Profile
Walkin’ Jim Stoltz
By Larry Luxenberg
MONG THRU-HIKERS, “Walkin” Jim Stoltz stands out in many ways. One in particular is that he has continued to hike, largely off major trails, for the last 20 years. A singer, guitar player and photographer, he’s also become an influential advocate for the preservation of wilderness lands in the West. I spoke to him at the 1993 ALDHA Gathering in Athens, West Virginia, where he has given concerts for many years.
“Walkin’” Jim Stoltz thru-hiked the A.T. in 1974 and ever since has continued to take long hikes through the wilderness. “It was one of the turning points in my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time,” he was. In between long hikes, he tours the country giving concerts and slide shows about his trips. He carries a guitar on his pack and writes songs. Of his hiking, he said, “It’s a rich man’s life without the money.”
He got his start in both hiking and music in the Boy Scouts. When his scoutmaster took the troop camping, he would bring his guitar, sing folk songs, and dispense bits of wisdom. That’s when Jim first picked up the guitar. A few years ago, he gave a concert at Bowdoin College in Maine and invited his old scoutmaster, who now lives nearby. “It was exciting for me,” Jim said. “I wanted him to see what I’ve done with my life.” Jim dedicated one of his songs to the scoutmaster -- “Searching for the Road Not Taken,” based on the well-known Robert Frost poem. “I was really proud he could see it,” Jim said.
In 1973, after dropping out of college, Stoltz was hiking in Shenandoah National Park when he ran into a thru-hiker. “I had no direction and was pretty insecure,” Jim said. “I was captivated by this grand adventure. I questioned him for an hour. The next year I did the A.T.”
“The A.T. changed me in a lot of ways,” he said. “It made me more social and helped me blossom as a human being. The kindnesses I received all the way restored a faith in humanity that I’d lost.”
He took six and a half months -- from March to mid-October -- to complete the trail. His father kept track of his progress by sticking pins in a huge wall map. Along the way, Jim stopped and did some short side trails, to such places as Gulf Hagas in Maine and Crabtree Falls and Whiteoak Canyon in Virginia. When he reached Maine, he slowed down. “I didn’t want it to end,” he said. Already he was planning his next walk: a 5,000-mile coast-to-coast trip.
Jim admits his A.T. thru-hike didn’t get off to a promising start. He had heavy hiking boots, and after a couple of days, he also had big blisters on both heels. “I was limping along. It was the most painful situation ever for walking,” Jim said. “What kept me going was that I wanted to be there. It added some adventure in my life. Even though I was hurting, I was enjoying it.”
“I have a song that goes ‘It’s funny how the spirit will see you through the hard times,’ The spirit, the will to be out there, keeps you going. After 18,000 miles, the hard times are just part of it. You just accept it after a while. The real steep climbs are part of it -- like the flat trail.”
There were plenty of hard times. Three days out from Springer, he ran into tornadoes and rainstorms. He didn’t have a tent and was totally soaked. He hitchhiked into Dahlonega and threw his clothes into the dryer.
After nearly 20 years, he still has vivid memories of the A.T. “For about five years, I could tell you the name of every place I stayed,” Jim said. A lot of his memories are of people, often fellow hikers in trail shelters. He recalls taking refuge in the Standing Indian Shelter in North Carolina during a big ice storm. There were eleven long-distance hikers crammed like sardines into a shelter for two nights. “All we did was talk about food, snakes and bears,” he said.
He was on the southern A.T. one windy night. A shelter was in bad shape, so he and some other hikers set up their tents. They were standing around one tent talking when they heard a loud noise. A tree had crashed down on an empty tent. “We were all in shock,” Jim said. “It was a close call. If the hiker had been in his tent, he would have been killed. It was a real lesson. Now, I’m always aware of where I set my tent up.”
Jim also had a brush with hypothermia. He had done his longest day on the trail, 31 miles, trying to get to the post office in Port Clinton, Pennsylvania, on a Saturday morning before it closed. As it turned out, the post office was closed all day, and his big hiking day was for nothing. It rained all day, and he grew wetter and colder. He made it to the shelter before Port Clinton, but his hands were so numb he couldn’t use them. With his teeth, he pulled his sleeping bag open and crawled inside. He was scared but thinking clearly, indicating the hypothermia was not advanced.
