COLORADO SPRINGS (AP)
Wesley Trimble hikes with a unique cadence and sets his own pace.
When he started on the Pacific Crest Trail in Southern California in mid-April, fellow hikers saw his loping gait and assumed Trimble had developed a “hiker hobble,” a euphemism for the body’s revolt after going too hard too soon.
But three months later and more than 1,700 miles into his epic journey, Trimble’s hobble has stuck with him – a permanent feature of his stride caused by cerebral palsy.
A hiking enthusiast and 2006 graduate of Woodland Park High School, Trimble’s physical deficits have done little to deter him from racking up an impressive list of endurance feats.
In severe forms, cerebral palsy confines people to wheelchairs, afflicting muscle-control centers in the brain in ways that affect movement, speech and other faculties.
Trimble, 26, has a milder form that roiled muscles on his right side, resulting in a right leg that is shorter than his left and a slight but permanent limp.
Judging from accomplishments, it’s hardly slowed him.
Through the years, Trimble has summited nearly 100 mountains, including 50 of Colorado’s 54 peaks that reach 14,000 feet or higher.
In the summer of 2013, he hiked the 486-mile Colorado Trail from Denver to Durango in 31 days. A few weeks later, he competed in the Pikes Peak Ascent, a 13.32-mile race up Barr Trail to the mountain’s 14,115-foot summit.
Conquering the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada, is another way to “test where my physical limitations lie,” he said.
“The thing is, I haven’t found them,” Trimble said, more matter-of-fact than boastful.
Trimble passed the 1,700-mile marker in mid-July, well beyond the halfway point. The trail begins near Campo, California, and passes through the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges before ending near Manning Park, British Columbia.
He’s on track to finish sometime in September and plans to hike an additional 40 miles into British Columbia to reach a road that will get him to Vancouver, where he will catch a flight back to Colorado to see a buddy who’s leaving the country for graduate school.
On the trail, his life is not much different from that of other hikers, he says – a mixture of solitude, loneliness, grandeur and grueling effort.
Trimble has documented some of his experiences on a blog, wesleytrimble.com, such as an encounter with a brown bear while he was eating a cherished Snickers bar.
He receives his prepackaged dehydrated meals – and his daily candy bar – in packages that his parents ship to towns along the way every six days or so. He types out blog posts on a smartphone and uploads them when he manages to find a signal.
Resupply days offer a break from physical rigor, but no real rest for the weary. They are spent repairing gear, picking up supplies, doing laundry and “consuming as many calories as I can.”
When hiking, Trimble has to make a conscious effort not to favor his strong side, which could result in his muscles developing disproportionately; that, he says, would “create problems.”
“Sometimes I catch myself saying, ‘Oh this would be so much easier if I didn’t have a disability,’” he said. “But in the end, it is what it is, and everyone who’s on (the) trail struggles.”
In Northern California, Trimble was averaging 26 miles a day while hiking 10 hours straight, he said. According to his blog, he hiked 72 miles in two days in July.
A former laser operator at a precision-manufacturing plant in Colorado Springs, Trimble quit his job to complete the five-month hike as a way of testing himself.
“The more I push myself, the stronger I get,” he said. “I feel much more whole as a person, I guess, when I’m kind of pushing myself to those limits.”
One thing he hasn’t figured out, he said, is how much to broadcast his disability among those with whom he shares the trail.
“I’m not trying to shy away from it, but I’m not trying to be the poster child, either,” he said. “For me, this is my hike. It’s my struggle. When it comes to an end, if I make it all the way to Canada, which I hope I do, then I can start to ask, ‘How do I share it?’”
