Local adventurer has even bigger plans

    Murphy – Jacob Cresman could be Cherokee County’s foremost adventurer by 2021.
    The Marble native recently returned from scaling the Inca Trail in Machu Picchu in Peru, and he has even bigger plans for the future. Cresman intends to climb Kilimanjaro in February 2020, followed by Everest Base Camp the year after.
    “Base camp, not all the way up,” Cresman said of his Everest plans. “I’m not going up the whole mountain, I may die.”
    Cresman graduated from Andrews High School in 1991 and went on the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. He is the executive director of Arc of Cherokee and Clay Counties, which handles residential services for adults with disabilities.
    On his trek to Machu Picchu, he marched for five days to the Incan citadel in the Andes Mountains. Cresman left for Peru on Aug. 23 and got back home Sept. 2. Before making the climb, he got to experience the cultural gems the region had to offer.
    “We spent some time in the sacred valley, which follows along the river and allows for excellent growing conditions for crops,” Cresman said. “We toured Cuzco, which is the capital of the Incan Empire. There were so many beautiful buildings, and they had parades every day that were centered around the Catholic Church in some way.”
    The five-day version of the hike is less crowded, Cresman said. He headed up the mountain with six other adventurers and seven porters, who carried extra gear – including food, blankets and a chemical toilet – and helped set up camp each day.
    “By the time you got to your stopping point, they had everything laid out for you,” Cresman said. “You had your sleeping bags, extra duffles, whatever you needed. It was pretty great.”
    The food was incredible, Cresman said, especially for being on the side of a mountain.
    “We ate like kings,” he said. “Those were some of the best meals I have ever had.”
    Cresman said he has been on many hikes in the Appalachian and Smoky mountains, but this climb was different because there were no switchbacks, as are common in this region.
    “It’s just thousands and thousands of steps,” he said. “It goes straight up the mountain, you don’t go back and forth. When you get to that altitude, a little bit of exertion feels like a lot. That combined with the cold and it was pretty intense, pretty tough.”
    Cresman also has done the half-dome cable hike at Yosemite National Park. That involves a cable climb for the last 400 feet, where many people have gotten freaked out on the way up and had to be rescued.
    “You either do it or you don’t,” he said. “It scared the crap out of me, I’ll tell you that.”
    Fear and all, the adventures give him a chance to get away from it all.
    “I think I do these types of adventure trips because in my work, I have to be so structured and make all the decisions based on state and federal guidelines,” Cresman said. “I need to get out in the Andes or on a mountain where there are no guidelines or decisions – except keep breathing and don’t fall.”