2,200-mile hike had its ups and downs

Shayla Paradeis never wants to eat peanut butter again.

"I'll be damned if I ever touch it again. I can't stand the stuff anymore," she said last week.

Paradeis left Paradise - i.e. the Flathead Valley - in early April to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail. The Martin City 24-year-old set out April 2 and she finished the 2,200-mile journey four months and four days later.

There was plenty of adventure along the way. Paradeis averaged about 20 miles a day, met tons of new friends and ate an entire half-gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream in one sitting.

It took an hour. Eating a half-gallon of ice cream is a traditional ritual for hikers on the Appalachian Trail - when they get to the halfway point, they eat a half gallon of ice cream. She said she almost threw up.

"I can say mint chocolate chip was a bad choice," she said. "It started to taste like permanent marker."

A friend glommed down his ice cream in just a few minutes.

It's just calories after all, and it takes a lot of calories to hike 2,200 miles. Paradeis figures she burned about 5,000 to 7,000 calories a day. She started the hike weighing more than 140 pounds and finished at 118.

"I craved fat all the time," she said. "I kept thinking about melted cheese, avocados and butter."

There were good and bad days on the and off the trail, which winds up the eastern U.S. from Georgia to Maine. Her best day was when she helped a 71-year-old woman who was lost in the woods find her husband.

Two days later, she ran into the couple at an Irish bar near the trail and the woman treated Paradeis to a fine dinner and breakfast. They are now good friends.

The worst days were in upstate New York, where it rained constantly and the trail was rocky and treacherous. She said she expected the rain, but she didn't expect the Appalachian Trail to have technically difficult climbing.

There were other hazards as well. She saw bears and moose, and in places the trail was flooded with waist-deep water.

In one section, rather than hike, Paradeis, her boyfriend and another friend decided to paddle a river in Shenandoah National Park. They capsized, nearly lost all their belongings and almost drowned when they hit an upturned tree.

Paradeis said she's glad the journey is over, but she'd do it again. She's considering completing the Triple Crown - hiking the Appalachian, the Continental Divide and the Pacific Crest trails.

But for now, it's time to rest. She's coming back to Montana and plans on being behind the bar at the Belton Chalet - her old job - starting this week. An account of her journey is available online at http://georgiatomaine.wordpress.com.