He's walking the walk

Paul Curtin balanced himself on a pile of rocks and raised both fists over his head. The 57-year-old stood next to a weathered wooden sign, its white lettering almost gone: “Katahdin: Northern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail.” He had just climbed Maine’s Mount Katahdin, the peak which marks the end of the historic Appalachian Trail (AT). He and his son, Kyle, began their hike of the entire trail in March 2015 on the AT’s southern terminus, Georgia’s Springer Mountain. For about four months, they hiked over 2,190 miles to reach this very spot, now enveloped in fog blocking the majestic views they had hoped to see.

Curtin was relieved and proud he had reached his goal, but there was something else too: “It’s a little bit of a tinge of sadness of knowing that it’s over, and you’ve gotta get back into the real world ….” Soon he would begin his descent and his journey home to Ohio. But he wouldn’t be there for long. The Appalachian Trail wasn’t done with him yet.

Curtin had wanted to hike the AT since he read Bill Bryson’s novel, “A Walk in the Woods,” about 15 years earlier. Curtin enjoyed Bryson’s humorous account of his AT experience. He remembered, “[Bryson] made it sound kind of fun and kind of crazy at the same time.” So after he retired from his chemical engineering career in February 2015, he and Kyle started their march to Katahdin just weeks later.

Curtin, an experienced triathlete and runner who ran the Boston Marathon in 2009, only had about 10 to 12 days of backpacking experience when he began the trek. At first, he was surprised at the amount of rain and mud he had to endure. A few times, he and Kyle escaped the unceasing rain in hostels, hanging up their clothing and gear around their room so it could dry. He admired mountain lakes, battled through swarms of mosquitoes, and scrambled over so many rocks that his shoes ripped open and his big toes became swollen.

He learned that sometimes what sounds like a rain shower is really caterpillar droppings falling from trees and ate a half gallon’s worth of ice cream in one sitting, an AT tradition to celebrate passing the halfway point. He never let thoughts of quitting slip into his mind. By the time he reached the summit of Katahdin, he had accomplished his goals; he gained backpacking experience, created treasured memories with his son, and raised about $20,000 for the Ray Farmer scholarship, a fund in memory of Curtin’s late friend from his days at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

But the Appalachian Trail had left its mark. “Once I got off the trail and came back home, I’m like, ’Let’s go move to the mountains,’”  he recalled. North Carolina in particular had impressed him. Along with the scenery and weather, it was a good distance between their friends and family. He and his wife, Allison, moved to Asheville, North Carolina, in June 2016. Of his new home, he said, “Asheville itself is such a cool city. It’s just a really easy place to decide to live because it’s got so much natural beauty and so much going on.”

The move also allowed him to give back to the AT community. “You can’t help but get that feeling when you’re out on the trail, ’Man, these people work so hard to maintain this thing. I should do something to pay that back.’” So in the spring of  2017, he joined the Carolina Mountain Club (CMC), a 100-year-old club responsible for maintaining over 400 miles of hiking trails in the area including 94 miles of the AT. 

That fall, he became the Club’s AT Maintenance Supervisor, organizing and working alongside over 60 volunteers who keep these 94 miles open. He also created the Remote Overnight Crew program where volunteers spend a couple weekends a year camping and working on trails too far away for regular upkeep. In exchange, volunteers learn about trail maintenance and gain backpacking experience.

Soon after he became AT Maintenance Supervisor, the CMC began to monitor visitors’ misuse of Max Patch, a treeless mountain top on the Club’s portion of the AT. After realizing they needed to do more to preserve this beloved part of the trail, the Club launched the Trail Ambassador Program in the fall of 2019 with Curtin as its leader. These volunteers, originally eight and now about thirty, monitor Max Patch on weekends from March to November educating visitors on how to enjoy the area responsibly and gathering data about its condition. It would soon become clear that this initiative was vital.

In September 2020, drone footage of Max Patch showed the hiking community the destruction the Club had been battling. The popular bald had become a party destination during COVID. Once prized for its open views of surrounding mountains, it was choked with people and tents, as if it had broken out in a multi-colored rash. Human waste, toilet paper, and trash littered the land, already segmented by paths carved from those wandering off-trail.

Curtin and the CMC have worked hard to turn the Max Patch shown in that footage into a distant memory. Their efforts were boosted in the summer of 2021 when the United States Forest Service banned camping and campfires at Max Patch. Curtin believes the data collected by his Trail Ambassadors had a significant role in securing this win. He’s also written grants to fund improvements at Max Patch, and his annual work days at the bald are popular. This year, he had to limit registration to 100 participants.

Eight years after he first stepped on the Appalachian Trail, Curtin has become one of its most valuable assets. Last year, he was named the Southern Region Volunteer of the Year by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that manages the Appalachian Trail. Among the descriptions of his achievements in the nomination application, a CMC colleague summed up everything the Conservancy needed to know: “Quite frankly, he is the hardest working person in the Club bar none.”