Some retirees walk around the mall, others walk their dogs around the neighborhood. Then there’s Marcia and Ken Powers who are walking across the United States.
If you are reading this article during daylight hours, the Powers are probably walking right now. One foot in front of the other, a yard at a time, 24 miles a day, they are carrying all of their own gear and are determined to chase the sunset for more than 5,000 miles.
Starting their journey at Cape Henlopen Feb. 27, the couple plans to arrive home in San Francisco Nov. 11 for their son’s wedding.
This is a pair with experience in long-distance hiking.
They have hiked from Mexico to Canada on two different trails, and they have also hiked from Maine to Georgia on the Appalachian Trail. “I think we’ve done about 6,000 miles so far,” Marcia said.
Marcia is a retired flutist who has played in symphonies and taught private lessons. Ken is a retired database analyst for Chevron/Texaco.
Ken, 60, and Marcia, who says she is younger than her husband, have hiked so much, they already know what equipment they will use, how many miles they can walk in one day, and what problems they can expect. “We found that we spent about a half-hour every day talking to people and answering questions,” Ken said. Now the couple hands out a “hiker card” with links to web sites to answer questions that people may have.
Small beginnings
They started long hikes after their two children were in college. “We were looking for something to do for my 50th birthday,” Marcia said. The couple made a day-hike to the top of Mt. Whitney in California.
“At the mountain’s crest, we looked west into Sequoia National Park,” Marcia said. “There were no indications of man at all. It made us speechless.” After taking in that view, the couple started camping during three-day weekends.
“When we did a 50-mile weekend hike, we decided we could do a big trail,” Marcia said.
Now they walk across continents.
Ken said they are spending their retirement traveling across America like many other retirees, but with a difference. “We are not separated by a pane of glass,” he said. “We get to smell the flowers, hear the birds.”
When they are walking in a remote part of the country, Marcia said, “it’s like we own that part of land, but maybe own isn’t the right word. It’s all there for us to savor without any interruptions. We get to experience the country slower, but more intensely.”
A cheap way to travel
Ken said backpacking long distances is not expensive. “We can go days without spending money,” he said. “Since town is where you spend, we spend a lot of time on the trails.” Ken said they are the only retired couple they know that come home from vacation with money left in the bank.
For the cross-country trip, the Powers’ will be buying food in towns and carrying as much water as they can.
When they buy food, they are looking for food that is high-calorie but not heavy. “Snickers bars are great,” Ken said.
“When some people overhear us at grocery stores, they think we’re crazy,” Marcia said. “A bad food for us is a diet food.”
Water is one of the challenges, they said. Often the only water available is from a stream. While they have filters and tablets that clean the water, still it tastes bad. “We put lifesavers in our mouths before we drink. That way we can’t taste the bad water,” Ken said.
According to acting Director of the American Discovery Trail Butch Henley, if the couple makes it, they will be the second couple who finished the trail. “But there may be more, and they just didn’t tell us about it,” she said.
“I’m sure they will finish whatever they set out to do,” Henley said.
The Powers will be taking the trail’s southern route, which bypasses Iowa and travels through Missouri and Kansas.
To make the trip in one season, the Powers figured out they need to reach Colorado by July. Then they won’t have to worry about snow crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Rules for the hike
Ken and Marcia Powers have a few hard-and-fast rules for their hikes. First, they will walk the entire way. “Even if someone picks us up and lets us stay somewhere, we will be brought back to the exact spot where we were picked up,” Marcia said. The idea is to have a continuous set of footprints from one coast to the other.
They have also decided they will carry everything the whole way. They will not let someone drive their pack to the top of a certain mountain range.
The third rule is to keep walking. In order to meet their goal of 24 miles a day, the couple plans to walk from dawn until a half-hour before sunset or 8:30 p.m., whichever comes first.
The things they carry
The Powers each carry a pack that weighs about 24 pounds full. In the packs, they have a three-pound tent, a foam pad and a small cook stove.
Marcia said she goes through a pair of boots every 500 miles or so, while Ken burns through his in about 1,000 miles. They have already sent ahead new boots, which they’ll pick up at certain points along the route.
The do not carry a cell phone. “The reception isn’t very good away from main roads,” Marcia said. “Besides, we wouldn’t have a way to keep it charged.”
However, they will remain in contact through their website. When the couple gets to a pay phone, they will download their trail journal to their website from a handheld computer device.
After their second day of hiking, they traveled from Redden State Forest to Denton, Md., where they stayed in a hotel because a rain and snow was blowing across the peninsula.
According to the posting on their website, the couple seemed to have a nice hike despite the weather. “Incredibly, we had a lovely day walking, especially through sheltering forests,” Marcia wrote. “When we got to open farmland, I tried to look around at buildings, crops, machinery, anything to distract me from the howling wind. Sometimes it was just wind, other times it drove the snow and/or rain nearly horizontal. Most birds were sheltering, but I saw a dozen robins pecking in a field. Spring bulbs are showing about 3 inches of green poking up. Both are cheerful harbingers of spring in the grey, cold snow that melted as soon as it hit the ground.”
For more information, and to keep track of the journey, visit their website at www.trailjournals.com/gottawalkadt
