{"id":6701,"date":"2016-01-28T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=6701"},"modified":"2018-11-11T21:50:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T05:50:28","slug":"bringing-kyle-to-katahdin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/hike\/bringing-kyle-to-katahdin","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Kyle to Katahdin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob McCann and Jared Dinsmore are sitting by a smoldering fire outside a hunting cabin in rural Maine. The air is cold, and the fire pit is framed by ferns and towering pines. Inside, there are antlers on the wall with pencil marks that date back to 1986. After the war and after the trail, this is where they are the most at ease, the most themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cJared\u2019s been my best friend since we were born,\u201d Rob says. \u201cWe lived right across the street from each other. We\u2019re really better brothers than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had gone to boarding school in New Brunswick together, and they were both at Acadia University before Rob dropped out to enlist in the Marine Corps. Rob felt it was \u201cthe right thing at the right time,\u201d but Jared couldn\u2019t understand his friend\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some heated talks,\u201d Rob says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some discussions,\u201d Jared says. \u201cBut that was Rob\u2019s journey to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Rob left for training at Parris Island, Jared came by to see him off. \u201cI was standing in his driveway,\u201d he says. \u201cHis sister was going out of her mind. His mom was in the house, needed a minute. I said I guess I\u2019ll get out of here too. It was a rough few days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob went on three deployments between 2010 and 2013, and his battalion was involved in the biggest joint operation in the war in Afghanistan\u2014the clearing of the Taliban-held city of Marjah\u2014during which five of his friends were killed in action. He wears black bracelets with their names inscribed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn hindsight,\u201d Rob says, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t change anything the way it was, but I don\u2019t think I really understood what it\u2019s actually like to fight in a war and how that affects you for the rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Katahdin\"<\/p>\n

Rob McCann at the hunting cabin owned by family friends in rural Maine. He has been coming here for a decade.<\/em><\/p>\n

The cabin is only a few miles from the Appalachian Trail, which stretches through the white pine forests and mossy bogs of Maine\u2019s wilderness all the way to Georgia. The longest hiking-only footpath in the world, the A.T. traverses 14 states and 2,190 miles. When Rob came home and got out of the Marines, he needed a new challenge and a change of scene, so he and Jared decided to hike the whole stretch, starting from the south and ending at home in Maine. It took them six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to get away for a long period of time,\u201d Rob says. \u201cBut when I reflect on it now, I see how powerful that experience was. I mean, you walk 2,190 miles, you\u2019ve got a long time to process everything in your head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob had organized the hike as a fundraiser for the memorial fund of his friend Kyle Coutu, whose name is on one of Rob\u2019s black bracelets. Kyle\u2019s family started a nonprofit to give scholarships in his name and keep his memory alive, and Rob wanted to be part of that. The two friends had met at Parris Island and then went on their first deployment together. \u201cHe was full of life, and fun,\u201d Rob says. \u201cHe was just someone I grew close with quickly. Part of him made me feel I was at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle Coutu passed away on Feb. 18, 2010, during the battle of Marjah. He and Rob were in different platoons within the same battalion. \u201cI saw Kyle the morning before he was killed,\u201d Rob says. \u201cWe stuck matches in a Clif Bar because the day before was his birthday. And we all shook hands, high fived, laughed at each other, walked off in different directions.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Rob\u2019s account, his battalion had dropped from helicopters 40 miles outside the city, and made their way closer on foot. After 10 days of walking through the desert, getting hit by mortar shells and sleeping in holes they dug each night, they reached the city in the dark, early hours of Feb. 13. At first it was eerily quiet, but the long battle to reclaim the city began within an hour. \u201cAs soon as the sun came up, all hell broke loose for about 86 days straight,\u201d Rob says.<\/p>\n

Rob explains that the platoons were rotating, trying to gain ground, and five days into the operation, Kyle\u2019s platoon moved out to try to push their limits harder. \u201cThey got lit up, real bad,\u201d Rob says. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t see them maneuvering, but the bullets that were being shot at them were ricocheting over our heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those bullets hit Kyle and killed him instantly. \u201cAnd I never saw him,\u201d Rob says. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen him since we shook hands and went separate ways. I saw the helicopter. But I never saw him. The helicopter took off, and my parents were at his funeral a week later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob never really had time to process his friend\u2019s death. \u201cWhen someone gets hurt or killed, the helicopter comes and takes them away, and you pick up your bag and keep walking,\u201d he says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t relieve you from the situation. There\u2019s no pause button. You\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Appalachian<\/p>\n

