Baggot: One step at a time

BY ANDY BAGGOT

UWBadgers.com Insider

Andy Rein was one day into his retirement from being a strategic account manager with SKF, a century-old Swedish bearing and seal manufacturing company, when he began the task of crossing items off his bucket list.

The first was a doozy.

Rein, the Wisconsin wrestling legend, had long thought of hiking the Appalachian Trail, the 2,199-mile stroll through 14 states that starts at Springer Mountain in Georgia. He was fascinated by the details, curious about the solitude, anxious about all the unknowns he would encounter on such a journey. He was intrigued by the degree of difficulty and, ultimately, thrilled to get moving.

So, eight years after his initial hike with three poker buddies, Rein embarked on a nearly 150-day trip that would test him in a myriad of ways before he landed on the summit of Mt. Katahdin in Millinocket, Maine. 

“I wanted to do something that was difficult that would challenge me,” he said, shortly after he began his quest. “Something hard to accomplish. This is definitely something that’s going to be hard to accomplish. But I will accomplish it, God willing, and stay healthy.

“My daily focus is to get through the day. It’s one step at a time.”

Rein’s journey lasted from April 2 to Aug. 27. Along the way he said he lost 20 pounds – from 170 to 150 – and four toenails. He went through five pairs of shoes and four backpacks. He averaged 18 miles a day and raised $95,000 toward the National Wrestling Hall of Fame’s “Power Beyond” endowment campaign, which was created in 2022 with the goal of adding $5 million to the permanent endowment fund. That was the same year that Rein was inducted into the NWHF.

“Winning an Olympic silver medal is highly impressive, as is hiking the entire Appalachian Trail,” said John Harris, co-chair of the endowment campaign and secretary for the hall of fame’s board of governors. “Yet, perhaps I am most impressed with Andy’s love for the sport of wrestling and his willingness to use this hike as a way to make sure the hall of fame can deliver on its triple aim of preserving wrestling’s history, recognizing our champions and heroes, and inspiring future generations in perpetuity.”

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy estimates there are more than 3,000 attempts to navigate the entire trail each year. These adventurers are known as thru-hikers and about 25 percent succeed.

Most of the trail is in forest or wild lands, but some parts traverse towns, roads and farms. From south to north the AT touches Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Almost a month to the day Rein achieved his goal, an 800-mile swath of that area was ravaged by the effects of Hurricane Helene. The Reins, who live in Banner Elk in Avery County, N.C., are still dealing with its stunning devastation.

They still don’t have running water and only recently regained power following a horrific disaster that, according to reports, killed 101 people in western North Carolina and wiped out a host of roads and bridges. One report estimated that 1,000 trees and hundreds of structures were lost due to the wind and heavy flooding.

“Our town took a pretty big hit,” Andy said, adding that he was fortunate not to have been in mid-hike when Helene hit.

Roughly six months earlier, Rein, a 66-year-old grandfather of four, Olympic silver medalist from the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, and UW Athletic Hall of Fame inductee in 2002, began crossing paths with a menagerie of characters that included a 70-year-old man nicknamed “The General” who had finished the Appalachian Trail six years earlier and was prepping to take on the Pacific Coast Trail later this year.

“That’s a nice bandanna you have there,” the man said to Rein.

“Yeah, I found it on a trail about 180 miles ago,” the former Stoughton High School standout replied. “Why?”

“I think it’s mine,” he said.

Then there were the four loud dudes from England whose snoring made it impossible to sleep one night at a rest area.

“I called them the snoring burritos because when I woke up – I was basically awake the whole night – I looked at them and they were tucked inside these big fluffy sleeping bags,” Rein said with a laugh. “They looked like they were in a burrito.”

Rein was known as an elite tactician who won two Big Ten Conference individual titles and went 40-0 on his way to winning the NCAA crown at 150 pounds in 1980.

But while he was known as a fierce competitor on the mat, Rein began and ended this adventure focused on maintaining his own pace, not the progress of others. He made that clear during a late-April pitstop during which he touched base with his wife, Susy, and downloaded video, photos and social media posts he’d put together.

“They sense that I’m not your average 66-year-old guy because I’m keeping pace with some of these guys,” Rein said. “In fact, I’m passing some of them. There are guys I started out with that I don’t know where they are. I know they’re behind me if they’re still on the trail. For the most part I’m keeping up with them. Not that it’s a race because I don’t want it to be a race. I want it to be my hike.”

Rein didn’t encounter any bears or moose as he thought he’d might, but he recalled being done in by a field mouse that took up temporary residence in his tent once the tiny creature came across an opened bag of sunflower seeds.

Rein guesses that he slipped and fell 12 to 15 times, which is a lesson onto itself. “That’s the tiring thing,” he said. “You don’t move that fast and you’ve got to be careful every step you take.”

There’s much to appreciate about being on your own for as long as Rein was. It was one of the things he celebrated with family, friends and National Wrestling Hall of Fame Executive Committee members who traveled to be there when Rein finally summitted Mt Katahdin. 

“It’s amazing once you get on a trail like this, I don’t even know what day it is most of the time,” he said. “I don’t know what the weather’s going to be like. I don’t know what’s happening on the political scene. I don’t know what the stock market’s doing.

“There are different thoughts that go through your head when you’re walking. Probably 95 percent of the time, though, your eyes are on the trail and where your next step is going.”

The terrain and scenery vary in a host of ways.

“In Georgia it was a lot of straight up and down. North Carolina was more switchbacks and a little bit easier,” Rein said. “But, still, there’s a lot of ups and downs. It’s not easy because you’re walking on rocks and roots. You’ve got to watch every step because it’s very easy to twist an ankle and fall. There’s a lot of things to focus on. It takes a lot of effort.”

Susy, who works as a strategic initiatives consultant for the National Wrestling Association Hall of Fame, said her primary concern was about all the dangers that could possibly befall her husband while living in the wilderness for months, everything from rattlesnakes and ticks to lightning strikes and or falling off a steep ledge.

“Andy did have a few bad falls on the trail that could have been hike-ending,” his wife said, “but his wrestling instincts saved him.”

What did Rein miss most?

“Just the comfort of home, being with your wife and your dog, your friends,” he said. “Going downtown and doing the things you normally do. Sleeping in my own bed instead of my tent. Just the basic comforts of home living.”

Susy said her husband came home looking smaller, hairier, tired and older due to his big white and gray beard that he still models. She said his upper body was cannibalized by the extreme calorie burn. His spine was bruised and he had a lump that wasn’t there before.

The plan was to allow Rein’s body a few weeks to recover and get acclimated to the dramatic change in activity, then to schedule appointments with a podiatrist, an orthopedic neurologist and/or a chiropractor.

“I’m just learning how to walk normally again,” he said. “It’s coming back a lot slower than I thought.”

Rein was asked if this was his first or last thru-hike.

“This is probably the only one I’ll do in my life,” he said. “I could be wrong.”

What’s next on Rein’s bucket list?

“I want to learn how to play the guitar,” he said. “That will be a tremendous challenge for me. I’ll do something; I just don’t know what that is.”

In the meantime, Rein will take pride in going the extra mile for a good cause.

“It wasn’t easy,” he said. “But I was going to finish.”