[Gocamino] Limitless age

[Rosina]

Age has no limits on the pilgrimage trek

Tom Sanders
Guest columnist 
Carroll Koepplinger is a hike leader with the local Carolina Mountain Club, but in the past three years the 79-year-old has spent each May walking a pilgrimage route in Europe, covering in stages most of the distance from Geneva, Switzerland, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
The historic pilgrimage route, the Camino de Santiago, is now known to many people from Western North Carolina, who have done all or part of the section in Spain which runs 460 miles from the Pyrenees in the East to the shrine of St. James in Santiago de Compostela in the West.
But Carroll is different. In 2007 he trekked two weeks in Spain, but in 2008, he walked a longer stretch from LePuy in France to the Pyrenees, a total of 430 miles, with four friends from the CMC.
In May 2009 he and three CMC friends, Jay Bretz, Don Walton and I, began the route that starts in Geneva, Switzerland, and walking the 230-mile section from there to LePuy through the French Alps, crossing the Rhone River, and then hiking through the mountainous Massif Central, all in 16 days.
Staying in hostels and private homes, we shared experiences with fellow pilgrims and talked with the people of Spain, France, and Switzerland who hosted them, served them in supermarkets and bakeries or noticed them and asked where they are from. Especially in France, few Americans do the pilgrimage. On the section from Geneva to LePuy several of their hosts in private homes said they had never had Americans before.
Jay Bretz, of Weaverville, the youngest of the group at 58, said, “Carroll is an inspiration and role model for us all. When he gets going, we can hardly keep up with him. He's sometimes incredible going up hills.”
In Spain Carroll always seemed to be the oldest person in the hostel, but in May 2008, he met two women pilgrims from Belgium who were 82. “I thought they were fabulous,” he said.
A native of Kansas and a retired labor union official, Carroll came to Asheville in February 1995 and immediately decided to get into hiking.
At age 77, I awakened interest in the pilgrimage route by walking solo across Spain in 2001 and the LePuy route in 2002. Talking about my experiences, I got the others involved, and now they find hiking in Europe in May, when the weather is marvelous and flowers bloom, to be the best way of spending their time.
Doing the Camino is different from hiking in WNC. Tents, cooking gear and quantities of food aren't necessary because there are sleeping and eating facilities along the way. One encounters plenty of mountains, but the true appeal lies in the historic towns and churches, meeting fellow pilgrims from other countries, and enjoying the local food and wine.
Don Walton said each of the last three years has been a different adventure, the first year in Spain hiking with the large number of people (200,000 a year) from all over the world, to this year in eastern France with relatively few people (10,000 a year) hiking the remote trail. This year, staying in many private French family homes and the remote hiking were an exciting daily adventure.
Next May, the three plan to do the Camino in Switzerland, called the Jakobsweg, which runs from the Bodensee in the Northeast to Geneva in the southwest, a total of 330 miles.
The public is invited to a presentation at Diamond Brand in Arden at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 23, which will feature the Geneva-LePuy section.
Tom Sanders is a hike leader with the Carolina Mountain Club who lives in Asheville. E-mail him at tomary.avl at gmail.com.
November 16, 2009.    CITIZEN-TIMES. Nashville