Health & Fitness
Forging a familar frontier
The Taylor resident, an athlete, adventurer and Army veteran, set out last week to be the first to hike...
Christopher Hillier is well on his way now, forging a new trail through familiar territory.
The Taylor resident, an athlete, adventurer and Army veteran, set out last week to be the first to hike a proposed trail from Belle Isle to Wisconsin, a 934-mile trek suggested last November by Gov. Rick Snyder.
I met him last week when I traveled to Lansing with a crew from Oakwood Healthcare for the legislative reception portion of the Governor’s Fitness Awards event. He was a finalist for the Veteran of the Year Award, while Oakwood was a finalist for the Healthy Workplace Award (with a minor assist for Canton Township’s nomination for Extraordinary Event/Organization Award for programs we helped sponsor).
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Hillier is a former Oakwood employee, too, whose six-year army career helped prepare him for an 18-year career as a cardiovascular technician. I found the entire plan fascinating.
“It’s fun to plan, but not that much fun to watch,” he said. “Once all the preparations are complete, it’s just a guy walking.”
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He’s done that before. Hillier has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, as well as the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches for 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada. I had a friend who hiked the AT, and was always envious of someone not only physically capable, but financially capable, as well. You have to have all of your bucks in a row, so to speak, to be able to take that much time off work.
He said his desire to inspire others to get active took form when he saw many cases of cardio vascular disease caused by inactivity.
“If I can encourage people to walk more, I’ll be doing a good thing,” he said. “I want people to know that they don’t have to hike thousands of miles, but they do need to get out and be active more often.”
Indeed, both the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society recommend at least 150 minutes of activity every week. You can break that up into manageable bits—particularly when you’re just starting out.
The trail Hillier is foraging has not been fully mapped out by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, but I think that’s part of his message. You take small, existing bits and pieces and cobble them together. It adds up in a hurry, and you get healthier the minute you start.
