2,193 miles.
Fourteen states.
Six months, three seasons.
And two dogs.
These numbers merely begin to tell the story of Risa Fruchter and her recent adventure on the Appalachian Trail.
In June of 2020, Fruchter, 28, a Pikesville native, laced up her hiking boots and set out to explore one of the nation’s longest trails in the company of her two canine pals, Kimbo and Sadie.
The A.T., as it’s known, stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers approximately 2,200 miles, all of which Fruchter trekked throughout the course of a six-month period.
Her mission was two-fold: to cross off a goal from her bucket list and to raise money for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in Camden, Maine.
After graduating from Baltimore’s now-defunct Yeshivat Rambam high school in 2011, Fruchter took a gap year in Israel. Her time there wound up much longer as she served in the Israel Defense Forces and then earned her undergraduate degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 2017, Fruchter got married in a ceremony overlooking the hills of Jerusalem. She then returned to the United States with her husband, Jeremy. They moved to Pittsburgh, where Fruchter worked at the Hillel Jewish University Center from 2018 to 2020.
She is currently starting a new position with the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh as coordinator of shinshinim, or Israeli community emissaries.
Ever since a young age, Fruchter, the daughter Yossi Kelemer and Amian Frost Kelemer, says she loved backpacking and hiking.
“I fell in love with backpacking when I was 13,” she says. “I backpacked a portion of the Israel National Trail with a group and it really cemented my relationship, my love of backpacking through that trip.”
Fruchter’s first solo hike, a 70-mile trail in the Laurel Highlands in southwestern Pennsylvania, inspired her A.T. expedition.
“Backpacking reminded me how much I loved and missed hiking and made me realize that I needed to take this opportunity to thru-hike [the A.T.] and reconnect with myself and nature,” she says.
Fruchter did not waste any time preparing for her A.T. hike. She purchased hiking equipment, got her dogs into shape and defined her goals. In addition to being a personal achievement, Fruchter says she was determined to give this adventure a deeper purpose: to raise money and awareness for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound program.
“The Outward Bound program strives to get people to experience the outdoors and use nature and what you can learn from it as a way to grow emotionally, socially and professionally,” she says.
According to the program’s website, Outward Bound’s mission is for students “to experience adventure and challenge in a way that helps [them] realize they can do more than they thought possible.”
Fruchter says the Hurricane Island program is specifically geared for girls, and it was important to her that other young women enjoy the opportunity to experience nature and the outdoors.
She ultimately raised nearly $1,000 for the organization. “Backpacking can be a way of empowering future generations and providing female empowerment,” she says.
Fruchter’s time on the A.T. proved to be an eye-opening experience. She credits hiking and backpacking with teaching her about resilience and fortitude. She says she learned to trust her intuition and avoid the pitfalls of self-doubt.
The A.T. hike also brought her back to her Jewish values and love of Israel. While hiking, Fruchter says she felt connected to nature because of her upbringing.
“I think about how I grew up with the idea that every footstep in Israel is a mitzvah and just walking in the land, knowing where our forefathers walked, was a mitzvah,” she says. “I feel very connected to the land because of the Jewish values I’ve been taught. So that played a huge role in how I experienced the trail.”
Tomer Nusinov is a Jmore editorial staff intern.
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