25,000+ miles! Recap of a Hiking Life (so far)

Onward and upward!  Don't look back and never give up.

This is no melodramatic 'I'm getting old, and this might be the last you'll hear from me' post.  It's just a quick summary of an ordinary person with a love of walking, keeping on and keeping on, until the result seems pretty extraordinary.

It was and it wasn't.  It's been one-step-at-a-time ordinary while being punctuated with the joy and wonder of so very many extraordinary places.

Map of my Personal Continuous Footpath across America (with two disconnected bits in Viginia Beach and the Eastern Shore of MD and Delaware.)

The motivation for this post is the passing of a big milestone. As of April of 2025, I've completed my (almost) fully-GPS-recorded virtual hike around the world (the equivalent of walking around the world at the equator—25,000 miles).

Lately, I've been hiking around my current home in the Blue Ridge of Virginia, near and on the Appalachian Trail.  I've walked one section of the AT 250 times now!  I have a new goal of trying to do this 0.067-mile piece of trail (with exactly one white blaze in each direction, both on the same tree) once for every reported completion of the AT (as reported to the AT Conservancy office in Harper's Ferry).  As of this July 15, 2025, the ATC reports that there have been 25,429 officially reported completions.  Hiking that small piece of trail that many times would add up to nearly the length of the entire trail—a very do-able goal.  Maybe a little monotonous, though!  When I hike something over and over, I use the time to turn my mind inward, to some of my philosophy and cosmology/science projects, which the reader will find liberally sprinkled among the hiking posts here on this blog.

The map above shows the track of my completed 'Hiking Home' project.  In about 2010, I established the goal of connecting a continuous string of footsteps between the front doors of every one of the roughly two dozen places where I've hung my hat and received mail (places I've called home).  I reached the last front door in the Colorado Foothills in early November of 2019.  Included in this continuous footpath are connections to 27 states.

The Appalachian Trail is the 'backbone' of that track.

I hiked it both ways in 2012, documented it meticulously (with a GPS and here on this blog), and as of this writing, I'm still the nominal (only documented) holder of the Fastest Known Time doing an AT 'yo-yo' or double thru-hike.  My time was a very ordinary 307 days.  Others have done the yo-yo much faster.  Brian 'yo-yo' Doble reports on Trail Journals that he did a yo-yo in 2008 in 181 days, and Ward 'Spooky Boy' Leonard probably did a yo-yo in the early 1990s, perhaps in less time than that.  AT hall-of-famer Warren Doyle vouches for this.  Problem is that neither of these two provided any documentation, so their 'records' can't be proven.  I certainly hope that someday before I do take those last steps up to the great footpath in the sky, that somebody will legitimately beat my FKT.  It certainly is there for the taking.

But back to the bigger picture.  My 25,000-mile trek has included many other small, disconnected walks that I've done in some really exotic places.  Here, I'm going to list some of the highlights and include a few photos.  The list is the core of this post, and I'll be adding to it over the next few weeks (or longer), so stay tuned.

Seventeen special walking destinations on six continents:

• Switzerland, specifically the Bernese Oberland, including the amazing Eiger Trail and the freakishly scary trail to Bäregg Hut.  That's where the headline photo was taken.

  

  The gang enjoying a stunning sunset with the iconic Eiger in the background.

  Stunning vistas were everywhere.  One of my favorites (and also J.R.R. Tolkien's) is the Lauterbrunnen Valley, which Tolkien used as his model for Rivendell in Lord of the Rings.
  
• Easter Island.  Hiking with the moai!  Spent ten days walking halfway around the island.

  

  The 'Travelling Moai' at Tongariki.  Rano Raraku, the quarry where the moai were created, is the mountain in the background.

  
  
• Hawaii.  I lived on the Big Island for two months in 2017, hiked virtually every day.

  

  Ohia blossom with Mauna Kea in the background with its telescope domes gleaming in the sun on the summit.

