Episode #80 - Ben Barbante (Juan Durer)
Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis
Steve Adams
4.8 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2018
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Juan Durer has certainly earned his trail name. Once he had decided that living for now was far better than waiting for retirement, he has been a man on a mission. He hikes then moves on to the next hike. When Steve caught up with him, he was just two miles into another long-distance hike.
He is rational, indeed intentional, with the life he is leading and his laugh comes easily and is contagious. Since he finished the AT in 2016, he has hiked in Japan, Australia, Africa, and done "a couple" of Caminos in Spain.
You can contact Juan / Ben through Facebook at Juan Durer.
Kristen Brown explains the origin of her trail name before telling us about the White Oak Canyon/Cedar Run loop in Shenandoah National Park. You can find out more about this beautiful short hike at hikingupward.com.
As always, we thank our Sponsors, Trailtopia for their support and hope that you support them when considering your hiking food requirements.
All our four shows will be available at one platform, the new HikingRadioNetwork.com, which will be open on Sunday, April 1. I hope you drop by to listen to our other shows as well as this one.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to the Hiking Radio Network, where we taught the walk with shows by hikers |
| 0:05.2 | about hikers for everybody. |
| 0:23.7 | Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail, the ultimate midlife crisis, |
| 0:28.8 | joins Stephen his guests every week as he staggers from Georgia to Maine. |
| 0:36.7 | Welcome back to Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail. |
| 0:42.3 | Part of the hiking radio network and sponsored by our friends at Trialopia at Venture Food. |
| 0:47.2 | We're up to episode number 80 and I thought I'd bring you somebody very different today. |
| 0:51.4 | Ben Bonanti is about as different as you can get. |
| 0:56.8 | He was suggested to me by our old friend Clay Bonimiman Evans and Clay told me about the diversity of his hiking. |
| 0:59.0 | Believe me, this conversation talks about the AT, yet it then veers well away from the |
| 1:04.0 | AT. |
| 1:04.9 | For those of you who met Ben on the trail in 2016, you will doubtless know better by his |
| 1:09.2 | trail name, which is Juan Dura. |
| 1:12.9 | Excellent name. |
| 1:14.4 | He's a very happy guy and we laughed a lot. |
| 1:17.2 | You're going to hear a fair amount of background noise, though I've tried my hardest to cut a lot of it out. |
| 1:21.5 | Yet, when you realise where he's talking from, I think you'll understand and I think you'll |
| 1:26.0 | forgive me. |
| 1:27.2 | Ben or Juan will be along in a moment. |
| 1:31.6 | Our second guest is a listener to both this show and returning to Catardin, one of our other shows. |
| 1:37.2 | Her name is Kristen Brown and she's recently asked Bruce Mattson, she is Jessa in the other show, |
| 1:43.5 | a question for which she won two packs |
... |
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