The Rev. Peter Munson, a recently retired priest from Colorado, is walking across the U.S. to raise awareness and raise money on behalf of four nonprofits which work directly with children (the REMAR Children’s Home and School in El Salvador, the Denver-based Street Fraternity, Episcopal Relief and Development, and the Episcopal Church in Colorado). Munson calculated it would take nearly 6 million steps to walk from Charleston, South Carolina to San Francisco. So far, he’s trekked through locales such as Athens, Georgia; Tennessee; and Kansas. ENS reported back in January that the idea for his journey began over ten years ago as he was hiking in the Rockies:
On Nov. 20, 2008, Munson was hiking alone in Rocky Mountain National Park – a park he’s hiked in for years and where as a student at the University of Colorado he worked as a guide – and as he descended from Sky Pond in Glacier Gorge, the idea came to him to walk across the country, writing and speaking about his experience and to raise money for disadvantaged children and young adults.
… His estimated eight-and-a-half-month, 3,600-mile journey begins in Charleston, where he grew up, and will cross South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and, eventually, California. At least in the Midwest, he expects to average 20 miles a day, six days a week. As he gets out West, the mileage will likely decrease, especially in western Utah and Nevada, where he’ll have a support vehicle following him through the high desert.
Currently, Munson has stopped at his home in Arvada, Colorado for some medical treatment. The local newspaper reports that,
For roughly six weeks, he walked along Kansas roads as a sore on his toe worsened from a pesky blister to a painful infection. Still, the former Episcopal priest who lives in Colorado kept going.
On Aug. 10 Peter Munson, still traveling by foot, passed into Colorado and continued until he reached Colorado Springs. The 61-year-old had walked roughly 2,100 miles by then, more than half as far as he planned to go. But the pain in his toe had grown to the point that wearing a shoe felt excruciating.
Finally, he called it quits. At least for the time being.
Munson, who’s walking from South Carolina to California to raise money for charity, canceled a planned Aug. 13 appearance in Castle Rock and paused his walking mission because of the foot injury, which required that he seek medical attention.
“Saturday it was causing me to limp,” he said on Tuesday, Aug. 12, before a doctor visit in his hometown of Arvada. “Taking this week off to see if I can get well.”
… He planned to restart his walk in Boulder, where he’d expected to be by that date, in order to make other speaking obligations his team has scheduled along his route. He’ll spend several weeks walking through Colorado before continuing through Utah and Nevada before ending in California.
“A part of me doesn’t really believe I’m doing this,” he said. “It seems a little surreal to have walked 2,100 miles. Wow, really, how have I done this? But I try to remember the children and why I’m doing it and what I’m walking for.”
Munson is scheduled to speak at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Steamboat next week. You can learn more about his journey at http://www.6millionstepsforkids.org.