MILLINOCKET, Maine — A trail runner who set a speed record for completing the Appalachian Trail has agreed to pay a $500 fine for popping a bottle of champagne atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin.
Scott Jurek agreed Wednesday to pay the fine for drinking in public in exchange for the state dropping charges of littering and hiking in an oversize group.
His attorney, Walter McKee, called it a “fair resolution.”
McKee says the three charges filed by Baxter officials were intended to make an example of Jurek, an ultramarathoner from Colorado who last month completed the trail in a record time of 46 days, 8 hours.
Baxter State Park officials are worried about crowding and commercialization of the wilderness trail. McKee wasn’t in Maine for Wednesday’s court session.
