BAXTER STATE PARK, Maine — Scott Jurek used his blog this week to take a few parting shots at Maine justice in the wake of accepting a plea deal for drinking alcohol atop Mount Katahdin to celebrate his record-setting Appalachian Trail run.

The ultramarathoner criticized a prosecutor and park officials in a blog entry Wednesday in which he defended actions that led to him being issued three citations after ascending Maine’s tallest peak on July 12.





Jurek admitted to having “a couple of sips of champagne” atop the mountain after finishing his 2,180-mile run of the Appalachian Trail in a record 46 days, 8 hours, 8 minutes.

“I got caught up in the invitation to celebrate a transformative journey at the end of the Appalachian Trail, not to mention it was my wife’s birthday,” Jurek wrote in blog.scottjurek.com. “I’ll own that for what it is. I agreed to a fine of $500 so that I would not have to travel back to Maine.”

“The normal charge is $200, but the DA and judge must have felt like they needed to treat me differently. In the media the DA keeps changing his mind, giving conflicting statements for the extra amount,” Jurek added.

Penobscot County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy said Wednesday that the guilty plea came with a fine about $300 greater than a public drinking summons would typically carry under state law in acknowledgment of the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding the July 12 incident.

“Katahdin is a sacred place and Mr.Jurek’s conduct was disrespectful,” he added in an email on Thursday.

Jurek also criticized “the extraordinary media effort used by the park director, Jensen Bissell” for statements made in a Facebook posting and in interviews regarding the July 12 incident.

“Next time he should try to get the facts straight before painting me in a bad light to further his agenda and benefit the park,” Jurek wrote.

Bissell said that the incident was a corporate-sponsored media event and among several in which Appalachian Trail through-hikers knowingly violated park rules. He did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday and Friday.

Citations that Jurek brought more than 12 people to the summit and littered were dropped as part of the plea bargain, which he accepted through his attorney on Wednesday. Jurek said he never littered during his entire run of the trail.

“The reaction of Baxter State Park officials caught me off guard. Upon finishing my 46-day journey I was dazed with fatigue when I returned to the trailhead, only to receive the citations from three bulletproof-vested rangers bearing arms,” he wrote.

Jurek and his attorney, Walter McKee of Augusta, denied that Jurek had knowledge of the park’s regulations before the incident. In his blog, Jurek posted a picture of a bottle of champagne and what appears to be a souvenir park trail sign.

He said he found an irony in July 12 being Henry David Thoreau’s birthday, saying that his favorite quote of Thoreau’s is “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

“But I think the most apropos Thoreau quote is: ‘That government is best which governs least,’” Jurek wrote.

Almy suggested that Jurek celebrate his next record-setting effort with more humility.

“When the Kenyans win the Boston Marathon, they get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground and call it good,” he wrote. “That’s a fitting ending.”