becomes Third Tenth Anniversary of GET (?) Sort of. 2017 marks the 10th anniversary for the GET Thru-Hiker Great Eastern Trail Association (GETA), the organization overseeing the GET. The actual naming of the trail happened in 2005. But as 2007 was the year of the organizing the GETA as an organization over the separate trail, we can celebrate 2017 as the 10th anniversary of the GET. How to celebrate? I’d suggest local hikes, but in addition, do some GET hikes outside your area to get a bigger sense of it. I plan to lead some local GET hikes, do about 5 work trips, and do some sections of the GET in Pennsylvania and Tennessee. On October 9, 2016, Kathy Finch, 63, of Waterville Contents, this issue Valley, New Hampshire, reached Flagg Mountain, Alabama to become the third person to complete a Kathy Finch 3rd Thru hiker 1 – 4 Thru-hike of the Great Eastern Trail, and the first to 10th Anniversary of GETA 1 do it southbound. She began her hike on April 5 Trail updates 4 – 8 near Corning, New York. On her way she spoke A Thru Hike but not all GET 8 with several newspaper reporters. This article quotes and derives from their stories, mostly from Upcoming Events 8 – 9 the articles in The Daily Home of Talledega, AL GET Hiker miles 11 – 12 and the Dade Planet of Trenton, GA. Cumberland Trail Progress 13 – 14 August 21 Solar Eclipse 15 “This big dream hit me when I was 14," said Kathy Swimming along the GET 16 Finch. "In 1967, Lyndon Johnson signed the Photo Album 10, 17 – 18 National Trails System Act. The next year, National Web Addresses & Emails 18 Geographic came out with a huge spread, photos and everything, of the old-school early hikers with the canvas backpacks, the tin cups and everything, and I was smitten with that romantic, seat-of-your- pants, old-school hike." (continued on page 2) 1 The AT was new back in those tin-cup days, she new growth, she said: "There’ve been times I get so said, and on his big trip (in 1948), Earl Shaffer stuck I can't get going, and I have to back out while would get lost, ask directions only to find that the I can. Then I may have to walk out three or four locals had no idea where the trail was, get asked in miles and find a road and go around it. There's been to supper and end up camping for the night in a lot of that." somebody's backyard. "That's the kind of adventure I've been looking for all my life," said Kathy. The weather has also provided an adventure or two. This summer, she spent a rainy day holed up in a Kathy, who turned 63 while on the Great Eastern three-sided hiker's shelter atop Allegheny Mountain Trail, grew from an outdoorsy kid into an outdoorsy in West Virginia, watching the thunderstorms roll woman, still with the big dream, but times changed over her and enjoying having good cellphone and the dream had to change, too. "It was always reception for a change. "It wasn't until the next day going to be the Appalachian Trail," said Kathy. that I dropped down and realized that 22 counties in "But it isn't like that anymore. It's a superhighway." southern West Virginia were declared disaster areas," she said. She did in fact end up hiking the AT, not in one trip but in two big chunks 12 years apart, in 2001 and She had arrived in West Virginia just in time for the 2013. She enjoyed it but it was not her idea of "seat- Biblical-level flooding that devastated the state, and of-your-pants"--too well traveled and too many she stayed as Army helicopters and relief agencies people. "Then along came the Great Eastern Trail rushed to the rescue. "It was an astounding and I said, this is it," she said. experience to watch all that play out and be a part of that," she said. So walking the GET in 2016 is an odd pastiche of trails and asphalt, deep woods and towns, roughing Kathy has done all this walking in sturdy but it miles from anywhere and sleeping in cheap lightweight tennis shoes rather than hiking boots, motels along the highway; but Kathy says the which she says is manageable because she keeps her sketchiness of it is the whole point. backpack under 25 pounds. She carries almost no clothes except for the shirt and shorts she was "This is my version of the 1948 Earl Shaffer wearing at her interview with The Planet, plus Appalachian Trail hike," she said. "I said I'm going extensions that make the shorts into long pants and to get my seat-of-your-pants, old-school, multi- an extra pair of socks. She does carry a lightweight month adventure, get-yourself-in-and-out-of- rainsuit she wears while laundromat-washing the trouble, road walk, trails, things-happening-all-the- other things, though she says it