In this unforgettable episode of Epic Begins With One Step Forward, Zander Sprague sits down with retired attorney, Marine Corps veteran, and author Rand Timmerman to explore his extraordinary hiking adventure on the Appalachian Trail. At 72, Rand and his brother set out to conquer over 2,000 miles of rugged wilderness, facing snowstorms, relentless climbs, falls that nearly ended the journey, and the physical limits of age. Along the way, Rand reflects on his Vietnam service, his recovery from alcoholism, and the resilience it takes to keep moving – one step at a time. Blending grit, humor, and wisdom, Rand’s story isn’t just about hiking a trail, but about navigating life’s most challenging climbs. This episode will leave you inspired to push beyond your limits and embark on your own epic journey.
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One Step At A Time: Hiking, Healing, And Hope At 72 With Rand Timmerman
Retired Attorney And Marine Corps Veteran Rand Timmerman
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the EPIC Begins With 1 Step Forward. I have an epic guest for you. I’ve got Rand Timmerman with me. Rand, tell us a little about who you are and what you do.
I’m a retired attorney. I grew up in Upstate New York, not too far from where I am right now. I went into the Marine Corps in 1966. My younger brother, Ron, went into the Army. We both fought in Vietnam. We both enlisted. I came back, and they made me an officer. I was a temporary officer in Vietnam, but the Lieutenants didn’t last too long in that environment. They gave me the option that I could go back to Corporal or I could go to OCS and be an officer. I opted for another three years and became an officer.
They sent me to the Judge Advocate General’s School. I ended up being a Military lawyer, probably the last one that did not have even a college education. It gave me a path in life after my Military service. I married while I was in the Military. I moved to Syracuse, New York. I went to Syracuse University, got my BA and my law degree, and then launched from there. My brother came back from Vietnam and married our mother’s best friend, Edie, who was divorced with seven children.
That must have had a little family drama there.
I was so amazed. The next thing I know, he’s back and riding around in a convertible with our mother’s best friend. They got married and became Mormons. He ended up with 27 great-grandchildren when Edie passed in 2017. She had a major stroke six years before that, and it got worse, not better. My brother took great care of her. He wouldn’t let anybody else in for six years. He thought he was pretty well able to handle it, but it was hard for him.
I went to see him in January 2018, and I could tell he was struggling badly. I said, “What are you going to do?” He said, “I’m going to hike the Appalachian Trail.” My brain was screaming, “That’s crazy.” I had hiked parts of it in the Smoky Mountains and things, so I got a pretty good idea what it was like, some of it anyway. We ended up hiking the Appalachian Trail.
That’s over 2,000 miles, correct?
It’s 2,190 miles. It goes over 600 mountains. 300 of them are named. It’s half a million feet of change in elevation.
That’s insane.
We were going up and down. It was crazy. It was amazing. It was very difficult. About three million people hike some part of the Appalachian Trail every year, but between 2,500 and 3,000 try to do the whole thing, and of that, about 17%. We’re down to 450 to 500 people a year who hiked the Appalachian Trail the whole way.
Did you go from South to North? Did you start down in Georgia and go up, or did you go from Maine down?
We went to Springer Mountain, Georgia, on March 22nd, 2018, in a snowstorm and started North. We went from South to North. That’s correct.
That’s the way a lot of people do it. The Appalachian Trail, if my audience doesn’t know, ends in Maine. In the middle of March in Maine in the mountains, there are likely to be impassable trails.
They could still have snow up there in June. That makes it tough. You know something about it.
Hiking On The Appalachian Trail
Having grown up on the East Coast, I’m aware. I know some other people who’ve done the whole trail. To say the least, that is an epic journey. I want to take a few minutes and talk about it. Is it fair to say you guys are mature hikers? Would that be safe to say?
My younger brother was 71. I was 72. That’s way out there. We would have been a lot better off if we’d done it in our 30s or 40s. Ronnie and I were both in pretty good shape, though. I ran 26 marathons during my adult years. I skied cross-country ski races all over North America for most of my adult life. Ronnie ran some marathons. He hiked all over the state of Utah. To do it in your early 70s is insane.
I haven’t run as many marathons, but I, too, have run marathons and done some endurance sports. I get that. I’m not as old as you, but as I’m aging, those physical feats take a lot more out of me and require a lot more energy. Kudos to you and your brother. When I was prepping for this, I was thinking about an entertaining movie, A Walk in the Woods.
It’s with Robert Redford and the drunk, whatever his name was.
I’m desperately trying to come up with his name. I could see his face.
I can, too. There’s that scene where he’s got the whiskey bottle on the rock. I’m a recovered alcoholic, so I can relate to that. I got sober several years ago.