Left, Rob holds his journal from the war. Right, he holds his dog tags, which are wrapped in electrical tape to mute their rattling sound. He keeps his mementos in a wooden chest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rob visited Kyle\u2019s family in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, after he got home, and he felt the magnitude of their loss. Kyle had been an only child, engaged to his high school girlfriend. The captain of the wrestling and football teams, he had graduated less than a year before he was killed, and the whole town was grieving. \u201cYou could tell by the reaction that came out of his community that he was a good kid with a big heart that obviously touched a lot of lives,\u201d Rob says.<\/p>\n

When he and Jared started talking about hiking the A.T., Rob knew it would be the right thing to honor his friend\u2019s memory. The unintentional benefit was that backpacking in the wilderness for six months also helped him process his own experience. \u201cI think it was important that I didn\u2019t go there to reflect,\u201d he says. \u201cIt turned into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out on the trail, Jared watched his best friend transform back to his old self, a little more each day. \u201cEverything behind you is sort of muted for a minute, because you have this challenge,\u201d he says. \u201cJust enjoying the wilderness, accomplishing something, and being so tired that you don\u2019t have anything to think about other than Ramen noodles and sleep, that was what helped him get level quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe simplicity of backpacking\u2014that\u2019s what I needed,\u201d Rob says. \u201cI just wanted to be present in the exact moment that I was in.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had a good time on their hike, and made new friends who meant so much to Rob that he had them, and the trail, tattooed on his arm. First they met Novie, \u201ca tough kid from Nova Scotia.\u201d Then they met best friends Hammer and Mallet, and The Dude, who \u201cwalked to the beat of a different drum.\u201d In the long A.T. tradition of trail names, Rob was called Tallulah and Jared was Gravy. They were all, as Rob says, \u201cthick-skinned blue-collar kids\u201d in their 20s, and they just meshed well. \u201cYour experience is based on the bubble of people you\u2019re inside of,\u201d he says. And he had a good bubble.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"AT_Steward_Image3\"<\/p>\n

Rob and Jared hike a stretch of the Appalachian Trail in Maine. They\u00a0thru-hiked the entire 2,180 miles in 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n

Another thing the new friends had in common was that they were all unprepared for the backcountry. Rob admits he hadn\u2019t done much research. He figured he had just come from the Infantry, and he could handle anything. On their first night in Georgia, he and Jared were so cold they thought they would freeze to death. Rob climbed into Jared\u2019s tent for warmth, but that didn\u2019t work because Jared \u201csnores like a bear.\u201d A few days in, they broke down and bought new sleeping bags with the correct temperature rating at a gear shop on Springer Mountain.<\/p>\n

Then there was the Shenandoah River. They decided to canoe all 100 miles, even though none of them had canoed before. When they hit the first rapids three miles in, one of the canoes crashed into the rocks and filled with water. Their freshly stocked supplies slipped into the river and floated away fast. \u201cWe were unprepared to say the least,\u201d Rob says.<\/p>\n

Rob loved the second adolescence of being on the trail with a bunch of young guys. \u201cEvery day was funny,\u201d he says. And there were no responsibilities, aside from making sure they had enough food and got where they were going. \u201cYou don\u2019t have control over a lot,\u201d he says. \u201cJust allowing your experience to unfold is what makes it really special.\u201d<\/p>\n

But his favorite times were the quiet moments. In the White Mountains of New Hampshire, they\u2019d all pile into the fire towers to watch sunsets spread like wildfire over the horizon. He was so close to home that he says he could smell Maine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Appalachian<\/p>\n

