Swampscott man completes 2,000-mile trek

SWAMPSCOTT – Rich Malagrifa read a book a few years ago about the Appalachian Trail and decided to take a walk. Through 14 states.Six months and 26 days, four pairs of hiking boots, one bout with Lyme disease and 2,185.2 miles later he finished the trek.”I read a book ? and I really got into it,” Malagrifa said Wednesday during a surprise welcome home party thrown by his family. “I’m not much of a procrastinator. I figured all I’d be doing is walking, right?”Right.”There’s a lot of climbing,” he added.Malagrifa said he had never been a hiker or a camper but he was game to try. To get ready for the trail he read more books, talked to a few people, and hiked Lynn Woods. He bought gear, including a thermal insulated sleeping bag. He learned to sleep in a hammock, but admitted he also took advantage of a few bed & breakfasts and trailside motels.Then in early March he headed to Georgia and on March 6 he hit the trailhead.He joked that he is probably one of the only employed thru-hikers on the trail, which is to say Malagrifa, a senior airline pilot, worked while he hiked. On at least three occasions Malagrifa said he had to leave, hitchhike or catch a ride to the nearest airport and head back to Georgia where, as a pilot, he is based.According to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy a thru-hiker is someone who has completed or is attempting to walk the entire Appalachian Trail in one uninterrupted journey. Technically that rules out Malagrifa, but he was a thru-hiker in the sense that he always returned to the hike exactly where he left off.His brother Steven Malagrifa also said Rich didn’t shave off miles by taking shorter routes. Wearing a 30-pound backpack Malagrifa stuck to the official trail that winds from Georgia to North Carolina, to Tennessee, across Virginia into Maryland, Pennsylvania, the very corner of New Jersey into New York and through most of New England, ending atop Mt. Katahdin in Maine.The trail was filled with both young and older hikers and at age 52 Malagrifa classified himself as a slow hiker.”These kids were blowing by me,” he said.But neither age nor condition proved to guarantee a finish, he said.Along his way he met “Dragonfly,” who at age 74 is said to be one of the oldest thru-hikers.Everyone on the trail picks up a trail name and Malagrifa’s was Hog Driver, “because I flew A-10’s (Thunderbolts) in the Air Force,” which are also known as Warthogs.Malagrifa said he also met a marathoner who was racking up impressive miles at the start but by North Carolina she quit.North Carolina was the first real test, he said. The trail winds up through the Smoky Mountains and one morning, he woke up on Clingman’s Dome to 12-degree temperatures and snow on the ground.”And then there was more snow, and more snow,” he said clicking through a series of photographs that showed increasingly deep tracks on the trail. “It’s also the first real test of all your equipment, where you really figure out how it’s all going to work.”He called Tennessee his favorite state, Virginia is the blues state because it’s over 500 miles across and feels like it will never end. Pennsylvania’s section of trail was filled with sharp rocks that at one point caused the bottom of his feet to go numb and New York has the worst tended trail, he said. He called hiking New Hampshire’s White Mountains the most epic event.”You are literally on top of the world,” he said.But it was also home to the toughest terrain, along with Maine, he said.Mahoosuc Notch, deemed by many as the toughest mile on the trail, was brutal, Malagrifa said. Littered with boulders that one has to climb over, under or around, it is slow going.”It was the most challenging for me,” he said.And there were other challenges. Despite all his research Malagrifa said no one tells you about the blisters, trying to sleep at night with a screech owl nearby or long days walking in the rain or the cold.”Mentally you’re in the woods every night, you’re not at home,” he said. “You walk 15 miles