Good for you. That, too, was an epic journey and an ongoing journey.
It was very difficult for me. It didn’t affect me until I got to my early 60s, but then it took over. If you’re allergic to alcohol, you have a real problem. It’s a physical thing. A lot of people don’t realize that. I thought it was a lack of some kind of character strength or whatever, but it’s not. We know that alcoholics metabolize alcohol differently. We create an excess of what’s called acetone. That’s what gives the alcoholic that overwhelming physical addiction to alcohol. I could be 2 or 3 days in, and I’m as thirsty, if not more, than I was when I started. You then got the mental obsession. It’s a very hard thing to break.
Alcoholics process and metabolize alcohol differently from other people. Their excess of acetone makes them overwhelmingly obsessed with this drink.
Going back to the movie and these two older gentlemen doing the Appalachian Trail, there were times when they were exhausted and didn’t make it as many miles as they had wanted when they started off. Did you find that that was the way it was and that you had to get your hiking legs?
Yes. As a runner, you have to get in some kind of groove at some point, and then you hit the wall. I hit the wall every day hiking the Appalachian Trail. We would leave at daybreak. My brother was like, “Go, go, go.” We averaged 11 miles a day. We’d leave at daybreak and usually sometime in the afternoon. I fell down every day. I broke four hiking poles. We both used two poles. That’s very important to do. Usually, in the afternoon, it would happen. I would get so fatigued and would start to stumble around. The next thing I know, I have a hiking pole between my legs, and I’m going down. I go, “How did that get there?”
I remember coming down off Killington in Vermont. There had been two guys up there. They looked like the perfect hikers in their 40s, slim and lanky. They were the Clint Eastwood tough type of guys. I left the top of the mountain before they did and came down. I was almost to the end, maybe a mile from it, and I started that fatigue, stagger-around thing.
Sure enough, I went flying. I didn’t realize it, but they were behind me. I fell down on some rocks. I heard one of them scream, “He’s dead.” They came running up and they said, “We thought you killed yourself.” I said, “I managed to land.” There was some grass. I landed in the only place I could without getting hurt. It wasn’t funny. I fell a lot. In fact, I fell down a rock slide on Wilcox Mountain in Massachusetts. There’s a rock slide right at the top of that mountain.
I did not know that.
On that one, we started out early in the morning. It was a typical mountain. It’s an earthen path. It starts out easy, and it keeps getting steeper. You’re going up the mountain and going around corners and stuff. You keep thinking, “It’s got to be right there.” You keep going, and hours go by. When I got almost to the top, there was a rock slide. I was standing there and was like, “There’s no way this trail goes up there.” It did. I’m scrambling over these boulders and rocks with my poles. I got within 10 feet of the top, and I started to fall. What I should have done is fall forward.
A runner has to get in their groove at some point before hitting the wall.
You fought it, didn’t you?
I’m a fighter. I stabbed it with one pole, and it skidded. I stabbed it with the other pole, flipped around 180 degrees, and took a head dive right off that. Instead of falling 5 or 6 feet, I fell 15. I’m in the swan dive, falling. When I was in Vietnam, I got used to being shot at. A lot of bad things were happening. There was a lot of pain. I closed my eyes, thinking, “This is going to hurt badly.” When I hit, the sparks are flying, and my brain is on fire. I’m sliding, and then my foot got caught between two rocks. That’s what stopped me.
That’s good.
I lay there, waiting for the pain to subside a little bit, and opened my eyes. I realized my foot had come down between two rocks in a V thing. That’s what caught me and stopped me. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have made it. I was bloodied up pretty good. I managed to turn around. I crawled to the top of the mountain and finally stood up. I could not face the prospect of going back down. I knew I had to go another 9 miles, but I turned and started walking. Eventually, the pain turns into aches. You know how that goes.
In running a marathon, when you’re at mile 20 or 22, maybe you’re getting a little cramping and the bottom of your feet are on fire, but you’re like, “I have not come this far not to get to that finish line.”
My brother usually hiked South, and I always hiked North. We had two vehicles. We were flip-flopping that way. There are roads going over the Appalachian Trail every 10 to 15 miles. A lot of them are lousy dirt roads. We had two vehicles, so that was a big plus for us. I like to brag that I slept in a tent every night on the Appalachian Trail, which is true, but a lot of the time, my truck was right next to me. That’s how we did it, but not always. Through the Smoky Mountains, you’ve got 235-mile stretches, so we had to wear a full pack.
A lot of hikers do not carry enough water at the top of the mountains, where it is often very hard to get some of it.
