Sarasota banker, 71, completes Appalachian Trail in style

Executive

Ben Hatcher, 71, partner and director of client development at Sarasota-based Capstan Financial Consulting Group. His banking career goes back to the 1970s, when he worked at Barnett Bank of Tampa. Now at Capstan, he handles asset-based lending for Capstan’s clients. 

Diversion

Hiking the Appalachian Trail. When he’s not at his day job, Hatcher has a major life goal he’s been trying to complete for the past over 30 years — hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. The roughly 2,190-mile long path stretches from Maine to North Georgia, and at its highest elevation, it reaches almost 6,700 feet. His own journey with the trail started in 1993, when a close friend and Boy Scout troop master asked him to come along as an adult volunteer on an Appalachian hike with the Scouts. What he didn’t know was that his first hike, from June 11 to 20, 1993, starting at Mills Creek, Virginia and ending at the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Old Dominion State, would touch off a decades-long habit. He completed the hike this past July in Maine, surrounded by family at at the northern terminus, Mount Katahdin in Maine.

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Inside track: Hatcher was able to easily offer the date and location of his first hike, because in the passing years, he realized how important it was to keep track of each segment of the trail. Always the banker, his log takes the form of a spreadsheet, but it’s his friend that has the real memory for dates and distance. “He can rattle this stuff off the top of his head,” Hatcher says. 

Keep climbing: The preparation in advance of the hike is a fundamental part of the experience, Hatcher says — “I have to get prepared for it every year, so it gives me something to do to keep in shape.” But finding an incline in Sarasota isn’t exactly an easy task. Training usually looks like a 5:30 a.m. hike at Nathan Benderson Park, where he hikes the six-story tower and takes the staircase two steps at a time. When he wants a change, he heads to Celery Fields, a park in east Sarasota known for its hills (and bird watching.( He usually starts in February or March and gradually increases the pace and frequency as the hike approaches.

Section hikers: Hatcher was raised going outdoors, so the Appalachian Trail didn’t feel all that foreign to him. “It’s just nice being out in the woods. I grew up hunting and fishing and all those outdoor activities, so it’s just been nice to continue that on,” he says. But he couldn’t take on the entirety of the trail at one time — for one thing, he had a family and a full-time job. It wasn’t realistic to take off six months from work and real life to finish the trail in one sitting.

The hardest part: One might think the uphills would be the hardest challenge, but it is actually the long downhill segments that take their toll on the body, particularly the knees and the hips. Then again, Hatcher is not one to shy away from the uphills — his trail name, which he says almost everyone gets at one point, is Uphill Junkie. 

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Flex plan: It is the trail that decides how far you’ll hike each day and not necessarily a human’s best laid plans. Section hikers have the ability to create their own schedule, but there has to be some level of flexibility, Hatcher says. “It’s what the trail will give you,” he says. “Sometimes, you’ll hit a section that will be flat and you can do 15, 18 miles, and not have a problem as a section hiker. Sometimes you’ll get to a section where the uphills will just drag you down and you end up only doing 12-mile days.”

Finish line: Hatcher’s final hike involves finishing the 100-Mile Wilderness in Maine and hiking the state’s tallest mountain, Mount Katahdin. He’s not ready to look too far ahead to the end of the trail, but when forced to reflect on it, he notes some preoccupation about what comes next. “What an accomplishment after all these years of prep work and planning and all of that stuff,” he says, “and then the next thing is, what am I going to do now?” 

Move out: Hiking a piece of the trail most years is a motivator for Hatcher to get out and get moving. He used to go to the gym more frequently, but when he injured his shoulder a few years ago, that came to an end. “All I do now is hike,” he said. “I have to keep doing that.”