PHOTO PROVIDED Steve Yale, who was born in Williamsport in 1975 and lived in Lock Haven for 17 years, is hiking the Appalachian Trail for the fifth year in a row.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part one of a four-part series about Steve Yale, who was born in Williamsport and lived in Lock Haven for 17 years, who is hiking the Appalachian Trail for the fifth time.

Much like on a trail hiking through various types of terrain, there are times you get to a crossroads in life, both figuratively and metaphorically. For Steve Yale, he had that crossroads before he set out to hike the Appalachian Trail for the first time in 2019.

The woman he was dating at the time ended up getting into legal trouble and went to prison. His son at the time, aged 21, also found himself in trouble and in jail.

“I was fed up with all the people I know who were locked up. It seemed like the judicial system was affecting a lot of my life,” said Yale, who was born in Williamsport in 1975 and lived in Lock Haven for 17 years, on the podcast “Mighty Blue on the A.T.”

Yale, who attended the former Lock Haven High School, was more than open about his past talking on the podcast. He admitted that he tried to get his son on the right path after he hit his 20s, but “I was more of an enabler than really helping him out. What he really needed was tough love I guess.”

It all culminated for Yale in somewhat of a breakdown he noted. He had to find a way to search for answers and find peace with himself. And what better place to do that than by yourself surrounded by nothing but wilderness and nature?

“All the loved ones going to where they were (in jail). I was like ‘man, I’m going to go out in the woods and try to find peace and accept what’s going on in my life,'” Yale said on the podcast “Mighty Blue on the A.T.”

So that April in 2019, Yale began his inaugural journey along the 2,100-plus mile Appalachian Trail.

As Yale first started out with the idea of hiking the Appalachian Trail, he didn’t exactly know what to expect. So when he set out to get equipment, he went to a Walmart and picked up all his gear there.

It led to his nickname on the trail of simply Walmart.

Yale worked a construction job in Texas at the time, and he had a boss who was more than supportive of him taking time to hike the trail. His boss actually sent him money every month as well while he was on his journey.

“The first year was really hard with the Walmart shoes I had the whole way through,” Yale said on “Mighty Blue on the A.T.” podcast, noting he went through at least a dozen Walmart shoes while hiking. “(When I got) up north they had to get sent to me because the Walmarts were further and farther in between.”

Yale had no experience prior to the Appalachian Trail hike in 2019 of embarking on an excursion of that magnitude. The Appalachian Trail is more than 2,100 miles that spans 12 states, with the start of the trail in Georgia going through Maine.

When he started, he was going roughly 10 miles a day. That’s when another hiker told him he needed to pick up the amount of miles per day if he wanted to do well along the remarkable trail.

“He helped me adjust my Walmart pack and sent me down the trail,” Yale said on “Mighty Blue on the A.T.” podcast.

It was only three hours into his inaugural Appalachian Trail hike when Yale saw a bear, something he wanted to see. The bear was climbing up a tree within eye sight with its back to Yale.

“I wanted to tell somebody, but there was nobody to tell,” Yale said with a laugh on “Mighty Blue on the A.T.” podcast. “It was a magical experience. I wanted to see a bear and there it was on the first day of my trip. I was like man this is an amazing start for an amazing journey.”

And that journey, one five years in the making and counting, is still going on, day by day, mile by mile, through the Appalachian Trail.