He had mixed feelings when he reached Katahdin in mid-October. “It was exciting to be finally up there and say I really did this, but I was sad to be finished. If I’d had enough money, I’d have turned around and kept going. It was a mixture of sadness in the ending and joy in realizing I had done it.”
Because of the harsh weather that late in the season, he had to wait four days to climb Katahdin. When he finally did, it was a perfect day with fall colors down below, ice and snow on top, and views far across the Maine wilderness.
When Jim finished the trail, he had one penny left and two weeks’ worth of food that other hikers had given him. He hitchhiked around for a while and finally got a job.
The next year, 1975, Jim set out on a 5,000-mile, 18-month cross-country walk that confirmed his life as a wilderness hiker. He started at West Quoddy Head, Maine, the easternmost part of the 48-contiguous states. From there, Jim walked to Katahdin and followed the A.T. to Clarendon Gorge, Vermont, before heading across the Adirondacks. He followed abandoned railroad grades in western New York, then crossed into Canada and hiked the Bruce Trail. He returned to the United States via the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Across the upper Midwest, he took two breaks of six weeks each. In between, he snowshoed for three months. On the frigid night of Nov. 10, 1975, when the ore boat Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior with no survivors, Jim was camped by the lake. “It was the most miserable night I’ve ever had,” Jim said. The falling wet snow would pile up on his tent roof, and then the high winds would knock the tent down. Every few hours, he’d have to crawl out, remove the snow from the roof, and put the tent up again. “I was totally soaked,” he said. He had lingering ill effects from that night for weeks.
Once he fell through the ice into chest-deep slushy water. The air temperature was about 10 degrees, and when he managed to climb out, everything quickly started to freeze. Although he didn’t usually have a campfire, he had gathered some wood before he fell in. He was able to build a big fire and warm himself and dry everything.
He ended his coast-to-coast walk in Cape Alava, Washington, the westernmost part of the 48 contiguous states. During that trip he used a walking stick that was a piece of driftwood he’d picked up on the Atlantic coast. “The plan was to drop it in the Pacific. When I got there I couldn’t let go of it.”
In 1979, Jim walked the Continental Divide Trail from Mexico to Canada. Since then, he’s taken many other long walks through Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. In 1988, after he was married, he and his wife, Leslie, took a three-week honeymoon hike in the Grand Canyon. They intended to hike the length of the canyon, but Leslie hurt her leg. Jim has taken three long hikes with Leslie. “As much as I love hiking with her, it’s different from hiking alone,” he said. “It’s a barrier to nature. Often we’re talking. I’m aware of the other person rather than what’s going on around me.”
He writes most of his songs while he’s hiking. “It’s re-creation,” he said. “I need a spark of creativity.” Now, he’s doing shorter hikes of two to three months because his music has become so popular. Having turned 40, he finds that he’s slowing down a bit. “If I do a 20-mile day, I really feel it,” he said.
He also finds that he is satisfied with less food on the trail. “Before, I could never get enough.” He normally carries a two-weeks supply of food and has carried up to 22 days’ worth of provisions.
He began carrying a guitar on his Continental Divide hike in 1979, and now he carries one all the time. It weighs two pounds. He carried his old guitar for 8,000 miles with no case, just lashing it to the back of his pack with the neck down. The rain drenched it and the sun burned it, but it still worked. He even credits it with saving his life.
While hiking through Utah, he spent a night on top of a steep mountain. When he woke up, he saw that the mountain was icy. Trying to skirt a cliff, Jim slipped, falling toward the edge. He kicked his feet in and clawed with his hands, but nothing worked. Realizing he was going over the edge, he rolled onto his back to see where he was headed. As he did, the neck of his guitar jammed into the ice, stopping him. Now, he says, “My advice to hikers is, if they’re ever crossing an ice field, carry a guitar.”
“My life is so blessed. I’ve seen so many special things. I’m lucky enough to make my living doing what I want to do.
“The more I’m out there, the more I’m convinced it’s the time, not the miles. It’s not the 18,000 miles, it’s the 20 years. I’d much rather take my time.”
P O S T S C R I P T:
More information about Walkin’ Jim can be found on his Web site, Walkin’ Jim Stoltz Forever Wild, at:
http://www.walkinjim.com
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