Grey Eagle’s journey on the Appalachian Trail falls short of the finish

In January of this year, there was a Names & Faces feature on a man who went by the handle Grey Eagle. This man was attempting to hike the Appalachian Mountain Trail and the International Appalachian Trail this year, all 3,200 miles in the space of eight months, as a fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation. Grey Eagle did not want to reveal his name until his journey was over, which it now, unfortunately, is.

Peachtree City resident Ron Finch began his travels on Feb. 13, 2006 in Bulls Gap, Ala. He had recently retired as a commercial air line pilot for American Airlines and had been training with day and weekend hikes in Alabama and Georgia in the months and weeks leading up to his departure. Finch traveled 1,841.90 miles before he couldn’t go any further. His travels took him from Alabama into Georgia and all along the Appalachian Trail through Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, which is where Finch’s Appalachia adventure ended.

“I got to Connecticut on June 28 and it had been raining for days,” recalled Finch. “I had no food and no energy and this restaurant that I had planned on eating at was closed. I started to get fuzzy and couldn’t think straight. I found the place I was staying and slept for 12 hours straight.”

Finch came down with a high fever and was sleeping for long periods at a time. On Friday morning, he made plans to meet up with a friend back on the trail that weekend, but by that night, he called his daughter, Susan, who lives in Brooklyn, New York and the trip was over. Finch rested in New York on Saturday and flew home the following day. His doctor, upon first examination, thought that Finch had contracted a tick-borne illness, but when the tests came back negative the diagnosis shifted to a mystery virus.

Finch has been recovering ever since, putting on the weight that he lost during the trip and resting his very tired feet. He has also been putting the finishing touches on his trail journal and thinking about his 138 days on the trail with fond memories.

“One of the best things about my trip was that I was up to see the sunrise on most mornings,” Finch said, adding that each one was different. “The mountains were different every day and sometimes fog changed the complexion or color of the sunrise as well. I never got tired of it.”

Though his trip took him to 10 other states, Finch stated with certainty that Georgia was by far the most beautiful.

“You just can’t believe how beautiful Georgia is,” said Finch. “The best hiking on the whole trip was in the Southeast. You just can’t beat it.”

Finch saw a lot of this country’s natural beauty during his trek, from the breathtaking view from various Balds to the grace of wildlife creatures living life along the trail. His expedition saw him encounter everything from snakes and lizards to skunks, turkeys, porcupines, foxes and deer. One day Finch had to travel through a herd of bulls inhabiting a pasture, and on several occasions he also had run-ins with dogs.

“I was crossing a bridge into town and two dogs, working as a team, approached me with one coming at me from the front and the other circling around behind me,” recalled Finch. “I had my trekking poles and held them off, making enough of a commotion that eventually the owners, who were just watching this encounter, call them off.” Finch also talked about seeing friendly dogs on the trail, with many accompanying their owners on day hikes, romping around and having a good time.

Finch also encountered many good people on his journey, hikers of all ages and skill levels. He was amazed at the younger hikers who were hiking in t-shirts and shorts in what Finch considered cold weather. Though he often hiked alone, he would often progress with groups for weeks at a time.

“We would end up at the same shelter and try to do the same number of miles each day,” said Finch, whose photo diary of his journey shows some of the people he met up with along the way. One of whom went by the trail name Ground Hog. Ground Hog wasn’t hiking at the time, but he had stationed himself along the trail near Hawk Mountain Road as a Trail Angel, someone who is repaying the kindness he received on the trail by offering hikers a cookout and expecting nothing in return.

Finch saw a lot of that compassion and good will towards man along the trail, especially in the towns that he stopped in to rest and recharge his battery. These towns, such as Hot Springs, N.C. and Damascus, Va., get their livelihood from hikers along the trail.

“Someday, I’d like to go back to some of those trail towns,” said Finch, who recalled some places that weren’t as friendly to him. One restaurant even refused to serve him and Finch guessed that it was because he looked rather grubby and probably didn’t smell very good either. He was even stopped by a police officer before leaving Georgia. While walking back to his car (Finch returned home on several weekends early on in the trip by stationing his car at logical end points for the week), an officer in Dalton, Ga. asked him what his business in town was.

