Johnstown-area Rotarian suspends Appalachian Trail fundraiser hike
Share this post:
Rotarian Owen Standley referred to his fundraising hike north along the Appalachian National Scenic Trail as “Owen’s Odyssey,” the latter of course meaning “a long or wandering voyage usually marked by many changes of fortune.”
His goal was to raise $100,000 for the Rotary’s fight to eradicate polio worldwide.
And while Standley, 34, of Ferndale, was probably using “odyssey” to refer to the long and winding trail itself, those changes in fortune began manifesting themselves in more and different ways.
“There were points when I met up with people, times when I hiked with someone for part of the day,” he said. “But eventually, it just became very, very isolated.”
On his 28th day after setting out, with 428 miles behind him and having made it through Georgia and North Carolina to Hampton, Tenn., Standley made the difficult decision to suspend his hike.
It all started with an upset stomach.
“For over a week, I had this stomach ache,” Standley said. “And when it started, I thought it was just because I’d had way too much coffee that morning. But then it didn’t seem to go away, and it really affected my mood, my performance for the day, how far I was going.”
Standley had set himself an ambitious goal of 25 miles per day, with the goal of finishing the trail in 88 days.
And, even though he met with fellow Rotarians at some points along the way who would put him up for the night and help refresh his supplies, the constant lack of interaction started becoming emotionally draining, he said.
“It’s my own fault,” he said. “I just didn’t understand that about myself. When people were saying that it’s a mental battle, in my mind I thought that meant boredom. I didn’t think about the isolation.”
In the early days of his hike, isolation wasn’t much of a factor.
“When you start, there’s a ton of people. But, then, you reach this point where you’re seeing maybe one, two people a day, and you’re just passing one another,” he said.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t relish the beautiful scenery along the way.
“I slept on the Clingman’s Dome observation platform, the highest point of the trail in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee,” he said. “On my fourth day in the Smokies, I was inside a cloud for most of the day.”
Having so little visibility highlighted the difficulty of traversing the Appalachian peaks along what is essentially an oversized rut.
“Imagine standing on a table, and it just drops off for 50 or 100 feet on either side of you,” he said. “There are a lot of places where you come to a switchback and realize, oh, I’m zig-zagging down the side of a mountain.”
Standley has no regrets, and he isn’t finished with the hike or the fundraising he set out to accomplish.
“In no way is this project over,” he said. “This is just a short hiatus. I think I’d like to get back out once we have coronavirus in the rear-view mirror, where I can go out and set myself an easier pace. That will also make it easier to let folks know where I’ll be, and if they want they can sign up and be part of the hike for a day or two.“
The pace Standley set for himself, he said, made it difficult for others to join him, adding to the feeling of isolation.
None of that, however, stopped him from raising nearly $42,000, a figure that will be tripled to more than $120,000 through a 2-to-1 match from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
That translates to about 200,000 children who will potentially be vaccinated against polio.
“It’s encouraging,” Standley said. “I’ve done less than a fifth of the Appalachian Trail, but I’ve made almost 40% of my fundraising goal.”
And while the delay remains a disappointment, Standley chooses to look at the positive parts of his experience — the gorgeous scenery, and peace of being in nature, and the seemingly endless fascination people off the trail had with Standley’s carbon-fiber ukulele.
“I made it through the first 428 miles of the trail,” he said. “I conquered the Smokies in four days without rain. And I also met wonderful people along the way.”
To follow “Owen’s Odyssey,” see HikeForPolio.org.