Your brother’s car would be wherever you were going to stop for the night, and then your car would have all of your tent, your food, and all of that.
It made it a lot easier.
I assume that during the day, when you’re hiking, you’re not hiking with a full-on 40-pound pack. You’ve got more of a day pack kind of thing.
I carried two 24-ounce bottles of water. A lot of hikers don’t carry enough water. At the top of mountains, which is what you’re on most of the time, it’s very hard to get water. I always carried extra water and a first aid kit. My day pack weighed about 20 pounds.
You say, “I hike the Appalachian Trail.” In my mind, the two of you are with big backpacks. You’re like, “Here’s where we’re going to camp,” and you pitch your tent. You’re like, “We made it here to this trailhead. Now we’ll camp next to the trailhead.”
That’s right.
As runners, both you and I know that you can get low on nutrition, but when you get behind on water, your day is over.
It was amazing. I took 5,000 pictures. I wrote a book about it, and I had 500 colored pictures in it. My brother hardly took any pictures. My brother was doing the whole grief thing with his head down. He was doing it. I was more about, “I’m never going to walk this way again.” Your program is about epic journeys and taking the first step. In fact, in my book, at the back, I have One Step at a Time. A lot of days, that’s pretty much what it comes down to. One step at a time. I would fall down, and I would think, “Rand, nobody is shooting at you. What’s your problem? Get up. Go.”
Certainly, when doing a hike like that, one is, “Let me get it done.” The other is, “Let me look around. I know I’m going to make it to whatever. I know I need to be there by 3:00. Look at that Vista. Let me take a picture of that.” I was fortunate to run the Mayor’s Marathon in Alaska, up in Anchorage. It was spectacular. I certainly was taking pictures because I was like, “I don’t know that I’m ever going to be able to get back here and get back to this spot.”
Rand’s Least Favorite Sections Of The Trail
I didn’t know where I was, but I’m like, “Look at that Vista. Let me whip out my phone and take a picture.” I’m happy that I did. Maybe I added a couple of minutes to my marathon time, but I didn’t care. I’m like, “Am I here to enjoy it or try and finish the race?” What were your least favorite sections that you had on the trail? Like anything, they’re like, “I love this part,” but in another part, maybe the weather wasn’t good. Maybe you didn’t feel good. Maybe you were like, “I’m walking uphill for eight days.”
We prepped for it. I walked 8 to 10 miles every day. I’m 80 years old, and I’m still walking 7 or 8 miles every day. Walking around here and the mountains are two different things. I still average 2.5 miles an hour, like 2.7. In the mountains, if you can do a mile and a half in an hour, you’re lucky. You focus on that. The hardest time I had was in the Smoky Mountains. In that one, I went South and Ronnie went North. We switched. I went to Route 40 and started towards Cleveland Stone. It rained, and it was cloudy every day, when we were in the Smoky Mountains, until the last day.
You guys didn’t pass each other?
Yes.
I thought one of you was driving and you’d have one of your cars down where you began. I got it.
When we got up in the morning, we had two vehicles. I would start North. Ronnie would drive around, usually down to a road in a valley and up to the next. He was usually on a dirt road. He came my way, and I came to his way. Normally, he got to my truck before I got to his car. He would drive around and then come back to where he had left his car, and then we stayed there that night.
That would make sense. Either that or you’d still be out there walking the same trail again and again.
Ronnie slept in the shelter sometimes. I did not do that. We hiked a lot longer than most of the hikers who were younger. We’d have to pee a lot. They were all full. They always had the tent placed underneath the line where you hang your food because of the bears. That made no sense to me.
I’d like to be right under where the bears are coming, please, because my tent will protect me. The bear won’t come through the tent.
I always pitch my tent somewhere off the trail by myself. I had been with a whole bunch of helicopter pilots who were out doing a weekend thing. I hung out with them. We talked about war stories. Some of that’s in the book. I knew the weather was getting bad. I looked at the map, and it says fault gap. A gap is the lowest spot between two mountains. I thought, “I’m going to go there.” Usually, if it’s a gap, it means there’s a wide enough place to put a tent.
I walk there, I get to it, and there’s no gap. I’m on a ridge that’s between 12 and 20 feet wide and drops straight down on both sides hundreds of feet. I pitch my tent right in the middle of the trail. It’s almost dark. I take a leak. I’m standing on the edge, I’m looking down, and I go, “There’s a tree above a tree that’s behind me. I’m on a cliff here.”