“There’s a joke along the trail that goes something like, ‘What’s the difference between a hiker and a bum?’ ‘Gore-Tex.’,” Finch said, smiling. His appearance even startled his wife, Jeannie, when they met up in the Delaware Water Gap, just over two weeks before what would be the end of his trip.

“He looked really emaciated, like a POW,” Jeannie stated, adding that she was very concerned about him throughout the trip. Both said that the separation from each other was one of the more difficult things to deal with. When dealing with the physical distance between him and his wife was added to dealing with severely cold weather during the early parts of his trip, his equipment breaking down throughout and the sheer exhaustion from maintaining a pace of 16 miles a day across all sorts of terrain, its amazing that Finch made it as far as he did. For every high point, both physically and emotionally, there were obstacles that threatened to cripple his trip from the start.

Over the course of his journey, Finch had to replace almost every major piece of equipment he carried, from his pack and tent, to his hydration system, Thermarest bed and boots. Luckily, the replacing of the equipment never took him too far off his pace and REI was extremely helpful in getting his new equipment to his pre-determined rest stops along the way.

In addition to the equipment failures, Finch also had difficulties with some of the terrains, such as Palmerton, Pa., an area known as ‘The Dead Zone’ because zinc mining and smelting has eliminated most of the wildlife and vegetation in the area. Finch also stated that much of Pennsylvania was a problem because a lot of the terrain was made of rocks, sometimes in large boulder fields and other times with fields of sharper, basketball sized rocks that put a lot of stress on his knees and feet.

In New Jersey, Finch saw the havoc that gypsy moths can wreak on the environment.

“There was less and less shade as I went along and soon I was seeing green leaves on the ground,” Finch said, discussing how the gypsy moths just destroyed the trees and their leaves. Perhaps most disturbing was his recollection of sleeping in his tent at night and hearing what he thought was rain hit his shelter, only to discover it was the gypsy moth caterpillars and their droppings falling onto the tent from the trees.

Once out of New Jersey, the terrain got better. The trails in New York were wide open and there was a thick canopy of trees. The weather was good and there were plenty of streams and rivers for him to replenish his water supply, meaning he didn’t need to stock up as much and increase his pack weight. Heading into Connecticut, it began to rain more and more, and eventually the virus got the better of him.

Now, Finch has to think about next time and whether there will even be a next time. He is still a little uncertain but Jeannie thinks he is sure to finish the trail at least to Mt. Katahdin, which is the end of the trail in the U.S.

“He can’t leave anything undone,” said Jeannie. “If he could have crawled to the end this year, he would have.”

Finch estimates he had 700 miles to go to reach Mt. Katahdin and at his average pace of 100 miles a week, it is a distance he could reach in just under two months. If there is a next time, Finch knows he will have to reduce his pack weight more, which means resupplying more frequently. Though he did a lot right, he did get some great ideas from other hikers. One thing that impressed him the most was the use of space bags, vacuum sealed bags that housed clothes and supplies for other hikers, keeping them dry and taking up very little space. Finch also needs to find a way to not lose as much weight, something he isn’t sure how to improve on. He estimates he was eating between four and six thousand calories each day and eating something every 15 minutes along the way.

Despite the disappointment from not reaching his goal this year, his trip was still a success. He raised over $2,000 for the Arthritis Foundation and donations continue to pour in, some of which are coming from people he met along the trail. People can continue to donate to the Arthritis Foundation via his Web site, http://greyeagle.kintera.org. The cause is close to his heart as Jeannie, his wife of 37 years this July, has been dealing with Fibromyalgia, a form of arthritis that disrupts the normal muscle interaction with the underlying bones, for close to 10 years.

Finch is grateful for the support he received from his family during his five month expedition and he is now easing into his retirement.

“Retirement is tough,” said Finch. “There are no sick days or vacations.”

He admits that every day he thinks more and more about finishing his Appalachian Trail adventure and one can imagine that by next year, sometime in the late spring or early summer, he will be back on the trail, determined to reach Mt. Katahdin and possibly even venture to the trail in Canada.

For all who know him, there is little doubt Grey Eagle will soar again.