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Luverne hiker logs 2,700 miles cross country

Lead Summary
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By
Lori Sorenson

A Luverne woman is en route from Mexico to Canada on a 2,700-mile hike via the Continental Divide Trail through the Rocky Mountains.
Berty (Elizabeth) Stearns embarked on the journey April 3 with her dog, Toolik, a 50-pound blue heeler mix.
They set out from the southern tip of New Mexico and plan to reach the northern border early in September, if all goes as planned.
And plan she did.
“I’ve worked really hard to get to this point,” Stearns told the Star Herald on April 2 the day before departure. “I feel like I’m ready … as ready as I’ll ever be.”
She had to plan for the elements — desert heat, mountain blizzards, rocky terrain and long stretches between civilization and water sources.
Which means food and rations were major factors in survival planning.
 
Survival planning
Long before her departure date, she began making and preserving healthy foods that would pack light, stay fresh and provide optimum nutrition to support roughly 4,500 calories she’d need each day.
In addition to granola bars, tuna packets and trail mix, her daily rations include one “hot meal” per day prepared simply by adding water.
One day last winter she cooked a crowd-size batch of chili that she dehydrated and divided into dozens of meals along with other dehydrated meats, sauces and vegetables.
By the time she left home on her 26-week journey, she had 26 boxes of rations — for herself and for Toolik — stacked against the wall in their basement.
They were packaged in U.S. Postal Service uniform-size priority mail packages ready to be shipped to various post offices along her planned route.
“Sending all your food to yourself is a pretty big logistical project, especially when you're trying to have good nutrition too,” Berty said.
Her husband Joseph Stearns, a Luverne High School teacher, has been mailing the weekly provisions and tracking her progress.
“I think it’s a pretty awesome accomplishment that she’s able to do it,” Joseph said. “… to plan for it and to have the motivation to actually do it.”
He joined her in late May to visit friends in New Mexico. “I’m glad to support her, but at the same time I miss her,” he said.
He recently joined her for a weeklong hike when she reached Yellowstone National Park.
Meanwhile he follows her route via a GPS tracking device that pings her live location.
And, he continues mailing her weekly packages.
After restocking at the mail drops, Berty’s backpack weighs roughly 30 pounds. Toolik’s backpack weighs nearly six pounds fully loaded.
The 18 pounds of food and water join camping supplies that include a tent, clothing (for both extreme heat and extreme cold) and miscellaneous tools, including a shovel and cookware.
Joseph mails new shoes for Berty every 500 miles and new booties for Toolik as needed to replace the footwear they beat up along the sometimes rocky and treacherous terrain.
He said he worries less about wilderness challenges than about Berty’s sparse encounters with others on the trail.
“I generally feel she can take care of herself,” he said.
“Water was a concern at first when she started out in the desert. … Hikers on the trail seem very much to rely on the grace of others helping them along the way. I worry that she gets lonely or that she doesn't encounter people if she would need help or anything.”
 
‘I want this one the most’
Considering the challenges, Berty said she felt prepared before leaving home.
“I’ve done a lot of research; I grew up in Wyoming and I’m aware of safety precautions in high altitudes,” she said. “I worked in Colorado on a trail crew for a couple of years, too, so I’m familiar with rock climbing and mountain climbing.”
She and Toolik trained in Wyoming for three weeks in March while they stayed with her parents before they traveled to New Mexico for the starting point of the trail.
It’s not her first long-distance hike. In 2014 she traveled by foot along 300 miles of Minnesota’s North Shore, and she grew up in Wyoming and worked as a trail guide in Colorado when she was in high school.
“I’m fascinated with walking and with walking extremely long distances,” Berty said, calling the Continental Divide Trail her ultimate walking goal.
“Ever since high school I’ve said I’m going to do a really epic long trail walk, and I decided that when I’m free of student loan debt that would be the time.”
Three years ago, she cleared her loan debt, and this year the timing was right.
The Continental Divide Trail includes Glacier National Park, the Great Divide Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, the San Juan Mountains and other scenic highlights.
 “Usually folks hike it after they have hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail to accomplish the long-distance hiker's ‘Triple Crown.’ I am taking on this one first,” her home page states.
“I want this one the most, and I may not have time with all my other life plans to do the others. Or, they will be fun retirement trails ... don't have to work as hard at those ones when I'm 75.”
 
Updates from the trail …
“I’m loving it,” she told the Star Herald on May 10 when she was 430 miles into the journey. “I’ve never hiked the desert before … seeing it live and in person … it’s beautiful.”
She described an immense flat terrain with stark mountains rising sharply on the horizon.
“The rocks, the colors, the blooming cactus … how do all these jack rabbits and plants survive out here?”
At that point she was two thirds of the way through New Mexico and had recently crossed a 700-year-old lava flow field at the base of the Oscura Mountains.
“It was so cool with the waves and ripples and the huge cracks to look down through,” Berty said.
“There’s no way to see any of this stuff except on foot.”
She also described her route along the Gila River, which flows through deep canyon walls, requiring dozens of river crossings.
“We had to swim most of it, but the alternative would be to climb out of the canyon and hike along the highway,” she said. “But how lame would that be?”
It would have been her only alternative, however, had she not encountered hikers to help her and Toolik manage the strong river currents.
“I’ve met some amazing people,” she said. “I have been so well taken care of.”
She said a retiree in Silver City took her in for three days to recover from a sprained ankle (ironically caused by a miss-step off a street curb). “She let me borrow her car for errands, and she loved my dog,” Berty said. “She was so kind.”
Shin splints and other ailments have been challenges she said she hadn’t planned for, and the physical setbacks slowed her pace.
“There’s been a learning curve of what my body — and Toolik — can handle,” she said. “But we’re taking it slow.”
Toolik left from the trail in July with what Berty thought was an ACL injury, but it turned out to be a cut in his paw. He’s been staying with Berty’s parents in Wyoming.
Leaving her dog was hard, as was meeting and parting with other hikers on the trail, meaning that loneliness has been a real challenge.
“I’ll meet other hikers, but we aren’t moving as fast, so eventually they leave,” Berty said. “I meet these cool people then they’re gone. … It’s mentally challenging.”
 
Backtracking for the Rockies
While the hike has been generally manageable, Berty worried the Rocky Mountains would be a different story.
“I’m very nervous about cold and keeping myself and the dog warm through the snowcaps and the possibility of avalanches …”
As it turns out, hiking the Rocky Mountains hasn’t so far been possible, due to snowy weather, so Berty and other hikers skipped that 300-mile portion and continued north.
Meanwhile, she’s been enjoying the Wind River Mountain Range in Wyoming, which is familiar territory for Berty.
“The views are amazing,” she told the Star Herald during a phone update Saturday, when she reported that the CDT hike was all she hoped it would be.
“I think of all the places I’ve seen that so few people will ever see,” she said. “It really is so amazing.”
Mostly, though, she said she’s glad to still be on the trail.
“I’m seeing fewer women,” she said. “A lot of people drop out for different reasons — either from injury or mentally they can’t take it anymore.”
She anticipates reaching the Canadian border in two weeks, and then she’ll return to Colorado to finish the Rockies in September.
Berty maintains a Facebook page called Trail Dog that she posts to when online connection allows.

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