By BRETT FRENCH/Billings Gazette
BILLINGS - When Seth Schumacher heard that the Primal Quest adventure race would be held in Montana this year, he applied to work as a volunteer.
“The last thing I expected was to be thrown onto the directorial staff,” Schumacher said.
“He was a good find,” Caul said. “You just don’t find anybody with that kind of resumé. I just knew he was the right person to bring on the team. Plus, he was a Montanan.”
Clad in a green kilt revealing large, trail-hardened calves, with his long, dark hair shooting out from under a baseball cap, Schumacher was a striking figure at Primal Quest’s temporary headquarters at Big Sky Resort. But he’s always stood out in one way or another.
He graduated a year early from Park County High School, 13th in his class with a 3.8 GPA. While his fellow graduates were walking across the stage to receive their diplomas in 2006, however, he was beginning a hike on the Continental Divide Trail.
“I skipped commencement and started hiking the same day,” he said.
The joke in his family is that his parents told him to take a hike after he graduated, and Seth took them literally.
Schumacher developed a passion for being in the woods at an early age. His parents, Karen and Randy Schumacher of Livingston, took him backpacking. Karen has been a forest worker and teacher; Randy is a computer technician.
Schumacher has racked up an impressive hiking resumé for someone still in his teens.
In seventh grade, he spent three weeks backpacking in California’s Marble Mountain Wilderness.
In eighth grade, Schumacher met a teacher who had hiked the Appalachian Trail. He resolved to follow in his mentor’s footsteps, and began planning to graduate a year early from high school.
The summer after eighth grade, the Schumacher family and some friends took a backpacking trip to the Chinese Wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Since Schumacher’s friend couldn’t come along, he vowed to return with him the following year, traveling across the Bob from Benchmark to Holland Lake. He followed through, and Karen dropped the young pair off at the trailhead and picked them up.
“It was wonderful,” Karen said. “He’d shown good planning skills, he navigates well, and he went about it very sensibly.”
The next year, Schumacher and his friend hiked into the Grand Canyon on a trek he planned.
In 2006, at the ripe age of 17, Schumacher began his solo trip on the Continental Divide Trail in Glacier National Park’s northern reaches. It wasn’t long before he had his first encounter with a black bear that required him to trigger his pepper spray. The sow was 8 to 10 feet away and charging when Schumacher sprayed.
“I learned you don’t stick around when you’re between a sow and her cubs,” Schumacher said. He fired and quickly retreated.
Then, farther down the trail in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Schumacher surprised a young grizzly boar. The bear charged and at 4 to 5 feet, Schumacher let loose with his pepper spray again.
“He stopped and went nuts,” Schumacher said.
Schumacher said he has startled a lot of bears while hiking, but usually they rise up on their hind legs, check him out and run off.
His CDT trip took him through Montana and into Wyoming. He also hiked a portion of the New Mexico segment of the 3,100-mile trail with CDT through-hikers he’d met in Montana. Some day he hopes to return and cover the entire route “all in one whack” - a five- to six-month commitment that he estimated will cost around $4,000.
Still eager to cover more terrain, in the spring of last year he began solo hiking the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain, Ga., finishing at Katahdin in Maine’s Baxter State Park 102 days later. During the trek, he averaged 30 to 40 miles a day. Along the route he went through two pairs of Salomon XA Pro 3D shoes, but he never had a blister.
“I thought that was tremendous,” Karen said. “I thought that was a grand adventure for a young man.”
Of the downside of so much backpacking, Schumacher said, “It hurt.”
Even though he had no blisters, his feet and muscles were still sore.
Such pains don’t make him want to take shorter trips, however.
“I like doing long trips, a weeklong or extended trip, because they give you more of a sense of accomplishment,” he said. “They also give you a sense of being in the middle of nowhere.”
Schumacher dove into the Primal Quest event with enthusiasm, traveling the entire trekking section of the course with Caul, more than 300 miles and with most of the race’s 100,000 feet in elevation gain. On the first day, Caul and Schumacher hiked 35 miles through the Crazy Mountains in snow up to 15 feet deep.
Schumacher said the 10-day race that ended July 2 was crazy work, allowing much less sleep than he’s used to, but said it was a good learning experience.
“I’d like to work the next Primal Quest,” he said, possibly even competing in the adventure race when he’s in better shape some day.
“If I can ever raise the money and find a group crazy enough,” he said. “I need a little more training, too. Physically, I don’t go out and adventure race every week.”
Competitor or trekking director, Caul said, Schumacher would always be welcome.
“We see Seth as a long-term PQ addition,” Caul said.
Schumacher will have to fit future adventures around his next big challenge. He starts at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., in the fall. He deferred admission for a year after being accepted.
But don’t expect college studies to slow him down. He’d still like to hike all the national parks, and visit New Zealand, Costa Rica, the Andes and Alps, to name a few.
“There are so many awesome places to go,” he said.
This summer, he’s still hoping to visit the popular climbing area City of Rocks National Reserve, near Almo, Idaho, as well as make a reunion hike with high school friends in the Bob Marshall, one of his favorite places.
“The Chinese Wall is always gorgeous,” he said. “Waterton Lake south into Glacier National Park is absolutely stunning and you get to see the whole park.”
Somewhere in between, he’s hoping to squeeze in some work to earn a little money.
Schumacher’s mother summed it up: “He likes to chart his own course and feel that he has made his own decisions.”
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