STERLING — Twenty-five years after he conquered the entirety of the Appalachian Trail, longtime town resident Will French decided to take on another equally impressive undertaking: the International Appalachian Trail.
French, whose trail name is Enlightened Rogue, conveyed that finishing the AT, one of the most well-known hiking trails in the world stretching from Maine to Georgia, at the age of 50 is an accomplishment he is proud of to this day.
“When people turn 50, they should run away from home and do something special,” the now 75-year-old said.
His latest hiking adventure on the IAT actually began several years ago.
“You sort of think OK, I’m done. But you catch the hiking disease, and you are not done,” he said of what inspired him to take it on. “In a bizarre twist of fate, I got involved in the IAT and stepped into it in 2009 and finished it this year.”
According to Wikipedia, the multicontinental IAT was originally a hiking trail that ran from Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, in Maine, through New Brunswick, to the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec, after which it followed a ferry route to Newfoundland, and then continued to the northern-easternmost point of the Appalachian Mountains at Belle Isle, Newfoundland and Labrador. As of July 2020, there are widely geographically dispersed IAT-branded walking trails in Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Wales, England, Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
The biggest difference between his IAT and AT hikes was that the first one was six months long and the latest one “was piecemeal.”
“I did sections at a time, sometimes one country or two or three if I could squeeze it in,” French said. “It became what is referred to as a section hike.”
French said that where the AT ends in Maine “is basically where the international trail begins and continues from there.”
“It’s a reasonably new trail that’s maturing, and it has independent chapters in the countries that have appropriate geology,” French said of the IAT. “The trail was first hiked in its infancy in 1997 and has since grown to 23 locations on three continents: North America, Europe and Africa.”
Part of his IAT journey involved beginning at the boundary of Baxter Park in Maine and hiking through the remainder of the state, 130 miles or so, to the Canadian border. He hit up all the Canadian maritime providences: Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland/Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec.
He section hiked in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Northern Ireland (which is part of the United Kingdom), all of the UK including Wales, Scotland, England, and the Isle of Mann off the coast, “hopping and skipping between locations.” Also included were Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, and finally Morocco in Africa, the second largest continent on Earth.
“It was my goal to hike a portion of all of those countries,” French said of the massive undertaking. “It was a moving target. As I was hiking, they were adding more. It seemed never-ending, but I finally caught up.”
He said that he “had to determine the definition of my hike” because of the large amount of IAT geography to cover, and decided on 2,160 miles.
“That number came from AT 25 years ago,” he shared. “I grabbed that number again to have hiked in all the locations. In its entirety, it’s a number like 12,000 miles. That’s not an accomplishment I was capable of doing, having started at an older age.”
French said he is the “first person to have completed all of the IAT locations,” and one of two hikers to have completed more than 2,000 miles of the IAT, a new benchmark. The other hiker goes by the trail name Cotton Joe, “a single man who knows where he is. He has that luxury in life.”
When asked what he enjoyed most about hiking the IAT, he said that’s difficult to pinpoint.
“What I enjoyed is that I visited many countries,” French said. “Moving at 2 miles per hour, you experience so much more. Villages, hostels you stay in — they all have their different flavor. Spain is different than England, and everything is different from Morocco. Here (in the U.S.) there are only differences between northern and southern states. Internationally, you experience a much greater variety of experiences.”
He was not always alone on his hiking ventures. His cousin, who is the same age, joined him in Norway and Sweden, and French said that in those countries, “we always preferred public transportation,” such as buses and trains, to get to the IAT trails.
“You have to go with that you are given,” French said. “Europe has a much better public transportation system than the U.S.”
For instance, in Norway and Sweden they were “a long way from where we wanted to be,” and he said they felt safe hitchhiking when needed, including being picked up four times by a woman.
“We came to the conclusion that we are at an age that we are viewed as harmless,” French quipped.
In addition, his three grandchildren hike with him locally, often in the White Mountains in New Hampshire where they grew up hiking. In various configurations, the youngsters joined him on six trips during his IAT experience.
“I have never been lonely, never had a discouraging moment, never had the thought ‘This stinks, I want off.’ It’s an attitude thing,” French said. “When you start at the age of 50 and you are in the workplace and all the stresses that come along with that and then you go out and go for a walk in the woods, what is there to complain about? You might get soaking wet, you might be freezing cold, but the sun will come up again.”
On his last IAT hike in June, two of his daughter’s children were with him – Frankie, 17, and Poppy, 11, whose trail names are Walkie-Talkie and Pink Tornado, respectively. French has taken thousands of photographs over the years, and estimates he has 13 albums with 2,500 photos in total. Frankie took many pictures on his phone during their June trip.
French was recently interviewed by Backpacker Magazine, and said he is planning to showcase the hiking photos through a program that will be open to the local community, most likely hosted by the Conant Public Library.
“The almighty challenge is to take all of these hikes and squeeze them into two hours of material,” he said, joking that that will “probably be the only stress I’ve had” when it comes to his hiking accomplishments.
French said his own trail name of Enlightened Rogue is “sort of an oxymoron” and a reference to the Allman Brothers Band, his favorite rock group.
“It’s not a particular song,” he said. “During an interview back in the ’60s, someone asked them to describe the band, and they said ‘We are a band of enlightened rogues.’ ”
French was born in Worcester and grew up in Sterling. His family has had property in town for generations, and he and his wife of 55 years live on the same family land he grew up on.
“The most difficult part of hiking is convincing your wife you are going to run away,” he said with a chuckle, recounting leaving home for six months when he hiked the AT. “With the IAT I could be gone a week, two weeks, a month. I didn’t stay out there the whole time. I have a wife who allows me to do these things. I am a lucky guy.”
French spent the majority of his career “in the education realm,” and 10 years after graduating from Wachusett Regional High School, he returned there as a shop teacher. Now retired, he recently went on a five-day hiking trip to Katahdin.
“I wanted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of AT and also completion of IAT,” French said. “That is a special mountain to trail people. It is the only common piece that fits for both trails.”
While completing a hike is “bittersweet” and that he often feels “disappointed” when they end, he joked that he and his body feel some sort of relief.
“I’m happy I finished, but my knees might be talking to me saying ‘What are you doing?’”
