In his latest book, Tim Kaine reflects on a three-part journey across Virginia
In 2018 Senator Tim Kaine was approaching a pair of personal and professional milestones: His 60th birthday and 25th year of service as an elected public official. The latter had been a remarkable ladder-climb from city council, to mayor of Richmond, governor of Virginia, two-term senator, and 2016 running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Kaine knew he wanted to do something big to celebrate. But what should it be? A conversation with in-laws about a designated outdoor adventure experience in New York and his lifelong love for nature sparked an idea: Create an epic triathlon that highlighted Virginia’s most treasured natural assets. Kaine spent the next three years hiking the Commonwealth’s 559 miles of Appalachian Trail, cycling 321 miles along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive, and paddling 348 miles on the James River.
BRO spoke with Senator Kaine about his experiences, which he wrote about in a new book, Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside.
BRO: Any one of these treks would test the mettle of an experienced adventurer. Fill us in on your background with outdoor recreation?
TK: My love for the outdoors, and camping in particular, began in the Boy Scouts while growing up in Kansas City. By all measures I was a lackluster Scout. But we’d go on these annual camping trips and I’d always get really excited and active in the troop leading up to those. I remember that the first was a winter trip, of all things, and for whatever reason I just fell in love with the experience. I was hooked immediately.
Then I was lucky enough to have a seventh-grade shop teacher who really liked to camp and would sometimes ask if anyone wanted to come along. He and another teacher would load up their cars on Friday and take a group of four to 20 boys out for the weekend. It was amazing! I came back from those trips and convinced my parents to give it a try. And they wound up getting really into it, too.
In college I tried caving, canoeing, cycling, hiking—and loved all of it. I met my wife, Anne, in law school and she was as avid about the outdoors as I was. In fact, it was [largely Virginia’s abundant canoeing, hiking and camping opportunities] that convinced us to settle in Richmond. Our honeymoon was a backpacking trip in the Pyrenees, and we had our kids in tents and on rivers early on. Getting outside into nature has and continues to be a huge part of our life together.
BRO: Tell us about the inspiration behind taking on such a major adventure?
TK: We were visiting my brother and sister-in-law shortly after I’d been reelected to the senate in 2018, and they were talking about completing the [Adirondack] 46er in New York. [That’s an outdoors challenge where] you hike every peak in the state that’s over 4,000 feet. It’s well-known up there.
I thought, ‘When it comes to nature, it doesn’t get better than Virginia. What if I could use this opportunity to [celebrate my personal milestones] and create a similar nature quest here?’ From there it was asking, ‘What are the nature experiences that best capture the essence of our state?’ The Blue Ridge Parkway, Appalachian Trail, and James River came to mind immediately — an epic Virginia Adventure Triathlon.
At that point, I knew that was going to be the quest. [The goal was to] write a book that would use my personal experience to shine a light on those incredible assets and hopefully establish something new in the process.
BRO: Orchestrating all this must have been tough. How did you fit the trips into your busy schedule?
TK: The senate schedule is designed to have 36 weeks in office with the other weeks of recess for state travel. In a typical year you get out, do events all across the state, talk to people, [meet with organizations, city officials, groups,] and so on. What I decided was to use at least a portion of my three recesses from 2019 to 2021 to do the same thing, but in a very different way. I’d travel the state, but it wouldn’t be by car. I’d meet and talk to people, but it would just be whomever I happened to bump into along the way.
[Meanwhile,] I had experience with what I was doing, so I wasn’t going in blind. I’ve done quite a few canoe-camping trips and own a 40-year-old, Old Town camper canoe. I’d cycled the Parkway with a group of friends 25 years back. And I’d hiked probably 80-100 miles of Virginia A.T.
That said, the logistics of canoeing the final 100 miles of the James River from Richmond to the Chesapeake Bay were tricky. I had never done any [serious, long-distance paddling in that region]. I had to learn tidal charts, figure out how many miles I could realistically complete in a day, what to do about shuttles, where to stay. That was definitely the toughest element.
BRO: Have these adventures changed your approach to legislation around outdoor recreation and public lands protections?
TK: Definitely. I’ve always been passionate about these things, but this experience inspired me to go further with my advocacy and really prioritize them. For instance, we have the centennial of the Appalachian Trail coming up and I’m working with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy on a national centennial bill. I’m also leading an effort to make the Great Dismal Swamp a designated national heritage area. And, more generally, I’m pushing for funding increases in parks.
I feel these issues are of particular importance right now. While on my quest I realized that, while we are obviously in a time of tremendous political polarization, with nature, we aren’t polarized around everything. It was comforting that, regardless of their political beliefs, everyone I encountered shared a common love for preserving natural beauty.
Cover photo: Photo courtesy of Tim Kaine