That night, horrific winds came up. I thought I was done. It felt like I was in a body bag. The wind sounded like freight trains coming up the mountain. Sometimes, they would go to my left or to my right. Every once in a while, one would come up, and it was coming right at me. The wind is unbelievable. I was praying to God that I used to not believe in, but the one that helped me get sober, “If I’m going to die tonight, okay, but I’d like not to.” Finally, before daylight, it let up. I thought, “I survived another one.”
I had a couple of guys that I was working with in the program. They would check in with me in the morning. Usually, at the top of the mountain, you get some kind of reception. I did that. One of the guys says, “Are you all right?” I go, “Yeah. Why?”He said, “I was watching the weather, and they said there were tornadoes where you are.” I said, “I didn’t see any tornadoes, that’s for darn sure, but I did see some awful winds.” That was the scariest night for sure.
Life After The Appalachian Hike
You started in March. When did you finish your hike?
It took three years. In 2018, we did 1,400-and-some miles. We were in New Jersey. It was a 100-degree day with 100% percent humidity. When I met my brother, we had both lost 35 pounds. We looked like we had come back from Vietnam. We looked emaciated. He looked at me and said, “Do you want to go home?” I said, “Sure.”
I thought we were done, but then the next year, he said, “Do you want to finish it?” I said, “Sure,” and we went back out. I fell on Mount Wilcox in Massachusetts. I did those 9 miles. I slept in the tent that night, and the next morning, I could not move. I was hurting so bad. Ronnie was hurting pretty badly, too. I learned that later when I read his journal. He said, “Do you want to go home?” I said, “Yeah. I got to do something.” We went off the trail for a month. When I started walking again, we decided to go back. I had damaged my hip badly. I did another 300 miles after that.
We got into the Whites. We had to go around Washington Mountain for the first time because of the weather. They won’t let you go on there if it’s bad. We then did Moosilauke, which is a huge mountain right after that. That was an all-day thing. I did Wolf Mountain, and then we were going to go back and do Washington. We had our full packs loaded because that was going to be at least three days. We went about a half a mile, and I turned around. Ronnie and I started crying. I was like, “I can’t do this anymore.” I was in so much pain. We’re tough guys. As a runner, you get used to it.
I’m not running anymore, but what I can say, having been an athlete for most of my life in some way, shape, or form, especially as a marathoner, is that you understand what is good pain and bad pain. By doing as many marathons as you did, and then me training and stuff, you know when you’re like, “I’m sore, but I can run through this or I can walk through this,” or “This is the bad pain. I have to stop because I’m only going to hurt myself more.”
I only did 1,836 miles. I ended up having a hip replacement. I was in the hospital getting my hip replaced when my brother and his son, Rick, who was 62 at that time, finished it. They did finish it without me, but that’s okay.
Did you finish?
I got a hip replacement. I hiked the Appalachian Trail with an artificial knee in my left knee, which I had been told would last 10,000 miles or 10 years. I got it in 2006. This is 2018. In my right leg, I have nothing in it from a motorcycle accident. I limp because my right leg is half an inch shorter than my left. I like to brag that I was the limpiest man that ever walked the Appalachian Trail.
Ron’s son has a video of me. I didn’t even know he had this until I was writing the book and we were talking about it. He shows me, and I go, “That guy limps badly.” I didn’t realize how bad it was. I’ve been doing it my whole life. I wasn’t able to do it. Every year, we’ve done a celebratory hike on the Appalachian Trail in the fall in honor and memory of Edie, Ronnie’s wife, with the family. I did a book launch at Loft Mountain. Loft Mountain is in the Shenandoah National Park, right in the middle of Virginia. The Appalachian Trail goes right through. It goes right through the Loft Mountain Campground. That was cool. I had my family and friends there. That was a good time. It was an epic journey, for sure.
Yay for you and your brother. I hope when he got done, he had perhaps found in all those thousands of miles some of the healing that he may have been looking for.
Meeting Growler In Hogback Mountain
He did. That’s in the book. I also described how I recovered from my disease of alcoholism in the book. Every other chapter is about those types of things. There are a lot of funny things that happened there. Here’s a funny one for you. We were in Virginia. It was in June of 2018. I’m hiking up Hogback Mountain. I left early as always.
By then, things start to spread out. I didn’t see nearly as many hikers as Ronnie did because I’m going North like everybody else. He’s going South. He’s running into a whole bunch of people. I’m hiking up Hogback Mountain, and I hear somebody behind me. I stop. They’re faster than me, so I’m going to pull over and let them go by.
I turn around, and there’s a guy. His trail name is Growler. He looks like a mountain man, big and tough. He was probably 35 years old and had a full beard. He was a big, brawny guy. His lady is with him, and another lady who’s somehow hooked up with him. They’re bare naked. I’m shaking my head, and Growler goes, “You didn’t get the memo. It’s Naked Day on the Appalachian Trail. You’re not supposed to wear any clothes.” I said, “I’m going to do you all a favor.” I pulled aside, and they went by me. Now, they’re walking in front of me. You got the picture?
