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Appalachian Trail changes life path

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 1:01 AM Sunday, November 1, 2009

HAMILTON — This summer, 2002 Badin High School grad Jerrod Bley took a semester off of his studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to fulfill a long-held dream of “through-hiking” the Appalachian Trail.

He said that he and his friend Mike Wolfram started talking about the trip when they were freshmen at Badin, and after a stint in the military and 1 1/2 years of actual planning, the duo set out on May 15 at the southern terminus of the trail on Springer Mountain in northern Georgia.

While Wolfram had to drop out for personal reasons after the first 460 miles, Bley continued the trek, teaming up with hikers from England, Canada and around the world for various stretches, following the white blazes north for 2,178 miles to Mount Katahdin in Central Maine, that state’s highest peak, which he climbed on Oct. 11, just four days before the mountain closed to hikers for the season.

Bley said that other than riding his bike to classes, he didn’t do much in the way of preparation for the hike, figuring that he’d get himself in shape on the way. At first, he hiked eight to 10 miles a day, but before it was over, he was averaging 22 or 23 miles a day, he said, while carrying a pack that weighed around 35 pounds when loaded with a four-day supply of food.

He said he wanted to make it meaningful, so he and Wolfram dedicated their walk to their fathers, using it as an opportunity to raise money for the American Heart Association and the National Kidney Foundation.

“His father has suffered from kidney disease for a long time,” Bley said, “and my father died from a heart attack when I was 14.”

They set a goal of $2,175, roughly a dollar a mile, and set up a Web site, www.1stepadventure.com, where they could blog about their trip as they went and encourage donations.

“After we split up, the blogging idea fell to the wayside,” Bley said, “but we continued to raise money and we’ve got about $120 to go.”

The hike was a life-changing experience, Bley said.

“I had a lot of time to think,” he said. “I wanted to get away from society and think about things, and I decided to change my major from civil engineering to environmental studies.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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