BC grad fundraises while hiking 1,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail
Bethlehem Central grad Evan Finkle found a way to get away from it all and help his fellow man this summer by combining his goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail with a fundraising effort to help the Amputee Coalition of America.
After high school, Finkle found himself reticent to move on to college despite being accepted at several schools. After consulting with his parents, he made the choice many life-hungry youths do, and elected to take a year off before heading to the University of Rochester.
I decided I’m not going to have another opportunity for quite a while to take such an extended break, he said.
For his parents, putting an endorsement on the year off and the trip was a difficult decision, but it was an experience they knew would ultimately serve him well, said Lisa Finkle, Evan’s mother.
`It was hard, but it was something he needed to do,` she said. `I felt that if we didn’t, that he would always regret not doing it.`
Finkle wasn’t originally sure he would hit the AT during his gap year, but he came around to the idea after several month of other adventures. From there, it was a natural step to do fundraising while he walked. He has in the past participated in Relay for Life, and his mother has done cancer walks and charity runs.
`I figured this would be something I could do on my own, and it would be a little more meaningful if I could do it to raise money with a specific cause in mind,` he said.
Finkle chose to support the Amputee Coalition of America for his hike, specifically, their Paddy Rossbach Youth Camp, which provides youths the opportunity for outdoor activities they’re unlikely to find elsewhere. Finkle’s $2,000 in raised donations will fund two tuitions to the camp.
Raising money to help amputees seemed like a worthy cause, said Finkle, especially as he made extensive use of his own legs.
`I’ve been very, very fortunate to live my life fully equipped. Hiking this, it’s good to keep it on the mind,` he said.
Like most `through hikers,` Finkle started the trail from the south just as winter was departing with the intention of following spring’s advance northward. He left the AT trailhead in Georgia on March 13 and after a week of hiking made it to the Smoky Mountains, where many southern hikers were unhappy to find snow still on the ground.
An earlier trip Finkle made to Patagonia with the National Outdoors Leadership School had given him a intense primer in cold weather preparedness, though.
When viewed from a U.S. map, tackling the Appalachian Trail over a long summer might not seem like an extraordinary task. But in reality, covering the sometimes-mountainous 2,000 miles of trail requires through hikers to maintain a grueling pace with little time to rest. Imagine traveling the better part of a marathon, every day, carrying everything you need to camp and live on your back.
While Finkle hiked well, he lost time off the trail to places like Knoxville, Tenn., where he stopped by the Amputee Coalition of America’s offices and visited a friend. In Hot Springs, N.C., he spent two weeks at a work-for-stay hostel program, working in an organic garden.
Finkle’s parents also had an opportunity to see their son in May, when they met him near Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.
And so, three months and 1,000 miles into his journey, Finkle made the call to step off the trail in Waynesboro, Pa., roughly the halfway point, with hopes of taking a month or so each summer for a few years to finish the remainder.
`I decided I would sort of bookmark it at a comfortable place,` he said, not at all disappointed to trade extra miles for more experiences.
`I realized that you can’t really have that in mind, and you really just need to let things flow,` Finkle said.
Leaving the trail also afforded Finkle the opportunity to return to his summer job at the YMCA’s Camp Chingachgook in Lake George, where he’s a camp counselor for 11- and 12-year-olds. He’s been coming to Chingachgook since the age of 8, and it was actually a monthlong hiking expedition into the Adirondack High Peaks at the age of 15 that stoked his affinity for long hikes.
Finkle will be heading to the University of Rochester this fall to enter an engineering program.
Evan Finkle’s Appalachian Trail blog can be viewed at evanfinkle.blogspot.com. Find out more about the ACA at www.amputee-coalition.org.“