  
  

  

  Remote pristine beach on the Kona Coast, requires a mile and a half walk to get there

  
  

  

  High on Mauna Kea on the trail to the summit, flanks of Mauna Loa in the background right

  
  
• North of 80ºN latitude in the North Atlantic, walking on the deck of a cruise ship, and many day-hikes on Svalbard, just a tad further south.
  
  

  
  
• Torres del Paine National Park, Chile, South America—four days of hiking much of the "W" trail including the 'Base of the Towers'.

  

  The towers of Paine.  Yep, a tough hike to get up here.  When I arrived, low clouds were completely blocking the view, but as I was leaving, a little patch of blue sky rolled in, so I hurried back to get my mug shot.

  
  
• Iceland.  Land of fire and ice, geysers, glaciers and waterfalls ... and trolls!  
  
  
  Hikes on six days all around the island.
  
  
  
• Mozambique and Tanzania, Africa, multiple day hikes—Baobab trees, giant flying fox bats, and Red Colobus Monkeys.
  
  
  

  

  For 1000 years or more, these sturdy vessels called 'Dhows' have plied the African Indian Ocean coastal waters.

  
  

  

  The ancient, once major trading center of the Arab empire, Kilwa Kisiwani.  It's a UNESCO World Heritage site with no roads, no electric power, no motor vehicles (except three motorcycles), 1150 residents remain, getting by on subsistence agriculture (little garden patches) and the occasional cultural tourist group.  My son and I wandered far from the tourist's usual routes, deep into back stretches of the town, where this fellow had his smart phone charged and wanted a selfie with the old bearded white guy.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mid-winter walk to the Bush Pilot's memorial, an overlook outside of Yellowknife, NWT, Canada.

  

  Great Slave Lake at 10:30AM on a late December morning
  

• Moorea, French Polynesia, in the South Pacific, three or four connected day hikes in the interior highlands, plus, of course, some amazing beach walks.

  

  View north from Belvedere Overlook, which was actually the trailhead for three different day-hikes.

  
  
• Climbing half a dozen mountains in South America—Peru (climbed Huayna Picchu overlooking Machu Picchu)

  

  Looking down on Machu Picchu from the heights of Huayna Picchu

  
  , Bolivia (Pequeño Alpamayo),

  

  Pequeño Alpamayo

  and the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile (6000+ meter Cerro San Francisco) and adjacent NW Argentina (20,000+-foot Medusa).

  

  Medusa is the peak I'm pointing to, my bucket list 20,000-foot summit.

  
  

  

  Back to Machu Picchu - Huayna Picchu is the prominent spire just behind the ruins

  
  
• Greenland, both the remote east coast at Ittoqqortoormiit and several day hikes on the west coast.

  

  Ittoqqortoormiit girl.  Below is a view of the town on a sunny afternoon.

  
  
  

  

  
  

  The epic icebergs of Ilulissat, formerly known as Jakobshavn, western Greenland.

  
  
• Seychelles—hikes on four different islands in this Indian Ocean tropical island nation.  Tortoises by the hundreds on Assumption and the nearly impossible to visit World Heritage site, Aldabra.  Plus world-class beaches on La Digue.
  
  
  
  
  
• Beechy Island in the remotest part of Canada's Northwest Passage, hiking to the graves of sailors who died in the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Expedition in search of this elusive passage through the Arctic from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  Also got great video of Beluga whales on this hike.

  

  Beechy Island

  This was part of an ultra-bucket-list NW Passage cruise with other day hikes in Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay, Dundas Harbour, and Resolute in Nunavut, Canada, and Herschel Island in Yukon Territory, and with multiple sightings of Polar Bears.

  

  View of Arctic Ocean from a summit outside Dundas Harbour, Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
• A stroll through Sankei-En Gardens, Yokohama, Japan
• Home villages of my ancestors—Kritzkow and Walkendorf in Mecklenburg, Germany (former East Germany)

  

  Church at Kritzkow, Mecklenburg, Germany, built about 1300, where my great-great-great grandfather was sexton and school master.  Taken on 12 October 1992, exactly 500 years after Columbus began the westernization of the New World.