Jared (L) and Rob have been best friends since childhood. Hiking the\u00a0A.T. gave them a chance to reconnect after Rob\u2019s time in the Marines.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Appalachian Trail ends at Mt. Katahdin, a 5,270 ft. rock in Baxter State Park. Rob, Jared and their new friends started climbing before dawn so they\u2019d have the summit to themselves. They reached the end of their long trail at 5:30am on a misty fall morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was solemn up there,\u201d Jared says. \u201cWe had our hoot, we had our holler. But then it was quiet for a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob had carried Kyle\u2019s picture in his backpack throughout the six-month journey, and he took it out to hang on the Mt. Katahdin signpost. That\u2019s the moment it all hit him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t cried for a long time, and I let it out,\u201d he says. \u201cIt felt good. I felt like I had done what I wanted to do. I don\u2019t think there was a single day I hiked that I didn\u2019t think about his friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hike impacted Kyle\u2019s family, too. His aunt, uncle and niece had driven out from Rhode Island to meet Rob and Jared on the trail near Bear Mountain, NY, taken them out to dinner and put them up in a hotel for a night. \u201cWe saw what it meant to them,\u201d Jared says. \u201cEvery step was for their nephew.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Jared, he hiked 2,190 miles for his own reason. \u201cI was there for Rob\u2019s cause,\u201d he says, \u201cbut really, I was there for Rob.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob suffers from a mild traumatic brain injury in addition to post-traumatic stress disorder. \u201cThere\u2019s no way you can come home from those things without any sort of impact,\u201d Rob says, but he adds that it took time on the A.T. to come to grips with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know if on the day I finished hiking, I realized how powerful the whole experience had been,\u201d he says. \u201cIt took a lot of time to really see what it\u2019s been able to do for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Appalachian<\/p>\n

Rob\u2019s personal photos from his hike: Left, Rob with Kyle\u2019s photo at the summit of Mt. Katahdin. Right, Rob reuniting with Kate at the end of the trail. He proposed to her soon afterward.<\/em><\/p>\n

After he got off the trail in September 2013, Rob proposed to his girlfriend, Kate. (They were married on Cliff Island the following year; Jared was his best man.) A month after the hike, he ran a marathon. His knees are in bad shape from carrying a 200 lb. pack for years in the Infantry, but he says hiking developed muscles in his legs that he didn\u2019t even know he had, and that helped. \u201cThe more I try to run, the better I feel,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Hiking the A.T. pulled everything into tighter focus, and Rob came away with a clearer sense of direction. In 2015, he was selected by Maine congresswoman Chellie Pingree for a two-year paid internship as a veteran advocate. \u201cFor the first time in my life, I feel like I know what I\u2019m supposed to be doing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Rob says that the current practice of keeping returning service members on base for physical and mental health evaluations before releasing them is well-intentioned, but ineffective as a long-term solution. \u201cYou get a returning service member who wants to go home and see his family, you think he\u2019s going to tell the clinician that he feels like his head really hurts?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving a clean bill of health when you know you don\u2019t have one is your way home,\u201d Jared adds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Katahdin\"<\/p>\n

Rob at the hunting cabin in Maine, a few miles from the A.T.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe real problem is, and this is the truth of it, when you\u2019re surrounded by guys who have been through what you have, you feel pretty normal,\u201d Rob says. He\u2019s seen that stability shift when they leave base and return to their hometowns. He wants to create better veteran reintegration programs that help returning service members adjust long after they\u2019ve come home. \u201cI feel like for the first time I\u2019m in a position where I have a small chance of creating real change,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Rob thinks the vets who have the hardest time with reintegration are still carrying what he calls a \u201ccombat mentality.\u201d They\u2019re trained to separate their emotions from the job they have to do. But there has to be something\u2014like hiking the Appalachian Trail\u2014that resets their thinking, and transforms soldiers back into civilians. \u201cIt\u2019s about learning how to switch that light off,\u201d he says. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you what works for everybody, but this worked for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Appalachian<\/p>\n

Learn more at REI.com\/trails<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob McCann and Jared Dinsmore are sitting by a smoldering fire outside a hunting cabin in rural Maine. The air is cold, and the fire pit is framed by ferns and towering pines. Inside, there are antlers on the wall with pencil marks that date back to 1986. After the war and after the trail, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":[15,400,8,299,1528,138],"internal-tag":[1673,611],"class_list":["post-6701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hike","tag-backpacking","tag-every-trail-connects","tag-hike","tag-maine","tag-northeast","tag-united-states","internal-tag-pre-redirect-hike","internal-tag-stacey-cook"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/hike\/bringing-kyle-to-katahdin","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Bringing Kyle to Katahdin","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/hike\/bringing-kyle-to-katahdin","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/hike\/bringing-kyle-to-katahdin"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/12\/AT-Steward-Feature.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/12\/AT-Steward-Feature.jpg?fit=1500%2C960"},"articleSection":"Hike","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Angela Crampton"}],"creator":["Angela Crampton"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["backpacking","every trail connects","hike","maine","northeast","united states"],"dateCreated":"2016-01-28T20:00:47Z","datePublished":"2016-01-28T20:00:47Z","dateModified":"2018-11-12T05:50:28Z"},"rendered":"