Butler grad enjoys taking the road less traveled
e are living in a time of social isolation. ¶ Butler graduate and former Golden Tornado wrestler Jesse Spohn doesn't mind. ¶ In fact, he thrives within it. ¶ “I love experiencing solitude with the wonders of nature,” Spohn, 26, said. ¶ And he does so — for days, weeks and months at a time. ¶Spohn spent nearly four months completing the Appalachian Trail — a 2,184-mile hike from Maine to Georgia — in 2017. He completed the Pacific Crest Trail — a 2,654-mile hike from the United States-Mexico border to Canada — last year. ¶
“He started on April 4 and finished up at the end of August,” Spohn's mother, Kelli McGaughey, said. “He hiked through snow up to his waist, got across swollen rivers, dealt with the wild every day.“Was I nervous as a mother? Yes and no. You always worry, but I knew he was in his element. He was being Jesse.”He was in his element while battling the elements — heat, cold, rivers and mountains.“My parents were well off when I was a kid. I never wanted for anything,” Spohn said. “I wanted to make a mark on my own.“We went on a lot of weekend fishing and camping trips. That's what got me enjoying the outdoors.”Spohn isn't through yet. He plans to hike the entire Continental Divide — a 3,100-mile sojourn across the Rocky Mountains through numerous western states — in 2022.His first two hikes were solo. This next one will be with his girlfriend. Both live in South Carolina.Spohn met his girlfriend along the Appalachian Trail.“This longest trail is one we want to do together,” Spohn said.The three trails combined encompass 22 states, 7,900 miles and more than a million feet in elevation. Completing all three is known as hiking's “Triple Crown,” as recognized by the American Long Distance Hiking Association.
According to the ALDHA, 396 hikers have completed the Triple Crown from 1994 through 2018. The first year any hiker completed all three trails was 1972. The youngest to complete all three — Christian Geiger — finished his quest in 2018 at age 9.Spohn began wrestling in seventh grade. He did not compete on the Butler High School varsity team until his junior year.“I got the crap kicked out of me,” he said of his early wrestling years. “The sport does have a lot to do with who I am now.“There's the mental grind, the self-discipline ... It's like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Whether it's correlation or causation, wrestling reflects my desire to experience things on my own.”Spohn won 51 matches in his final two high school seasons and was a two-time WPIAL qualifier.“As a teacher, I love meeting and spending time with kids like him,” Butler wrestling coach Scott Stoner said. “We try to talk to people about building character. We want kids to grow up to be fearless, do what they want to do and be leaders.“I tell my kids: 'Do something that makes me want to be you.' Jesse's done that. He's a humble, quiet person. He didn't do all of this for publicity. But doing what he did should inspire people.
“Even in isolation, you can embrace life alone,” Stoner added.While embracing life, Spohn challenges his own mortality at times. He especially did that on the Pacific Crest Trail last year.He came across bears and rattlesnakes. He slept in a tent for months. He carried a backpack weighing 28 pounds. The first 700 miles of his hike was across the desert, where it was 80 degrees during the day and 20 degrees at night.“I caught a break there,” Spohn said of the desert heat. “It's usually much hotter. I never carried many supplies with me. That's what I love about the minimalist lifestyle.“When you don't carry a whole lot, you don't have a whole lot to keep track of.”Part of Spohn's preparation for the Pacific Crest Trail hike was learning how close towns were along the trail. When running low on food, he would leave the trail and hitchhike into a town to replenish.At times, he would grab a hot meal there.“I tried to save miles of extra walking when I could,” Spohn said. “Leaving the trail to get to the road might be five or 10 miles out of the way at times.“I went through five pairs of shoes on the trail. When I knew I'd be needing another pair, I'd order them, have them delivered to an upcoming post office and pick them up.”There were portions of the hike where he knew he'd run low on food.“Sometimes I had to find my own food,” Spohn said. “Catch brook trout during the day, cook 'em and eat 'em at night.”
He averaged 26 to 29 miles of hiking each day. The most he did in one day was 46.His mileage was low on days when “the terrain and elements were rough,” he said.While Spohn met plenty of people along the trail, he hiked alone. And he did the entire hike straight through, opting to get through the Sierra Mountains upon his arrival there, rather than come back during a warmer month to complete that portion.“You could get frostbite trying to get through all of that snow, then the high river and creek crossings because of melted snow,” Spohn said.One acquaintance he made on the trail — a man he knew only by the trail name of Gingerballs — wound up in the hospital with a severe case of frostbite while attempting to conquer that region at approximately the same time.His hiking slowed to a crawl by the deep snow, Spohn crossed swift waters in sub-freezing temperatures by stripping off his clothes, holding them and his backpack above his head to keep them dry, then dressing quickly on the other side.He then went on a brief run to warm up his body.“Danger is part of the deal,” Spohn said. “If you go through your whole life without ever confronting danger, you're not really living life.“Hiking is worth the risk to me. It changes who you are.”Spohn faced the most dangerous experience of his hike less than 50 miles before its conclusion.“I was 37 miles from finishing,” he recalled. “I was on a cliff, a very narrow trail, and came upon a mountain goat. It was face-to-face with me, no more than eight feet away.“The goat lowered its head, reared back ... there was no room to get by him. I thought, this is how I'm going to die. I'm going to get butted right off this cliff. Then the goat did a 180 and headed off the other way. That was the closest call I had.”Spohn spends his time these days working for a commercial cleaning and maintenance company in South Carolina, cleaning the outside of tall buildings, rappelling off the top of them.“When I first interviewed with the company, I was warned the job wasn't for just anybody,” he said.Then Spohn showed his resumé.“The guy looked at it and said, 'yeah, I guess you qualify,'” he said, laughing.
