Staff member to pursue dream of hiking Appalachian Trail
March 26th, 2007
Brian Buford
You’re going where? For how long? What about your job? How will you take a shower? What about bears? Aren’t you scared?
Brian Buford is getting used to these questions.
The manager of organizational effectiveness in the University of Louisville Human Resources department, Buford has been barraged with them since he started telling people that he will take six months out of his normal life starting in April to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail.
“One of the attractions is the simplicity of it,” Buford said. “Nothing about it is complicated. You just walk and eat and sleep.”
Buford, who said he grew up camping and hiking, usually takes a weeklong backpacking trip each year.
“I’ve been a big talker,” he said, noting that he has talked since college about walking the 2,175-mile trail from Georgia to Maine.
Now in his 40s, it’s time to do it — “while I still can,” he said.
Besides, he said quoting Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”
When he hits his stride, Buford said he hopes to walk 15 to 20 miles each day. He’ll carry everything he needs—tent, clothing, food, utensils, personal digital assistant (PDA) for blogging, Pee Wee Herman mascot, in a backpack—by night he’ll camp and cook his food over an open fire.
It won’t be extravagant. Many people who “thru-hike” the trail (go from one end to the other), find that “macaroni and cheese is a staple because you can put all kinds of things into it, like tuna out of a pouch,” he said.
Buford said he plans to pass through or visit a small town along the route every seven to 10 days. There hewill replenish his supplies, do laundry, pick up supply boxes he or his mother mail and sometimes meet friends who will walk part of the way with him.
He has admitted to being afraid of injury and illness along the way “and knowing the odds are against you.” (Only 20 percent of the people who start a thru hike ever finish.)
The biggest challenge, he said, is not figuring the logistics of mailing supplies to yourself, getting a house sitter and cat sitter, arranging to pay your bills while you’re away or even enduring the obvious physical demands.
It will be “staying motivated day after day after day for six months.”
“I’m going to need external motivation,” he said, which is one reason he invited UofL faculty and staff to “join” him as a fitness challenge through the Get Healthy Now health management program. While Buford really walks the Appalachian Trail, teams of faculty and staff will log the same distance.
There will be days, Buford said, when the “thing that keeps me going is that I’ve obligated myself and everyone at UofL is holding me accountable.”
Related Links
Brian’s blog
Trek the Trail
