Deaf and blind hiker on Appalachian Trail

Here is something you don't see. A deaf and blind hiker on the Appalachian Trail in his attempt to hike the full length of the trail.

The 2,160-plus-mile Appalachian Trail is daunting enough for most hikers. For Roni Lepore and Roger Poulin, the trail presents extra challenges.

Lepore, who is deaf, and Poulin, who both deaf and blind in one eye and has tunnel vision in the other, talked about their special relationship with the trail when they spent several nights with Carol and Ron Baker at the Huffman House Bed and Breakfast at Creekside Farm near Newport, which is half a mile off the trail.

The hikers had accomplished more than 600 miles by the time they stayed with the Bakers, after starting their adventure in early April from Springer Mountain, Ga., on the trail that runs from Georgia to Maine.

The Bakers, who thru-hiked the AT – from end to end – in 1999 and said they found it “extremely difficult.” They noted Lepore and Poulin “hike faster than we ever could. They managed around our house and ‘talked’ to us by writing things in a notebook.

“Roni is very patient and loving and really cares that Roger makes it all the way to Katahdin, Maine. Roger is determined to hike through ‘thick or thin’! He gets banged up a lot, but trudges on! He generally comes in to the pick up site (I shuttled them) after Roni. She whoops and hollers and jumps up and down and claps for him. She is truly glad that he has made it,” said Carol Baker. “We can’t fathom how either of them is doing this!”

Lepore’s trail name is “Ram Sham” for Rambling Shamrock. The New Jersey resident holds bachelor and master’s degrees from Rochester Institute of Technology in New York in the area of Information Technology.

Maine resident Poulin’s trail name is Adventurous Cane. He was born with Usher Syndrome, the most common condition that affects both hearing and vision, which also comes with balance problems – not able to walk steady.

Read the rest here.

And here's a story about a hiker's dream to hike the 100 mile Wilderness Trail where he met a deaf hiker.

I also met a deaf hiker named Caribou and his dog, who had flipped from New Jersey and was now hiking south to there going 20 miles per day. Don’t think he’s quite on that pace though, as I just saw him at breakfast in Monson this morning a week after we met.

Deaf hikers on the Appalachian Trail? How often does that happen?

Anyway, if you live in the Northwest and like to hike then check out my next hike if you want to join and perhaps start the first get together of Deaf and HH Hikers of the Northwest.

See ya.