  
  
• Hiking downtown Sydney, Australia including the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, plus the Blue Mountains, including the Three Sisters from Echo Point Lookout, Katoomba.
• Grand Canyon, South Rim to the Colorado River and back—via the Bright Angel Trail (down) and Kaibab Trails (up).
  
  
  
  
  
  

There you have it.  Hope you've enjoyed!  Happy Trails!

On returning from Switzerland - New plans and Inspirations

SwissMobile map of hiking trails in the area that I visited.  Look at that network!  The whole country is like this.  Red trails are the mountain trails, yellow are the 'Wanderwegs', the walking paths, considered less strenuous, and blue marks the most challenging trails, the Alpine/mountaineering routes.  Highlighted in green are the national and regional routes.  The one marked with the number '1' is the Via Alpina National hiking trail, one of seven that cross the country.  Shown below is an overview of the seven Swiss national trails, with the Swiss routes of the 'Way of St. James' highlighted in red (route number 4).  This network of trails is uniformly marked at every intersection with yellow signs, and blazed where needed along the routes.  The marking is consistent and reliable throughout the entire nation.  As I've said, this is truly a Hiker's 'Nirvana'.

Here is a video I recorded at the Cloister at Three Creeks immediately upon returning from Switzerland:

Having come out of the woods for a 'Sabbatical' from the idyllic life in the woods at the Cloister at Three Creeks, having experienced two weeks of hiking in the Majestic Swiss Alps, and then having returned to the Cloister, I was brimming with new thoughts and forming new plans.

The stationary life at the Monastic Retreat at the Cloister has brought great rewards, but these roving feet have hiked long distance trails for a decade - 20,000 miles worth, and Europe exposed me to its astounding network of connected trails, many of which have been Pilgrimage routes for over a thousand years.

It begins to feel as if the Pilgrimage will become an integral part of my ongoing quest to reveal my personal path to 'Salvation', that is Peace of Mind, and Eternal Life, which a number of faith traditions insist can be experienced during one's physical mortal lifetime. I am of that belief, and realize that I have often come close to this perfect state of being, most often when my feet are on the move, hiking through the glory of some natural setting.

Yes, a day hike can be a pilgrimage. There will be more emphasis on that. But at the same time I've gained a great deal of clarity of thought through connecting the teachings of the Judeo-Christian traditions with several more ancient ones, particularly the teachings of Lao-tzu.

Lao-tzu is said to have lived in China around 600 B.C., during the 'Axial Age' or the 'Age of Transformation'—a time when civilizations world-wide were coming to a new awareness. It was the period when most of our great organized faiths were founded.

In the introduction to his 1988 translation of the Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell writes of Lao-tzu:

"People usually think of Lao-tzu as a hermit, a dropout from society dwelling serenely in some mountain hut, unvisited except perhaps by the occasional pilgrim. But it’s clear that he deeply cared about society, if society means the welfare of one’s fellow human beings.

"Lao-tzu teaches that ‘The Master’ is one who masters Nature, not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming one with it. We find deep in or own experience the central truths of the art of living, which are paradoxical only on the surface: that the more truly solitary we are, the more compassionate we can be."

Well said. I believe these words reflect my experience over the past year and a half, since walking away from society and into the woods.

I now care more deeply about the society from which I sprang, about the direction it is going, and about how we can build a better future for our descendants. "I need a house" a voice once said to me; and one interpretation of that is to make our planet a safer 'Haven' and shelter for the coming generations. Many more thoughts on this to come. Stay tuned.

So ... what comes next?

One of the options I am considering for my return to Europe, as mentioned in the video is a pilgrimage from my ancestral points of Origin, via the Way of St. James, to the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela and then on another 70km to the 'End of the Land' at the Atlantic Coast of NW Spain.

I'm very unusual for an American in that every one of the ancestral roots of my family tree is found in one small area of what was once Prussia, now divided between Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in northeast Germany and adjacent northern Poland.  One ancestor was born in what is now the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast on the Baltic Sea coast of Russia, just across the border from northern Poland.  All these areas were part of greater Germany at the time my ancestors lived there, and they were all ethnic Germans.  My family didn't get the memo about America being a 'melting pot' of diverse cultures, though the next generation definitely trends in that direction, including Norwegians and Scots in the mix.

