To say that Brian Stark is well-traveled would be an understatement.
The difference between Stark and most other travelers, though, is that Stark has done a lot of his traveling by foot.
The Columbus native has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail and run coast-to-coast across the United States. These days, Stark does most of his running in the Swiss Alps, where he teaches at a boarding school.
Going the distance
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Stark, 48, caught the running bug in middle school when his father Jim, who was an avid runner, and older brother Chris ran across the width of Florida.
Brian was too young at the time to attempt that crossing, but became a cross-country and track runner at Columbus North. After graduating in 1991, he went on to run four years at Hanover College.
Shortly after college, Brian hiked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia.
“It just created more addiction to this kind of lifestyle,” he said.
Brian moved to Brown County, where he was a substitute teacher and coached the distance runners on the Eagles track team in 1997. He also renovated log cabins, and one of the owners allowed him to stay in one of his cabins.
Often when he would substitute teach, Brian ran the six miles to Helmsburg or eight miles to Nashville and would shower and change clothes. At the end of the day, he would put running clothes back on and run home.
The next year, Brian was ready for another challenge. So on March 8, 1998, he started his coast-to-coast journey in Cape Helopen State Park in Sussex County, Delaware, and 7 1/2 months (238 days) and 4,800 miles later, finished on Oct. 31 in Point Reyes National Seashore just north of San Francisco.
At the finish line, Brian proposed to his girlfriend Lydia, who now is his wife.
Moving to Arizona
Until that point, Brian and Lydia had been in a long-distance relationship. They met when Brian was at Hanover, and Lydia, who lived in Arizona, came to Hanover to visit Brian’s roommate’s girlfriend.
So Brian moved to Tuscon, Arizona, married Lydia, and they had daughters, Maia (now 15) and Clara (now 13). Along the way, Brian and Lydia discovered that 63 years earlier, their grandparents were best friends in Elkhart.
Brian taught middle school English for 14 years. His final six years in Arizona, he delved into environmental education, directing the energy efficiency system in Tuscon.
“After about 10 years, my wife noticed that I was a little on edge and a little cranky, and she said, maybe it’s time you go out for a long run,” Brian said.
Having already crossed about half the states between the Appalachian Trail and on his coast-to-coast run, Lydia suggested to Brian that he try to cross the rest of the 50 states before he turned 50.
So in the summer, Brian would go out for 10 days to two weeks and run across one or two states. By 2017, his total was up to 36.
“I could take a year off and do the rest, but I think there’s nothing wrong with doing 50 by 70,” he said.
Going overseas
A few years ago, Brian and Lydia wanted to broaden their horizons. So they went to a job fair, and on the spot, both got an offer for to teach in Kuwait.
The Starks spent two years teaching in Kuwait.
“It was challenging at times, but a wonderful experience for our kids,” Brian said. “At the end of two years, we were ready for something else, but not quite ready to come home yet, and we heard about this school in Switzerland.”
In August, the Starks moved to Goldern, Switzerland, which is in the Hasliberg region, in the middle of the Alps, about two hours southwest of Zurich. Brian is a teacher, dorm parent and assistant dean of the U.S. program at Ecole d’Humanite Boarding School.
Lydia also teaches at the school, which has about 120 students — 60 in the Swiss program and 60 in the U.S. program.
“It’s been going from one extreme to the other,” Brian said. “Kuwait is in the desert where it’s 130 degrees in the summer and not a speck of water anywhere, and now we’re right in the middle of the Alps across from a ski resort, and once a week, the students have to go skiing.”
The school has been closed for the remainder of the school year because of the coronavirus outbreak. Brian drove some of the American students to the airport in Zurich at 5 a.m. one morning to catch one of the last planes back to U.S. before the ban on travel from Europe took effect.
A collection of stories
In 2005, seven years after his coast-to-coast crossing, Brian wrote a book, “Getting To the Point in a Dozen Pairs of Shoes,” which chronicled his journey.
In the meantime, Brian became involved in a Facebook group of people who have crossed America on foot. After hearing stories of people who had done it, one of them, Jim McCord of Cincinnati, had an idea to gather those stories for a book.
“It kind of floundered for a couple years until last December,” Brian said. “Through a series of Zoom chats and lots of messages on Facebook, we finally figured out how to get it done.”
So Brian took responsibility of collecting the stories and going about getting it published. With 27 stories written by 29 people (two of the U.S. crossings were by two-person tandems), he limited each to 5,000 words.
“We let people choose how they told their stories,” Brian said. “Some of them did journal style. We didn’t want to limit anyone how they told their story.”
The stories are published in chronological order of the U.S. crossings. Among them:
— Alan Tardy, who ran with a backpack, six-pound tent and no sleeping bag in 1978
— Frank Giannino, who crossed the U.S. in 46 days in 1979, a record that stood for 37 years
— Pete Kostelnick, who crossed in 42 days, 6 hours, 32 minutes in 2016 to break Giannino’s record
— Sandra Villines, who crossed in 54 days, 16 hours, 24 minutes in 2017 to set the women’s record
— 10-year-old Noah Barnes and his father Robert, who walked from Key West, Florida, to Seattle, Washington
— Louismichael Figueroa, who crossed the U.S. at age 16 as a promise to a dying friend. His quote, “When I was hungry, I ate. When I was tired, I slept. And when I had to go to the bathroom, I went,” was part of the movie, “Forrest Gump.”
— Brian Stark’s own journey from 1998. His is the last in the book to have been done before smartphones, and he was the first to do it on a network of trails.
“A lot of these stories had never been told before,” Brian said. “Forty years later, a lot of these stories happened because I think it was less intimidating for them. Each person wrote their own story.”
The book
The collection of stories, “Across America on Foot: 27 Stories of Adventure, Endurance, and Inspiration,” came out three weeks ago and is available on Amazon. The cost is $18.95 in paperback and $9.99 in kindle.
Proceeds from the book are being split 27 ways through the “Across America Author Group.”
“It’s just really a good feeling to get these stories out,” Brian said. “It’s a great resource just of all those wonderful stories out there. The one thing that I take when I read these chapters is that all of us had wonderful experiences meeting people as we traveled across the country. People came to our aid. They offered us cold water, a sandwich, a place to stay. I think that sends a pretty good message to people about the state and health of America.”
Meanwhile, Brian is training for his next adventure. He is planning to take part in a 100-mile race through the Alps in August.
“It’s a massive amount of climbing,” he said. “It’s like climbing (Mount) Everest twice in 24 hours. But it’s beautiful.”
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Name: Brian Stark
Age: 48
High school: Columbus North
College: Hanover
Residence: Goldern, Switzerland
Occupation: Teacher, assistant dean of U.S. Program and dorm parent at Ecole d’Humanite Boarding School
Family: Wife Lydia, daughters Maia and Clara
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