It’s been over a year since I set out on the AT in 2021. I have now been off trail longer than I was actively hiking. On the long and hard days last year, I didn’t think my thru hike was ever going to end. I vividly remember trudging up mountains, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, telling myself that I chose this.
Walking from Georgia to Maine was my decision, so when I was miserable, I was quick to remind myself it was my own fault I was there. Now, on the other side, I would do anything to go back to those moments of misery. To wake up with the sun and walk with no destination for the day other than north. To feel sweat drip off my chin as I push myself closer to my goal. To know all I need to survive is on my back. Long distance hiking is a lifestyle, and despite all the pain I endured, I crave trail life deep in my soul.
It is the ache to live simply within nature that motivated me to pursue a career in the outdoors. When I returned to everyday life after my hike, I quickly realized that I would not be happy at a desk job. I threw stability and caution to the wind when I accepted a lesser paying, non benefitted position as a hiking and backpacking guide in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I am now paid modestly to help people relearn how to commune with nature; I am literally paid to hike. I am living my own personal dream.
Because of my job, I have plenty of opportunities to tell folks about my time on the AT. Maybe it’s because my trail experience is still so fresh, but I find myself weaving hiking stories into most of my conversations with clients, whether they be on day hikes or overnight backpacking trips.
The more conversations I have, the more I have noticed that there are certain questions that always come up. People are curious about the kind of person that would drop everything to live in the woods for months at a time. There are logistical questions, safety concerns, and questions about defying social norms. These are the 10 most frequently asked questions about my thru hiking experience:
1.) Did you go by yourself?
I did not start the trail alone. I began hiking with two other women, Kayla and Allee. We were all former coworkers and they had taken me on one of my first backpacking trips (you can read a little bit about that trip in my article Wonder Woman). The three of us used to daydream about thru hiking during our shifts together at Navitat, and at the end of 2020, I knew Allee and Kayla were serious.
I was laid off from my “big girl job” as a Certified Child Life Specialist at the local children’s hospital in October of 2020 and was at a complete loss for what to do next. I knew Allee and Kayla were planning a thru hike, so in December of 2020 I invited myself along on their journey.
The three of us started together at Springer Mountain in Georgia on March 22, 2021. We were driven to the trailhead by another former coworker/thru hiker, our dear friend Dory. The three of us hiked for weeks together, and soon Magic, Bug Bite, and Ranger were making their way to Maine.
I hiked with Ranger (Allee) until around Hot Springs, NC where she turned on the jets and eventually made it to Katahdin a whole month before me. Bug Bite (Kayla) and I hiked together until Erwin, TN, and she also eventually passed me and summitted several weeks ahead of me. I am so proud to say that the three of us completed the trail, and that we are still great friends.
When folks ask me if I hiked the trail with anyone else, I think their question stems from fear of a woman alone by herself in the woods. I always tell people about starting with my friends, but I also tell them that the trail is surprisingly crowded. Every year thousands of people attempt a thru hike, and there are tons of section hikers and weekend warriors that are on the trails at any given time. Hikers have to genuinely try to be alone out there.
I figured out pretty quickly that I don’t mind hiking by myself during the day, but I don’t like to camp alone. I never had a problem trying to find people to set up camp around, and I traveled in groups for the majority of my hike. Many hikers form trail families or “tramilies”, and I had several.
2.) What wildlife did you see?
I only saw two bears during my entire hike. One bear was running through the woods parallel to the trail in PA, the other bear was walking through a neighborhood in VT. I never came across any copperheads and only saw a handful of rattlesnakes, but I saw tons of black snakes and garter snakes. My favorite unexpected wildlife sightings came in the form of newts, and I always squealed with joy when a chipmunk ran across the trail in front of me. When Truffles and I got together, he got into the habit of catching frogs for me. Finding turtles on trail was always a treat, and I tried to help them cross the road whenever I could.
3.) Did you carry a gun?
Much to my dad’s dismay, I did not carry a gun. Backpacking is all about trying to reduce pack weight as much as physically possible, and I wasn’t about to add however many ounces of metal to my base weight. I also wasn’t going to get a concealed carry permit for all 14 states the AT travels through. There are countless numbers of counties and jurisdictions the trail passed through, creating a logistical nightmare for someone carrying a firearm. I never met a single person on trail who carried a gun. I think if I had known someone was carrying a gun, I would have felt more unsafe around that person rather than being at ease.
4.) How long did it take you?
I started hiking on March 22, 2021 and finished on September 7, 2021. It took me 169 days to walk the 2193.1 miles from Georgia to Maine. I took 30 zeros (a zero day is a day where hikers do 0 miles) and walked anywhere between 5-30 miles in a day. I kept a trail journal and wrote about my days and mileage every night, you can read my journal entries here.
5.) Why/what was your motivation?
I was laid off from my dream job in October 2020. I was unemployed for about a month before the church I was attending offered me a three-month temporary contracted position working as the Children’s Minister. Looking back I can see what a horrible fit I was for this position but at the time I needed a job and would do whatever I could to stay afloat. I very quickly realized the church’s values didn’t line up with my own, and I started counting down the days for my contract to end.
The major benefit to this position was the fact that it paid well, and I was able to save up a decent chunk of money, along with the money allotted to me in a severance package from the hospital. I was sitting on a fat stack of cash, and when I heard Allee and Kayla were serious about thru hiking I decided that I too would hit the trail.
