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Family in Tow as Man Hikes Appalachian Trail

December 01, 2009 - LISBON FALLS -- Blame human curiosity.

Tim Pettingill spent five and a half months hiking the Appalachian Trail from north to south. That's 2,178.3 miles tackled in doses of between 15 and 20 miles a day. It's a hike through weeks of endless rain on the northern end and one that saw him drop 50 pounds before he was through.

He started at Mount Katahdin in June and hiked into Georgia last week. He roped across rivers and even fell into one. He encountered bears and moose and nearly stepped on a rattlesnake. He went through two pairs of shoes before the trek was over.

Yet what most people want to know when they hear about the feat has nothing to do with the emotional and physical strength that went into the trip.

"People ask me what the strangest thing was that I saw," the 49-year-old said. "And I tell them it was the naked man."

OK, so maybe it's a quality question after all.

"It was in Vermont," Pettingill said. "There was this old guy and he was hiking naked. He was just buck naked. I saw him coming and I thought, ‘Oh, goodness.' I tried to get myself ready for it."

He spoke with the naked man for a time, then went on his way, meeting new people, seeing new things and waiting for the weekend when he'd see his family.

That's right: Pettingill's wife and two sons were along on the trip.

Sort of.

During the week, as Pettingill roamed the woods on the long haul south, his family was driving and living in a 1988 Ford van bought just for this trip.

"The top pops up and there's a penthouse up there," his wife Sybilla said. "It sleeps four."

While Pettingill was communing with nature, his family was exploring the towns they passed through. They studied together and visited museums, historical societies and anything that looked interesting.

"You're always looking for things to do," Sybilla said. "We really got to see all these towns, especially in the South. We were there long enough so that we had time to meet people."

And then, when Saturday rolled around, Pettingill would hike out of the woods and meet his family at a predestined spot, often near a church where they would later attend services.

"He smelled incredible," Sybilla said.

Pettingill doesn't deny it. For the first part of the trip, he was usually soaked, either from the rain or from his own sweat.

"There were times when I was coming back to the van and I was just a mess," he said. "I was just wiped out."

But that didn't last long. Over time, Pettingill felt his endurance building. The hard part of the trip was the northern section.

"It got relatively easier the further down I went," he said.

"You really start to feel like you can overcome any obstacle. I realized that I could just hike and climb on and on. I could just keep going. That probably happened at about the halfway point. Physically, I just got noticeably stronger."

While Pettingill found his legs, his footwear was another story. A pair of boots lasted 600 miles, but the Salomon hiking shoes his wife got him lasted the final 1,500 before blowing out, dramatically, in the toes.

The kids were enduring the trip, perhaps, best of all.

"I've always wanted to see more of the world," said Benjamin, 13.

"I love nature," said 11-year-old John. "I got to spent of lot of time outdoors."

They also did school work, which their mother said helped pass the time. When it was almost time for the elder Pettingill to meet them, there was laundry and cooking to do. At the Laundromat, Sybilla and her sons often found classic TV shows, such as "Bewitched" or "Bonanza," playing on televisions mounted above the machines.

"We got so we liked doing laundry," she said.

In Maryland, Tim met a homeless woman on the trail. He came across a bear — the first he'd seen — and her cubs along a trail in Tennessee. He hooked up with a younger hiker and covered 150 miles in one week, getting back on schedule and creating one of his most lasting memories.

Hiking the Appalachian was something he'd always wanted to do, but when do you get a chance to indulge in such a serious undertaking?

"Life happens," Pettingill said. "You get involved in different things."

But then, like clouds parting to reveal a warming sun, the opportunity to go for it was revealed. He left a job as a health-care provider and went back to school, preparing to become a lab technician, which he wants to do next. That time between jobs seemed perfect, and so the family began to plan and prepare.

Pettingill was not the only person in transition out on the trails. Most of the hikers — the serious ones, anyway — seemed to have recently experienced a layoff, retirement, divorce, graduation or some other major life upheaval.

"That's kind of the common denominator," he said.

In the woods, his hiking name was Cargo Pockets. He met others with trail names and even became friends with some of them. He met a couple from Europe and hiked with them for 500 miles. Then the couple went one way and he went another.

"I met tons of nice people," Pettingill said. "The thing is, you really don't know if you'll ever see them again."

Many hikers stayed at hostels when they got off the trail. Nobody accused Pettingill of being a cop-out just because he had his family relatively close during the entire trip.

"Nobody the whole way said, ‘You're a cheater,' or anything like that," he said.

When the hike was over on Nov. 21, he met with his family again. They went to church and made the long drive home, four people in the van this time instead of three. They were eager to be off the road and back home.

When they got there, Cargo Pockets was plain old Tim again, father and husband. He enjoyed things such as his own bed and the easy access to water that didn't need to be purified. He enjoyed the ability to shower regularly and he took more than he needed.

Back in Lisbon Falls, the house was still standing and the 10-year-old family dog, a black Lab named Riley, was there to greet them. So was Sybilla's mother Joan, who had wandered the big house alone all those months, taking care of things and waiting for her loved ones to return.

"I missed them a lot," Joan said. "I was so happy when they got home."

By Mark LaFlamme, Staff Writer
Published: Nov 29, 2009 12:00 am


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