turns into a mini- time, making-new-friends, in-the-moment, things- sauna in summer. She also had a sweater she hadn't you-can't-plan, this-is-it! -- and it's worked out that used all summer but that came in handy in the Dade way." library's industrial-strength air conditioning. Kathy says on her way from New York she's had no For Kathy Finch, the Great Eastern Trail has been trouble with bears, mountain lions or things that go the trip of a lifetime, the one she's hoped and bump in the night, though she admits, "I've had planned for since 1967, the crazy dream that helped some snake moments." Nor has she had any trouble her get out of bed in the morning when she went with predators of the two-legged variety. "I've been through periods of depression earlier in life. "I'm in going through good places meeting good people," church every day," she said. "This is a joyous she said. "Everyone's been very friendly." celebration for me." The biggest problem she's faced, says Kathy, has Finch has hiked several long distance trails, been trail conditions. "Trails don't maintain including the Appalachian Trail and the Ice Age themselves and I've found that out this year,” she Trail in Wisconsin. said. Trails become so clogged with blowdown or 2 Her favorite part of the nearly 2,000-mile journey is took 60 years of development to do it." not the accomplishment itself -- but instead, it has been “striking up conversations with small-town strangers.” “The whole experience has been a very serendipitous journey,” she said. Finch said her paths have crossed with several new acquaintances along the way. According to Finch, the GET isn’t for the faint of heart. “I recommend beginners hike the connecting trails first,” she said. High Knob Tower, Virginia She advises to travel as light as you can and to pack items that can serve dual purposes. Finch noted she Kathy Finch’s Time Line: relies heavily on trail maps and spreadsheets to April 5 – Start prepare. April 20 – Blackwell, PA April 22 – Waterville, PA “I try to plan at least five days in advance while May 20 – Hancock, MD hiking,” she said. June 2 – Bergton, VA (stay at Front Royal) June 17 – Hidden Valley, VA Finch said she has enjoyed being able to take her June 24 – White Sulphur Springs, WV time, traveling the GET at her own pace. July 2 – Narrows, VA July 8 – Hinton, WV The hiker also expressed that she “hasn’t spent a lot July 13-17 – Mullens, WV of time reflecting, and that it has been more of a July 23 – Matewan, WV celebration.” July 24 – Breaks Interstate Park, VA August 8 – Harlan, KY “It’s like going to church every day, this journey August 12 – Cumberland Gap, VA/KY has been my worship -- and I know the good Lord August 16 – Caryville, TN and my parents are watching over me,” she said. August 22 – Wartburg, TN September 8 – Soddy Daisy, TN “I hope that by completing the hike, I will inspire September 10 – Chattanooga, TN September 19-22 – Cave Spring, GA and help educate others who want to do the same October 9 – Flagg Mountain, AL (finish) thing,” she said. Meanwhile, Finch has learned to live more in the moment and truly appreciates the experience each day brings. “I haven’t thought about it in such a way that I’m … traveling through a particular city or state,” she said. “I appreciate the land itself more -- and think to myself, ‘I could live here.”’ The GET, she explained, is still very much a work in progress. "There are large sections of the trail that are not built yet, property-issue kind of things, and that's where the road walks are," she said. "The Appalachian Trail is now all trail, off road, but it Kathy on Flagg Mountain, Alabama 3 And she hopes her trek through the great, Trail Updates unfinished new footpath across America will help others who want to try it. She has been posting faithfully in a GET Facebook journal Mid State Trail (Pennsylvania) (S to N) (which many of the photos in this article came Section 3 - SR 1004 thru Everett to PA 36 @ from) that readers can access at Loysburg Gap Last Updated on July 21, 2016 facebook.com/groups/GETHiking SR 1004 to PA 36 ( lengthened to 30.1 km ) or 2 km shorter via temporary roadwalk, Private Land "Not only is this my journey," she said, "the bigger and SGL 73, Bedford County, Everett Region picture is this is the Great Eastern Trail, and the Guide: 12th Edition (2012) data that I bring to the table is going to help future Map: 301-306 (2010) hikers." Alerts: Significant briar growth has been reported near Due to some sections she skipped or walked around, the south end of SGL 73 and going to the cow Kathy claims 1390 miles of the GET.