Portraits of Adventure / BTA / Christina Bergman
Christina Bergman
Piqua, OH
April 2026
Holding the St. Mary’s section of the Buckeye Trail together since 2024, Christina knows every corner, but didn’t discover them until later in life.
Looking to the sky, a tear ran down her face. Despite asking me not to make her cry, she couldn't hold back when I asked her whether she thought it was inevitable that she found hiking.
The story we know describes medical situations as those that force a person inside, in Christina’s version, it did the opposite. Maybe it’s moments like these that guide us to what we really want from life. She figured if she was going to sit at home in pain waiting on surgeries, she might as well be in pain somewhere worth it. When the thing we’re dreading never arrives, we get on with life. Which is exactly what she did. Something about being in nature just released it, she said.
The Appalachian Trail is where this hiking craze started for Chirstina. Back in 2021 she found herself on the triple crown section where mountains came into her view for the first time ever. After returning to Ohio, she knew she wanted to hike more of the AT, which is how she discovered the Buckeye Trail. 876 miles later, she thought she’d only do a year of it, but in 2024 the title of Section Supervisor started to follow her name.
Building a crew has been a joy for Christina, and a devoted one she has. One drives over an hour to help clear downed trees. If you've hiked her section and seen a downed tree cut and marked with a J, that's him.
Sometimes she’s rallying support from the town for additional parking spaces at the trail head, other times she’s coordinating funding and organizing work parties to clean up sections. Currently, she has her eye set on repairing a bridge that’s weathered too many storms.
Although she is the only one in the family who hikes, there’s no lack of support. Last Easter Sunday she drove to Peebles to finish a section that had been on her list for a year and a half. Her husband dropped her off, went and got breakfast, met her at mile four, picked her up at mile eight.
She still wants to do the full AT, and now Colorado is on the list for her 45th birthday.
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