Jeff Levering on the trail. (Courtesy photo)
He had been thinking about it for weeks as he made his way north on the 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail. But on May 27, having trekked nearly 700 of those miles, Jeff Levering of Finn Road knew he’d had enough.
“I was in great shape,” he told the Press this week, “but mentally I was done.” In his online trail journal he wrote that he had “just finally and fully lost interest in what was over the next hill or in the next town.” And hiking four more months to “get rep’ for a through hike was just not a strong enough motivation to keep going. By nightfall, he was headed home to Harvard.
This week, a fit and tanned Levering reflected on his decision over a cup of coffee in the General Store. He hadn’t been having a bad day. The weather was fine. But having already lost 35 pounds, “I had met all of my physical goals,” he said, and other more personal goals seemed out of reach. He was suffering instead, he said, from “boredom.” And he had just spent a relaxing three days in Blacksburg, Va. with his wife, Deborah.
One in four
According to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, roughly 1,800 to 2,000 hikers take to the AT each year, but only one in four completes the journey. Levering began his trek at the AT’s jumping-off place at Springer Mountain in Georgia in early March. He had been preparing for the hike since January, intent on reaching Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern terminus of the trail, by the fall. Levering said his pace of 10½ miles per day was short of the 11-mile rate he had planned. But, he said, he fully expected to make up the difference and to reach Maine by September.
The Press has been following Levering’s adventure since March and has published excerpts from his blog. (“On the Trail” in the April 4 and May 2 editions of the Press.) The final installment appears this week.
Levering says he has no regrets about terminating his hike. When we spoke with him, he was, in fact, planning to hike the Massachusetts section of the AT sometime in June or July, perhaps with his youngest son.
He was surprised, he said, by the physical demands of the trail, the toll that hiking day after day takes on feet and legs. “You’re constantly watching for roots and stones and other obstacles,” he said, and descents are a challenge for older hikers. For boots he chose a pair of ankle-high, extra-wide leather Wolverines. “My feet were never wet,” he claimed.
To navigate trail obstacles and preserve his knees on downhills, Levering carried a pair of Black Diamond trekking poles. They were his second most important piece of equipment, he said. His most important piece of gear was his Feathered Friends down sleeping bag and liner, rated for 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature on some nights dropped below freezing.
Levering also concluded that “it’s always good to have a dog in camp” to scare off bears or warn of their approach. During his three months on the trail, however, he never saw a bear. “I had more trouble with steers on the trail,” he said.
One of a hiker’s biggest challenges is taking in enough fuel to keep up with the amount of energy the body consumes each day. Hikers typically burn 4,000 to 6,000 calories on an 11-mile hike, but typically carry only enough food to replace half that amount. Levering’s strategy was to pack enough food for three to four days and then restock at a nearby town. He doesn’t recommend mailing food packages to stops along the trail. “What you think you’re going to want to eat when you’re at home is not necessarily what you’ll want to eat once you’re walking,” he explained. Levering said he would always load up on calories when he was off the trail, but would probably have continued to lose weight in spite of his best efforts.
Just do it
Throughout his travels, Levering kept a daily blog, using the iPad Air that he carried with him. At night he’d type an entry using the Pages app. Each time he was within range of a wireless site, he would upload his entries for the preceding days. His public blog can be found on the Trail Journals site used by many trekkers.
For those thinking about making the trek, Levering has this advice: “I would absolutely do it.” Nothing, he said, can beat days like the one he had on Easter Sunday, spent traversing a series of hills in Georgia known as the Balds. The summits are grass-covered, cleared either by Indians or early settlers. The day was clear, and the 360-degree view of the surrounding country was the high point of the trip, he told the Press. “There’s something to be said for that.”
