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Submitted photo Todd Hanks, 55, of Newton Falls, is seen here while hiking the Vermont Long Trail. Hanks, a veteran of the US Navy, completed the over 270 mile hike in 16 days this summer.
NEWTON FALLS – Todd Hanks Did Some Things That Could “Seems a little crazy or different” but to him these things make sense when you do them.
“Once you’re there, it’s just your kind of standard” Hanks said.
The 55-year-old Navy veteran has raced ultramarathons and this summer hiked the Vermont Long Trail, a hike of over 270 miles.
Hanks grew up in Niles and graduated from Niles McKinley High School in 1984. He went to Youngstown State for a few years, he said.
“Being out of high school and alone and unruly didn’t work out very well,” Hanks said. He decided to join the Navy as a nuclear machinist.
“I ended up going to school, I spent six years on aircraft carriers and ended up doing eight and a half years in the Navy” Hanks said.
MARINE
Hanks took two six-month Mediterranean cruises, allowing him to visit Egypt, Israel, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain and France.
His second tour was when Iraq invaded Kuwait, he said.
“It was Operation Desert Shield until our carrier group entered the Gulf, then it became Desert Storm, and that’s when we attacked Iraq,” he said. he added. Hanks said. “It wasn’t much of a fight back then.”
Hanks spent a lot of time at sea. “five and ten cents”, spend five hours keeping watch at one of the ship’s nuclear power plants, followed by 10 hours rest, even if there was work to do in the spare time.
In an era before cellphones, the men aboard the ship played cards, watched movies, and visited the library.
“You just get into a sort of routine” Hanks said.
He left the Navy in 1995, shortly after the birth of his son.
“When I left the Navy, industrial maintenance is sort of what it means” said Hanks, who added he was not interested in nuclear power.
Hanks spent a few years working in industrial maintenance in Detroit, where his daughter was born, and then he decided to get closer to Niles. He is now responsible for maintenance in a plastic injection molding plant.
FUNCTIONING
Hanks became addicted to running after his workplace had a weight loss challenge, he said.
“What I did was walk from my house at the end of the street where there was a school and I ran for a lap and then walked home. And I kept adding towers.
Hanks won the weight loss challenge and didn’t stop running. The Turkey Trot at Warren was his first race, he said. In less than a year, he was running a marathon. Next come ultramarathons – any race over 26 miles. Eventually that led to some 100 miles and then to the hike.
Hanks was on a business trip to New York when he was in Vermont looking for a trail to run. He found a side trail connected to the Long Trail, he said.
On the way back to his car, Hanks said he encountered two other men, one wearing a hat that said “USS Theodore Roosevelt” – a ship on which Hanks had been stationed.
“Come and find out that this guy was actually on the ship at the same time as me.” “ Hanks said. “I was like, ‘This is more karma than maybe it’s something I should be doing.'”
After thinking about it for a year, Hanks made a commitment.
LONG TRACK
The long track is tough, Hanks said.
“Every day there are huge climbs that are rocky, rooted, and between the rocks and the roots are nothing but mud pits sucking up the shoes.” Hanks said. “Water has to come out of streams or ponds, so it’s a constant daily chore to filter the water.”
To prepare for the trail, Hanks did his regular trail run at Mill Creek Park and also hiked the Laurel Highlands in Pennsylvania.
Aiming for 3,000 calories a day, Hanks packed about two pounds of food a day – mostly items like candy bars and rice in a pocket – and carried five or six days at a time, he said.
“The objective is to obtain the lightest food and the most dense in calories” Hanks said.
The first few days he was on the trail Hurricane Henry hit the east coast resulting in a wet and slippery hike.
“The first three days were really tough. Hanks said. “Then it dried up a bit, then it rained again, then it dried up a bit. But at that moment, it is like that.
MAGIC OF THE TRAIL
Hanks said he wanted to hitchhike because he had never done it before, and it’s common in areas with long trails. On his first trip to a city for supplies, he took a tour.
Hanks later met more “the magic of the trails” – free help for city dwellers and other travelers.
“This guy named ‘Wilderness Bob’, he had Coke in a cooler and he had Snickers bars. He just wanted the hikers to spend time with him and chat a bit ”, Hanks said.
Hanks got some particularly good trail magic from some guesthouse owners, who took him into town, made him breakfast, let him take a shower, and did his laundry, a he declared.
Because the bed and breakfast had a shelf of baseball books, when Hanks returned he sent them a book about Terry Pluto and the Cleveland Indians.
“They really took care of me” Hanks said.
Hanks also got a “trail name” as do many hikers. His was given to him by another hiker whom he met first on a mountain and then again in a refuge who called him “Beautiful.”
“It’s a little strange. It’s a little wacky,” Hanks said. But then when he met hikers “Limerick”, “Purple” and “Miss America” later on the trip, Miss America told him he couldn’t give up on a runway name like this.
Hanks completed the trail in 16 days – most people take 20-30, the fastest hikers going about six, he said – averaging about 20 miles per day.
Back home, Hanks works and referees basketball, and he continues to run regularly. He has planned a trip to hike the Grand Canyon from edge to edge with a group of friends in April.
“I always like to have something on the horizon” Hanks said.
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