A trek toward love

Two people meet and find love hiking the Appalachian Trail start to finish

In a movie or television show, “meet-cute” is the word used to describe two characters’ first meeting that eventually leads to a romantic connection.

Mikaela Kostrubiak, 28, and Ben Van-Kooten, 32, have a captivating and courageous story of how they met while hiking more than 2,000 miles along the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

The adventure that began it all

The couple’s love story began in 2017 when they crossed paths, literally, on the trail in Hamburg, Berks County. Five years later, Ben and Mikaela are now life and business partners. They operate an organic farm called Passionate About Microgreens in the same town where they first met.

“We didn’t know each other before we started hiking,” Mikaela said.

In fact, they grew up in two different states. Without their journey on the trail, they may have never met.

Ben is from a small Dutch community in Pella, Iowa.

“The first time I had ever been to the East Coast was to hike there for seven months through the woods,” Ben explained.

Mikaela is from the area and grew up in Harleysville, Montgomery County. Unknowingly at first, the two began an adventure of a lifetime within days of one another.

The Appalachian Trail is the “longest hiking-only footpath in the world,” according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy website. The trail begins in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and ends at Mount Katahdin in Maine. It travels through 14 states along the Appalachian

Mountain Range, totaling 2,190 miles.

Millions of people visit the trail, often referred to as the A.T., and each year thousands of people attempt the full 2,000-journey known as a “thru-hike.” According to the conservancy website, only about one in four people complete the full trip.

On March 2, 2017, Ben began the 2,000-mile trek from Georgia. Just days later, Mikaela began the exact same journey on March 11.

“My aunt and uncle drove me from Iowa 14½ hours and dropped me off at Springer Mountain, Georgia. I walked 1,200 miles to Pennsylvania and that’s where I met Mikaela,” Ben said.

After Mikaela and Ben met on the trail in Hamburg, they stayed together until the finish line.

“We hiked every day together after that,” Mikaela said.

The inspiration behind the expedition

Ben and Mikaela each had their own reason for wanting to complete the Appalachian Trail thru-hike.

Mikaela hiked Mount Katahdin, the ending point of the Appalachian Trail, as a child during a family vacation.

“That’s where my love of hiking all started,” she said.

It was her parents who drove Mikaela to Georgia for the start of her journey, and they even hiked the first few miles with her.

While attending college at West Chester University, Mikaela got a strong urge to hike the entire Appalachian Trail.

“I had this now or never panic. It was like I have to do this after I graduate, or life is going to get in the way and I’m never going to do it,” she said.

After Mikaela graduated college in 2016, she moved back to Harleysville. She saved money by working part-time jobs until she had enough to begin her adventure on the trail.

“I would say it’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” Mikaela said.

Ben shared that he had a rough upbringing and the trek along the Appalachian Trail happened at a very important time.

“I was at a really pivotal point in my life where I hadn’t really proven myself to myself,” he said.

Ben said the difficult challenge of hiking 2,000 miles intrigued him.

“The high possibility of failure just motivated me so much, because I knew how good it would feel to be successful,” he said.

Life on the trail

The 2,000-mile hike requires physical and mental strength. Ben said all of his belongings were carried on his back. He had the bare necessities such as a tent, sleeping pad, some clothes, and a credit card to buy supplies when needed.

For most of their sevenmonth journey, Ben and Mikaela camped along the Appalachian Trail. Showers were a luxury that happened only when they went into town every three days or so.

The couple would hike about 20 miles each day, then visit the nearest town.

“We would get to a road crossing and actually hitchhike into towns, where we would do what’s called town tours,” Mikaela said.

The couple spent their time in town stocking back up on food, doing laundry, and using running water.

Ben said a lot of the towns that cross the Appalachian Trail are in rural areas. Hikers on the mountain range bring tourists and revenue into the towns.

“You feel really good going into these communities and helping to support them,” Ben said.

A Trail Community

In addition to visiting the town communities, Ben said it was a pleasure to meet the community of people on the Appalachian Trail.

“You find what the hiking community calls your trail family,” he said.

Ben said various types of people hike the trail. People of all different ages, from different parts of the U.S., and even from other countries come to explore the path.

“You meet so many people from so many different walks of life, Mikaela said.

Although Ben and Mikaela began their journey on the trail as individuals, their trail family grew throughout the process. They found others to join their hike and reached their destination with other hikers that became friends along the way.

The final destination

After seven months of trekking through the woods, Ben and Mikaela reached their goal at Mount Katahdin, Maine on Oct. 2, 2017.

“It was just a rush of emotion,” Mikaela said.

She was truly speechless as she stood on top of a mountain with a majestic view of a clear, blue sky.

“It was just a huge sense of accomplishment,” Mikaela said. “Every single day leading up to Oct. 2, I was working toward being in that moment and in that time. Then all of a sudden, I was there.”

Ben said the full weight of what he’d accomplished came to him after leaving the mountain. Ben said that night as he was driving away from the trail and city lights came into view, he started examining his feelings.

“When I realized I was not going back to the Appalachian

Trail and that this was done and completed … it hit me,” he said.

Ben said he experienced post-trail depression. He was going to miss the simplicity and true community he experienced along the Appalachian Trail. He said whenever there was a storm, no one complained.

“You’re in it together. There’s such unity and such drive because you’re all striving to do something so hard,” Ben explained.

He said it was extremely difficult to leave that type of support system and return to a world with an abundance of challenges.

“So many people had so much hardship and so many things going on,” Ben said. “It was just sad.”

Lessons learned

Mikaela was always very aware she was a female hiker who started the thruhike alone. She learned to depend on herself and trust her instincts throughout the journey.

“I would say the most important lesson I got out of the thru-hike was just to trust my gut,” Mikaela said.

Ben said all his lessons involved realizing what’s necessary for true happiness.

“The biggest thing I learned is I need four things in life to be happy. I don’t need all this extra stuff. I just need food to keep my belly full, I need water to keep moving, I need shelter to be able to get out of the rain, and the most important thing is good company,” he said.

“You can have all the accomplishments in the world, but if you celebrate alone then you’re lonely,” he added.

Luckily, Ben and Mikaela got to celebrate one of their greatest accomplishments together and found their love match in the process.

More information

For more information about the Appalachian Trail, including tips on how to complete a thru-hike, visit appalachiantrail.org. For those not quite ready for a 2,000-mile hike on the trail, Take It Outdoors Adventures offers “Intro to Backpacking” classes along the Appalachian Trail. The course will take place in the fall on the Swatara Gap section of the trail. People interested in volunteering and taking care of the Appalachian Trail section in Pennsylvania can join the Keystone Trails Association or the Blue Mountain Eagle Climbing Club.