Will Waterstrat Completes Appalachian Trail Hike - By Robin Beck
He went through four pairs of shoes, lost at least 60 pounds and lived on noodles and frosting, but Will Waterstrat of Boothbay Harbor finished hiking the Appalachian Trail in good time.
He covered the 2,167.1 miles of trail from Mt. Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia in four months and eight days.
When Will, 18, started the long hike in June, soon after graduating highschool, he wasn't in the best shape possible; he overdid it, got dehydrated and pulled some muscles. After hiking 300 miles through Maine he came home for a week in July to rest, rehydrate and recharge.
A month later, having picked up where he left off and armed with Gatorade powder, he got into great shape and was hiking briskly about eight hours a day. By the end of the journey he was actually looking forward to hills.
"I got pretty efficient," he says. "I was not tired at all."
Waterstrat carried a 35-pound pack with tent, sleeping bag, foam pad, tarp, stove, water jug and filter, food, raincoat and a change of clothes. Finding it much easier to sleep in the trail shelters than set up his tent every night, he soon sent the tent home.
One of the first challenges he faced was the 100-mile wilderness from the border of Baxter State Park to Monson, Maine. A sign at the start of that part of the trail cautions hikers:
It is 100 miles south to the nearest town at Monson. There are no places to obtain supplies or help until Monson. Do not attempt this section unless you have a minimum of 10 days of supplies and are fully equipped. This is the longest wilderness section of the entire A.T. and its difficulty should not be underestimated.
He finished that part of the trail in six days and later encountered one of the most difficult sections along the entire trail in Mahoosuc Notch in southern Maine, a mile of large rocks to scale and caves to squeeze through.
"The terrain was hardest here in Maine, but it was rockiest in Pennsylvania," he says, "--flat and rocky there while it was hilly and rocky here and in New Hampshire."
He encountered a lot of rain during his walk through the country -- eight solid days of rain in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.
"So I didn't get to see much there," he says.
"The worst time, and the hardest rain, was in New Jersey. There were floods and a lot of thunder and lightning. I was on a mountain and lightning struck close by and shorted out my watch," he says.
Ironically, the more south he progressed, the colder the weather became. There was a cold snap in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, one of the highest elevations on the trail.
"It was 15 degrees at night, and there was snow and ice. I was really cold (my sleeping bag is only rated for 40 degrees), and my water froze," Will says.
On a few occasions when he came to a town he stayed in a hostel and ate a meal at a restaurant. But most of the time he lived on Ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese, and Little Debbie snacks.
"I ate a lot of those," he says. "I'd also buy a can of frosting and eat it," he adds, a trick he learned from other hikers to get a sugar fix for quick energy. He also ate cans of tuna for protein, but mostly it was high-calorie food he was after. Every now and then he would accept offers of food from day hikers who had brought too much food with them. But a rancid turkey sandwich made him sick and kept in a shelter for three nights.
"After that I was more careful about what I took from people," he says, smiling.
Other than that and his initial health problem, he fared well, becoming stronger and faster as the days passed. At 6'5", the speedy Will hiked alone for most of the trip, meeting up with other hikers at night at the rustic lean-to shelters.
"There was only one guy who could keep up with me; we hiked together for a few days and I got to know him. I met a couple of people I'll keep in touch with; there are others I wish I had gotten the addresses of," he says.
He arrived at Springer Mountain on October 19th, completing the entire 2,167.1-mile trail.
Instead of feeling elated, he says, "I was kind of sad when I got there. I got all sentimental because it was all I had been doing for the past four months and suddenly it was over. Now I miss it. I wish I were still out there. I probably should have just turned around and walked back home!"
His parents, Paul and Janet Waterstrat, drove down to pick him up and stop to see his twin brother Ford at college in Kentucky on the way.
"It took us only two and a half days to drive the same route home that too me four months to cover," he says. "When we got to a spot where the trail crosses I-81, I recognized it. I had crossed it two months earlier; that was weird.
"Now I appreciate technology, how much faster things are in a car, and all the things we take for granted, like drinking water -- you don't have to work to get it."
What did he think about all those days on the trail?
"I was usually focused on hiking," he says.
Asked what's next for him, he says he'll work around here for a while, go out to visit his older brother in Seattle, and then go to college next fall - where or for what kind of study, he doesn't know yet.
He says sheepishly, "I was supposed to figure that out on the hike."