Here is a map of that small region of former Germany/Prussia/Pommerania where all my ancestors lived before emigrating to the US.  The map includes the local Way of St. James pilgrimage routes.

And here is one idea for a future long distance hike across Europe--following one of the many 'Way of St. James' pilgrimage routes across Europe.

Just look at that network of trails!  Each of them is marked, usually with the scallop shell symbol that indicates that it is a Way of Saint James pilgrimage route (the example below is in Poland) ...

... and each of them provides accommodation, churches of refuge, and hostels for the pilgrim along the way.  Many of these routes have been in continuous use by pilgrims for more than 1000 years.  Here is a particularly good example of a bit of well-worn trail near Fribourg in Switzerland:

The infrastructure along all these routes is astounding, and there is nothing comparable in the US.  If only ...

Well, for me a Pilgrimage is more about connecting with the living things of the wild world than about connecting with fellow humans who are rooted in the Judeo-Christian faith tradition.  We'll see how my thinking evolves, but going back to Europe to hike seems an inevitable future prospect.  

Thoughts never stand still, except when they're written down.  (That's why the written word and the recorded video, etc., are such inadequate and flawed media.)  I will be reporting how things evolve as new directions emerge.

The Hermit in the Swiss Alps - An avid hiker's dream come true

 

This is the Hermit - speaking for myself here, after a long silence.

A year and a half ago I walked away from society and went into the woods in order to find my soul.

What I found was our soul -- the collective, eternal, greater being, which is embodied in each living thing's individual genome--our DNA and the complex chemistry that surrounds it.

It took eighteen months of solitude at the Cloister at Three Creeks, but ultimately, it also took a Sabbatical from the Hermit life -- a hiking trip (a pilgrimage) to what has to be Hiker's Mecca - The Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps.

On my return from fourteen glorious days of hiking a small portion of that country's uniformly well-marked, entirely interconnected network of 40,000 miles (65,000 km) of hiking trails, I found a new clarity of mind.  I was finally able to allow the verbal and non-verbal elements of 'truth' to merge, to gel, and to mature.

I'll have much more to say on that in upcoming posts.  This one is just about hiking, featuring Seven videos and eleven photos from the September 2021 pilgrimage.  Enjoy:

On my arrival in the small no-vehicles-allowed town of Mürren, I was greeted by a brass band, and utterly gob-smacked by the astounding view from my motel room balcony.

Then I set out on a series of hikes, good weather or bad, hiking a new trail every day:

In the process of exploring new and relatively remote territory, I rode gondolas and cog railway trains.

This last shot above is the 'classic' one, taken from the outskirts of the town of Wengen, looking down on the Lauterbrunnen valley--the place that has inspired famous visitors for centuries, and which inspired J.R.R. Tolkien's vision of the Elven safe-haven of Rivendell.

And moving on ...

Needless to say, I want to go back.  Switzerland was never on my bucket list.  Why?  I thought it was too deep in the grip of civilization to be worthwhile.  It is true that humans have left their mark on nearly every corner of the land below the permanent glaciers, and in some places well above, but the beauty is so enduring, the vegetation so lush and resilient, that often the human footprint can be overlooked.

The Swiss national constitution (Article 88 of Section 5 on Public Construction Works and Transport) specifically identifies the government's role in overseeing the network of footpaths and hiking trails.  The country has seven national trails, continuous across the country.  I hiked portions of the most famous of them, the Via Alpina.  There is also one that is part of Europe's most famous trail network, the Camino Santiago, which in Switzerland is called the Via Jacobi.  This is less of a mountain experience and more of a cultural and religious one - truly a pilgrimage in the original sense of the word.  People have traveled these routes for a thousand years, headed most often to Santiago de Compostela in the NW corner of Spain.  

I don't know what to choose.  So many stunning trails in what may be the most spectacular landscape the world has to offer.  But the mountains are calling ...