Pair will hike for charity

Buddy is going on a 2,176-mile hike. So far, though, he refuses to wear his new canary-yellow hiking boots.

But Judy Hepner figures her 9-year-old Australian shepherd mix will get used to the paw protectors when he has a few miles under his collar.

Hepner, 27, will find out soon enough. She and Buddy will try to walk the Appalachian Trail - from Georgia to Maine through 14 states. They are in North Carolina now with family, awaiting good hiking weather. She hopes to get going in a few days.

Buddy is walking to raise money for the local Dreampower Animal Rescue Foundation. Hepner's journey will benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Hepner has wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail ever since a friend told her about it during her college days. For three years, the Colorado Springs civil engineer has been saving money for the nine-month trip, and she recently quit her job and got rid of her apartment. The $5,000 she saved will cover equipment, food and other incidentals such as a medical kit with antibiotics, heartworm pills for Buddy, vitamins for both of them, and a snake bite kit. Buddy will carry his own food and water in a doggie backpack.

Hepner has calculated that they will need about 1 ½ pounds of food per day for both of them.

Buddy and Hepner have been hiking two hours a day to get in shape, and they climbed Pikes Peak twice late last summer. Buddy got a thumbs-up for the trip from his veterinarian.

"I think it's a tremendous idea. It is wonderful that she thought of us for the fundraising effort," says Cynthia Bullock, executive director of Dreampower Animal Rescue Foundation in Colorado Springs.

"I've been here 12 years and I don't think anyone has volunteered to raise money for us by walking that far."

The rescue organization not only finds homes for animals in need, but also provides low-cost spay and neuter programs and helps seniors and low-income individuals with emergency veterinary bills.

Hepner also chose the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation because she knows people who have the disease.

Hepner has always been an outdoors woman. She grew up in Alaska, where her parents were avid campers. "We would be helicoptered into the wilderness and camp," she says.

She got her hiking buddy about four years ago at a Missouri wildlife refuge. A park ranger told her Buddy had been there alone for days and that no one had reported him missing.

"He asked me if I wanted him, and I said sure," recalls Hepner.

Buddy weighed only 40 pounds (he now weighs about 70), and had ticks and fleas. He also had heartworm, for which he was successfully treated.

"He's a really smart dog. It took only a day to teach him to roll over dead when I pretend to shoot him."

Friends and parents are a bit worried about her, especially because of the killing of a young woman who was walking an Appalachian spur trail several months ago.

But Hepner says such incidents there are rare. And Buddy is very protective. Plus, she's taking along bear spray.

She's more worried whether her knee will hold up. She had surgery on it a year ago, and isn't sure how many miles they will make each day.

"We're going to take it slow until we are in top shape," she says.

Walking to raise money for others will keep her motivated on the trail, she believes.

Hepner will write a journal and take photos along the way to post to her Web site, www.2000milescloser.com.

That's where you can find links to the charities. Donations should be sent directly to those nonprofits, in the names of Hepner and Buddy.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0371 or carol.mcgraw@gazette.com