That is peak creativity.
A Brooklyn mountaineering fanatic with desires of sooner or later tackling the nation’s highest mountains is carving his personal path via the concrete jungle this month by difficult himself to make use of his personal two toes as his sole technique of transportation.
Benjamin Solomon is only a week shy of ending up his month-long “Via-Hike to Nowhere,” a do-it-yourself mission that has seen him stroll greater than 300 miles to date, together with his each day three-hour roundtrip stroll to work.
“New Yorkers have been all the time in a rush to get in all places, and we’ve so many alternative methods to get someplace, however I believe we overlook the ability in strolling,” mentioned Solomon, who works at an leisure firm.
Solomon, 42, kicked off his journey on Sept. 15 with a easy objective to “stroll in all places,” whether or not its to work, to dinner, to a good friend’s and anyplace else he wanted to go over the next 30 days.
The hiker has imposed a strict algorithm on himself all through the four-week endeavor, the only of which prohibits the usage of automobiles, trains, buses, scooters and bikes — and has even denied himself any type of meals supply.
That signifies that he clocks a minimal of 12 miles on the 5 days per week he walks from his residence in Williamsburg to his workplace in Midtown and again at night time, a trek that takes roughly 180 minutes round-trip in comparison with the hour subway experience he would in any other case take.
That dedication has meant that Solomon has needed to bow out of a number of occasions in the previous few weeks as a result of the gap wasn’t walk-friendly, like Rosh Hashanah dinner with household in Glen Rock, New Jersey and his faculty reunion in Colorado.
However the missed occasions have been effectively value it, he explains: “There’s no excellent time to do something. If you wish to decide to one thing, you’re going to must sacrifice one thing.”
As of Wednesday night, Solomon has logged 297 miles — equal in size to Vermont’s Lengthy Path.
Solomon has been rewarded for the sacrifice, nevertheless — throughout his journey, Solomon has tread new trails for himself, like throughout the Queensboro Bridge, and has encountered the solid of characters sprinkled throughout the 5 boroughs.
“Certainly one of my favorites is after I stroll the Williamsburg Bridge and it’s simply used to do the whole lot. There are individuals figuring out. There are individuals Djing. I noticed as soon as there have been individuals having a cocktail party, they arrange a desk and so they have been having a cocktail party. I really like that there are these public areas, and we simply use them to do no matter we would like and, as New Yorkers, we barely blink at it,” mentioned Solomon.
The thought was born out of his longtime dream of tackling colossal thru-hikes just like the Appalachian Path or the Pacific Crest Path, which take so long as six months to finish — a timeframe the Willimsburg resident can’t afford to embark on right now.
“Why do I’ve to attend? How can I simply make up my very own endurance hike right here in New York? And that’s form of what I made a decision to do with this Via-Hike to Nowhere,” mentioned Solomon, who has been importing each day diaries to social media.
“We are inclined to assume New York isn’t nature, that there’s no nature right here and also you’ve bought to depart New York to expertise nature,” he continued.
“However there’s a lot nature right here. When I’m strolling, I do really feel like I’m in nature. After I’m up on the bridge excessive over the river, that’s lovely — It’s like primarily being on a mountain. It’s altering the best way you see the town.”
Whereas the “Via-Hike to Nowhere” may indicate a unfavourable connotation, it merely signifies that Solomon isn’t following any set path just like the well-trodden paths established all through the Appalachian mountains — as a substitute, he’s blazing his personal path.
Unsurprisingly, Solomon confronted some “rising pains” at the start of his problem, significantly some sore arches. However as a substitute of giving up, the Brooklynite grabbed some orthodicts and stored it transferring.
With one other week on the books, Solomon hopes to stomp throughout one other 100 miles to convey his grandtotal to 400.
By then, he’ll be primed to sooner or later tackle the Appalachian Path, he mentioned.
