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‘I’m walkin’ here!’
PHOTOS BY GILBERT HERNANDEZ FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE?
By Steve Annear
Globe Staff

He struggled through all of the weather conditions that New England is capable of producing in a single week: a warm front, followed closely by rain and whipping winds, and soon after an unexpected early-spring snowstorm.

But after seven days of traveling by foot from Pittsfield to Boston, sleeping at Airbnbs and a berry farm, and surviving almost exclusively on peanut butter and bananas with a side of Clif nutrition bars, Gilbert Hernandez finally completed his journey.

As the 21-year-old’s classmates skipped town and escaped the unpredictable and often freezing Massachusetts weather in favor of the beaches of Mexico or sunny Florida, Hernandez walked from the Berkshires to downtown Boston, a 138-mile adventure. It’s a two-hour drive on the Massachusetts Turnpike that thousands complete every day. But the walking journey, on side roads and byways, he said, opened his eyes to a world of many landscapes and friendly people.

So why’d he do it?

“For the soul-searching aspect,’’ Hernandez said. “I get to think more when I’m by myself, and I’m more prone to be open to conversations with new people when I’m by myself.’’

Hernandez, a junior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said his journey began in early March as spring break approached.

“The idea was to do a three-day walk across Massachusetts, vertically, from Connecticut to New Hampshire,’’ he said. “But then I thought, ‘It has to be bigger and better, and it has to be lengthwise.’ ’’

Inspired, Hernandez began plotting his journey. After discovering that he could take a train to Pittsfield on the western edge of the state, he mapped out an ideal walking route from there to the coast.

He split his trip into daily excursions of about 25 miles. When he arrived at each day’s destination, he would look for a place to stay the night — a church basement or a friend’s house, if one happened to live in the town. If no such opportunities presented themselves, he’d arrange to sleep at an Airbnb.

Weather conditions proved to be a challenge.

“I started with an arctic cold front, and then it rained all day,’’ he said. “And then there was sweaty heat, and then on the sixth day there were 50 mile-per-hour wind gusts. And the day I got to Boston, there was a mini snowstorm.’’

Hernandez documented the journey on video, and uploaded to YouTube a series of seven videos — and one recap video — showing the places he saw, some of the people he met, and the obstacles he faced along the way.

Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.