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Fulfilling a Lifelong Dream

2 Elkins men complete Appalachian Trail hike

ELKINS – “It was an epic journey and exceeded all of my expectations.”

That’s how Tom Schuler described the nine-year experience he shared with Jim Fregonara as the two Elkins residents hiked the Appalachian Trail.  

Schuler, 69, and Fregonara, 73, decided in 2017 to begin their quest to conquer the trail, which runs through 14 states and covers 2,197 miles.   

“Hiking the trail had been a lifelong dream of mine, and in 2018 I told myself that I wasn’t getting any younger, and if I was ever going to do it I better get started,” Schuler told The Inter-Mountain. “On my first trip I was by myself and I hiked about 65 miles. When I finished, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, I can really do this.’ So Jim (Fregonara) found out that I was doing it and he had always wanted to do it as well. So he told me if I was going back he would go with me.”   

Later that year, the two men went back to where Schuler stopped on his first hike in Georgia, where the trail begins.The duo made it all the way to North Carolina on the second hike and because both men, who are retired now, were still working full-time, it was a year later before they tackled the next section. Before teaming up, Fregonara had journeyed to Georgia to hike the part Schuler had walked by himself.     

“Over the next two years we did about 130 miles each year, and then we started extending a little more each year,” Schuler said. “By 2023 we made it to Harpers Ferry, and over the next three years after that we covered close to 1,200 miles. We were hiking about 400 miles per year.”   

Schuler and Fregonara said they both have had visions of hiking the trail since they were teenagers in the 1970s. Earlier this month, their dreams became a reality when they reached the end of the trail in Maine, on top of Mount Katahdin.   

“I read an article in National Geographic about hiking the Appalachian Trail back in the ’70s and I always thought I wanted to try it,” Fregonara told The Inter-Mountain. “I was grateful that Tom wanted to do it because I’m always putting things off. He said, ‘If we are going to do it, we have to do it now because we are getting older.’ When we finished the hike, it was quite emotional and really unique. We both thought this had been a long time coming.”    

The duo started the final trek in August of this year, and summited Mount Katahdin on Oct. 4.   

“It was really hard, but it was something that Jim and I were very much committed to finishing,” Schuler said. “We had some very hard days, but we never thought about quitting. We really enjoyed it.”   

The professional backgrounds of the two men may have given them an advantage that other hikers taking on the trail might not have. Schuler is retired from the U.S. Forest Service, while Fregonara is a retired wildlife biologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.    

“We were kind of unique out there because we would kind of know a little bit about the ecosystem, the trees, the animals and the water,” Fregonara said. “We were fortunate that we kind of relied on our backgrounds to help us out.”     

The terrain and environment continuously changed for the two men, depending on which part of the trail the two were hiking.  

“We started out in Georgia, where the trail begins, and that’s a very different environment then in Maine,” Shuler said. “We would usually hike in the spring and in the fall. Between the two of us, we really got a good first-hand experience of how the forest changed between Georgia and Maine. And how the wildlife changed between those two extreme points.”   

Schuler noted that another unique part of the trip was visiting towns along the way and talking to other hikers.     

“We got to enjoy a lot of the trail towns along the way,” Schuler said. “And that was really a fun part of the experience as well. Hikers were really welcome in those trail towns, and we got to experience that from South to North.”     

Both men agreed that the trail’s rough terrain was difficult in some locations. They also had encounters with some dangerous wildlife along the way, including a nuisance black bear in the Smoky Mountains and rattlesnakes in Pennsylvania. Both said they were never really threatened, though, and Schuler pointed out the most hazardous part of the journey was on the duo’s first night.   

“Our very first night together, which was in November, it got really cold and we did not have the proper gear,” Schuler said. “That was the most miserable night of the nine-year experience. But we upgraded our gear through the years and never had any more problems.”     

When not sleeping in their tents, the two men would stay in shelters that have been constructed along the trail. They would also occasionally stay at hostels or yurts, and in hotels.    

The two are currently working on a plan to hike the Allegheny Trail in West Virginia, which is close to 300 miles long.   

“We have been working on figuring out what is next,” Fregonara said. “We are thinking about doing the Allegheny Trail, because it’s right here in our own backyard. It’s only 300 miles and it comes through near Elkins. So other people can join us and we will have a great party up there.”