Most people plan to take it easy after they retire. This isn’t the case with Scott McKenzie.
At 55, Scott, a Frenchville resident, a former employee of the Quehanna Boot Camp and military veteran, is training to hike the Continental Divide Trail next month. This will involve covering over 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada.
If this sounds like an overly ambitious goal, you should know that he has already hiked the Appalachian Trail . . . twice.
“Yes, I know I’m crazy,” he said, laughing.
In 2015, he did the Appalachian Trail for the first time but due to an injury he got sidelined and ended up completing it using the “flip flop” method.
This involves walking part of the course starting from the south and going north, then going to the end of the trail and hiking south until you get to the spot you stopped at originally.
That is why in 2018 he decided to do it again: this time as a straight shot from Georgia to Maine, he explained.
The first time, it took him five months and three weeks to complete and the second time it only took him four months and three weeks.
Why did he start this hiking craze?
He was already hiking around the Quehanna Wilds when an army buddy gave him the book, “A Walk in the Woods” about a man who attempted to walk the trail and after he read it, he became more interested in doing the trail himself.
The Continental Divide is a bit different because there is no set trail and people often have to veer off it due to thunderstorms and lightning.
“We want to stay on the official trail as long as we can.”
He plans to attempt this quest with a friend, known as “Donut” in the hiking world. Among this community, Scott is known as “Cave Man” because he walked part of the Appalachian Trail without shoes.
This time he plans to keep his shoes on, due to cactuses, thorns and other dangers.
They plan to begin their hike on May 1 in New Mexico near the border with Mexico and hope to finish it by mid-September before the Glacier National Park closes due to snow.
They will aim to do 30 miles a day until they get to Colorado when their daily miles will drop simply due to the terrain and potential snows.
Equipment such as ice axes and snow shoes will be shipped to him around that point so he has anything he might need in this different climate, he said.
If they get behind, they may have to do a “flip flop” to get around the possibility of the park being snowed in.
The journey could also include detours due to fires in that area.
“It is interesting dealing with the uncertainty.”
Scott has been training over the winter, hiking in the Quehanna Wilds. Every morning he takes his two dogs with him and treks about six miles and then he goes back out in the afternoon for up to 15 more miles.
“I am trying to do 20-mile days,” he explained.
When he did the Appalachian Trail the second time, he averaged 20 to 25 miles a day but had one instance where he made 31 miles in a day.
During the first attempt at the Appalachian Trail, he did 35 miles in one day.
There are differences in the two trails with the Appalachian Trail requiring hikers to stay at designated sites, which are 10 miles a part.
“You can get fined if you stay elsewhere.”
The Continental Divide Trail has no shelters or designated campsites, which will allow them to hike right up until sunset and camp wherever they choose.
The plan is to stop and eat around 5 p.m. and then continue walking until dark, he explained.
This way they will have no food smells around their campsite to attract animals while they are sleeping.
After he completes his quest this year, he has plans to hike the Pacific Coast Trail in 2023. This is 2,658 miles that will go through California, Oregon and Washington.
Completing all three trails is known as the “Triple Crown”.
“Very few people have ever accomplished it,” he said. Currently there are only about 300 something but more are added every year.
Although he is already one of the few people to do the Appalachian Trail twice, he wants to move into the other elite class with the “Triple Crown”.
After that, in 2025 he hopes to do the Appalachian Trail again by starting in Georgia hiking to Maine and then turning around to back to Georgia.
“Few have done that.”
The hardest part of hiking these long distances is the mental aspect, he explained.
It gets difficult to hike very day, no matter the weather and three or four months in “the newness of the trail wears off” and your mind plays games with you, he said.
“You ask yourself ‘Why am I out here?’ You get tired of eating out of a backpack and you start thinking about going home sitting in your lazy boy and ordering a pizza”.
When these questions came up in his other hikes, he simply told himself: “I want to finish”.
“Then the next day, you see something beautiful and remember why you are doing it.”
The best part is that beautiful scenery.
“Going up a hill takes your breath away twice: once getting up it, and then the view when you get to the top.”
Another positive aspect of hiking these long trails he said, is that it renewed his “faith in humanity” with “trail angels” that show up occasionally to help you along the way.
At one point on one of his trips, it had rained on him for two days when he came into a clearing where a man had set up a tarp and was making pancakes. In addition to a hot meal, he supplied hikers with coffee and hot chocolate.
Other “trail angels” do “trail magic” by giving you a lift into town, not knowing who you are.
He explained that although hitch hiking is “taboo” in most areas, in these hiking spots, “people see you walking with a backpack and realize you are a hiker so they pick you up.”
As with many journeys in life, it is positively impacted by the people you meet along the way.
As for other hikers he has traveled with, he said “they become like family.”
He compared this camaraderie with his time in the military where even after 20 years of not seeing someone, you pick up right where you left off when you see them again because you are “still brothers and sisters.”
He considers the hikes a spiritual journey and carries a small Bible that he reads at night.
“I am constantly thanking God for making all the beautiful sites and for the trail angels.”