I’m picturing it.
Here they are on Naked Day. They’re walking up Hogback Mountain, and Growler is in the back. I stopped. I might have sat down longer or something. I was like, “I’m going to wait.”
I’m going to let them get a little up the trail from me.
I let them get out of my sight because I didn’t want to look at his derriere for the rest of the day.
I can appreciate that. What was your trail name?
Randbo. Ronnie picked that name up. His name was Attitude Indicator. He became a commercial pilot. An Attitude Indicator is an instrument on a plane. There’s a funny thing about the name, too. I record all the names of the people that I talked to during the day and put them in my journal. I’ve got a lot of trail names in the book. They’re interesting.
We were in the Whites. There was nobody around. I ran into a couple of guys that day who were hiking with their ladies. Twice, at least, I’d say, “My name is Randbo. What’s yours?” and reach out with my hand. They’d go, “I ran into your brother. Can I have a picture taken with you?” They’d put their arms around me. The women would stand back. They go, “I thought you’d be bigger.” This happened twice that day.
At night, Ron and I are exhausted. We didn’t usually talk too much. I’m thinking about it and go, “Have you been talking to people on the trail?” He said, “Yeah. I’m friendly.” I said, “What are you telling them?” I knew he was covering something up because he was looking down. I go, “What are you saying?” We’re Vietnam veterans. He said, “I’m telling them that you are the actual guy who wrote the movie Rambo.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re going to get me killed. I’m going to get into a fight with Rambo.” It’s funny. There are a lot of funny stories.
Get A Copy Of Rand’s Book
That’s great. Where can people find your book?
It’s on Amazon. You can go to my website, RandTimmerman.com. I’m not doing the Internet social stuff very much.
That’s fine. It’s not a problem.
They can get it on Amazon, ThriftBooks, and pretty much all of the bookstores. If they put A Spiritual Passage in there, it’ll pop up. They could also put my name.
I want to thank you so much for joining me. That was truly an epic journey and epic stories. It was so much fun talking to you.
It’s great. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
I’m hoping people are inspired by the book and by this adventure that we had. I don’t want people thinking that they can go out and do this. I know, from feedback I’ve been getting, that some people who are dealing with severe difficulties, like addiction, have found the story in my recovery inspiring to the point where they made changes. This book can also be for older people who think, “All my friends seem to be dead,” or are sitting on the couch waiting. You don’t have to be like that. That’s the whole point. That’s the point of your program.
My mom is 85 years old. She turned 85 in June. In May, she was down in the Pantanal in Brazil, which is the world’s largest wetland, on a safari. Her attitude is, “I may not be able to walk as well as I used to. It may take a little longer, but as long as I’m able, I’m getting out there and doing stuff.” She does realize that at some point, it’s not possible. She’s like, “Today is not the day. It is possible. I’m getting out there.” I take great inspiration from you, my mom, and other people who say that age is a state of mind. If you believe you’re old, then you’ll act old. I got to imagine that you’re like, “I find it hard to believe that I’m 80. It doesn’t seem possible. I feel good.”
Use it or lose it. Kudos to your mom. I like that spirit. That’s the kind of spirit we want to engender in people. The more we push ourselves to do these things and have epic journeys, the longer we’ll be able to do it. If we don’t, we won’t. That’s it.
I want to thank you so much for coming to join me.
Thank you.
I want to remind everyone that if you are ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. Remember that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
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About Rand Timmerman
Born in 1946, Rand R. Timmerman, Esq., grew up in a small village in Adams, New York, which had more cows than people! He attended Oswego State University for three semesters. In March 1966, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served primarily with the 1st Marines in Vietnam, reaching the rank of Corporal. He was promoted temporarily to second lieutenant in Vietnam for the last few months.
After that combat experience, he went to the Officer Candidate School, the Basic School, and then the Judge Advocate General [JAG] School. Subsequently, he served as a JAG officer and was honorably discharged as a Captain after five years of service. Afterwards, in 1970, he attended Syracuse University, acquiring his BA degree and graduated Summa Cumlaude from Syracuse Law School in 1975.
Thereafter, he worked for a short time for a small company and then was self-employed for 40 years via three separate law firms serving Saint Lawrence, Jefferson, Oswego, Lewis and Onondaga Counties. Since retiring in 2012, the author has written numerous books and short stories, including this one regarding hiking the Appalachian Trail with his brother in 2018 and 2019.