After reading numerous books about the AT and doing various day hikes on different sections of trail, I fell in love with the trail. I always knew I wanted to thru hike, but never believe I’d have the time or the resources to make this dream a reality. At the end of 2020 I found myself with both those necessary factors and began planning my hike.
I am very fortunate to say that my life has been pretty idealist, I have never had to endure real hardship or pain. Losing my job was the most difficult thing I had walked through up until that point in my life, and I wanted to show myself that I was capable of conquering obstacles in front of me. My matra for the hike was “I can do hard things”, and I wanted to prove that to myself just as much as those who doubted me.
6.) How did you go to the bathroom?
Bathroom etiquette is not all that glamorous in the backcountry. There are doo doo’s and don’ts, and everyone should strive to adhere to Leave No Trace principles. This means that just about everything needs to be buried 6 inches underground. “Cat hole” is the term used for the hole you bury waste in. A perfect cathole is 200 feet from water sources and is 6-8 inches deep.
Urine is the one exception, you can pee pretty much anywhere. I chose to use a Kula Cloth to wipe with and absolutely loved it. I worried that if I chose to drip dry (aka not wipe after each pee break) I may develop a UTI or yeast infection, but I never had any issues with the Kula. I have tried the pStyle with little success. I choose not to use toilet paper when I pee because, according to LNT, ALL toilet paper should be buried, and I don’t want to dig a cat hole just for pee toilet paper.
Pooping in the backcountry is another story all together. Everything needs to be buried in a 6” cathole, including your business and toilet paper. Wipes, even “compostable” or “flushable” wipes CAN NOT be buried because they do not decompose quickly and animals may dig them. I carried a backpacking trowel to dig catholes along with a small roll of toilet paper.
Many campsites and shelters had privies (an outhouse), and I always tried to take advantage of those rather than digging a cathole.
7.) Where did you sleep?
I carried a tent the entire way from Georiga to Maine. I used a TarpTent Rainbow and absolutely loved it! Truffles used a Zpacks Duplex and we both slept in it from Vermont to Maine. I preferred sleeping in a tent because of the privacy, but every once in a while I’d sleep in a shelter.
The AT is a unique long trail because there are shelters almost every 10 miles along the trail. Even if we didn’t sleep in the shelters, we usually stayed at the campsite close to the shelter because that’s typically where water sources and privies are located. Every shelter is different, and some are nicer than others. Most shelters resemble a three-walled lean-to, but there are some shelters that have multiple stories, electricity, or even plumbing!
8.) How did you get food?
Another unique feature about the AT is its close proximity to trail towns. Benton MacKaye, the creator of the AT, originally envisioned a trail that connected small mountain towns as an escape for townsfolk to reconvene with nature. There are numerous trail towns along the AT, the trail even travels down several Main Streets (Hot Springs, NC, Damascus, VA, and Duncannon, PA for example). For the towns that were a little off trail, sometimes there were blue-blazed side trails, shuttles, or even hitches to get us to town.
Going to town really means doing town chores, like laundry, resupplying, and taking a shower. We roughly planned to resupply every 2-5 days, so we hiked town to town in order to get food. Some towns had full grocery stores where we had our pick of food options, but others only had a Dollar General or gas station. Thru hikers are ravenous, and it takes a lot of fuel to propel a body hundreds of miles. I learned to take what I can get and not to be picky. Most hikers also make a point to eat at least one good “town meal” at a local restaurant when they have the opportunity.
9.) Did you ever want to quit and go home?
Pretty much every day on trail I questioned why I was putting myself through hell. I dreamed of going home just about every day, but the feeling of guilt and failure kept me hiking. There was one day in May 2021 when I called my mom crying from a campground in mid-VA and begged her to pick me up (read that journal entry here). I felt alone and defeated, I didn’t want to force my body to go any further.
I am an only child, I am used to getting my way. I was shocked when my mom told me “no”. Here I was sobbing over the phone, pleading with her to rescue me. My parents weren’t thrilled when I told them about my plans to thru hike, but they reluctantly got on board once I departed for Springer. I truly thought if I ever asked, my parents would drop everything to bring me back home safely.
I often think about that phone call from my mom’s perspective, how difficult it must have been to hear her baby in distress but to do what she knew was best for me. Mom told me I couldn’t quit on a bad dad and that I needed to eat some breakfast. She instructed me to call her back after eating to see if I felt any better. If my mom had taken me off trail that day, I never would have met Truffles. It was later that afternoon that our romance first sparked, and I made so many more memories between that campground and Katahdin.
Further on down the trail I still had days where I was miserable and wanted to go home. As cringy as it is to admit, I told myself I couldn’t quit unless I figured out a way to announce to my followers I was getting off trail. The thought of telling everyone in my life I had failed at my dream felt too difficult to bear, and that perfect “I quit” caption never came to mind.
I have never been more proud of myself or felt more self-assured or powerful than in the moment I stood atop Katahdin. The thought that I ever wanted to prevent myself from achieving that feeling is heartbreaking, but I am so thankful to myself for persevering in spite of the hardship.
10.) Would you ever do it again?
YES! I can’t wait to be on another long hike. I constantly chase the sense of freedom and self-assuredness I felt on trail, and that is what attracted me to working in the outdoor industry. Cade and I spitball long trail ideas all the time, we have our eye’s on the triple crown and several other long distance hiking trails in the US and abroad.
The AT will always have my heart, but I’m not sure I’d do another thru hike of the AT. There are so many other trails to see, and I know I’d never be able to make memories that compare to my first trek. I am so thankful I found a partner who also desires the same thing, and together I know we have many, many miles that we will complete.
