Maggie Slepian Archives - ��ϳԹ�� Online

Improve Your Backpacking Experience with Better Communication

POM Administrator — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 12:19:55 +0000

Anyone who has thru-hiked with a partner knows you won’t always be thriving at the same time as one another. It would be nice if your low-energy miles lined up with your partner’s, so you could agree to cut the day short, collapse into your tent, and whine about or a squeaky pack. But in my experience, my cranky days are the days when my partner feels the best, leaving them to cruise up switchbacks while I could swear my legs have been replaced with lead balloons. Communicating during this time is challenging for both people, and I’d never encountered it more than on a trip this past spring.��

We started the route on an , and I immediately found myself struggling with the sun exposure. Conversely, my partner seemed to be having an extremely easy time, and I tried to be happy for him as he casually crushed the climbs regardless of the heat. He was kind and accommodating, but I knew he could have been doing bigger miles if I hadn’t been there. The more I got into my head, the more my mood began to spiral. If I was struggling this much at the start, what would happen when the route got harder?

I caught up to my partner at the top of a long climb one morning, collapsing in a scant patch of shade and trying to quell my anxiety as the day’s miles loomed over my head.��

“I’m having a really hard time with the heat today,” I told him as I gulped water, feeling a twinge of panic at how early in the day it was. “I’m exhausted.”

“Oh really?” He said, looking concerned. “Today is the easiest day we’ll have all week.”

The prickle of resentment I’d felt watching him disappear around a switchback flared. All at once, I felt physically uncomfortable, inadequate, and scared to hear that I had been right and it was only going to get tougher. I burst into tears.��

We went back and forth like this for a few days. I was increasingly frustrated at my body’s struggles, and while my partner’s responses weren’t unkind, they didn’t do my fragile mental state any favors. When I was wilting from the heat, he said that it was only going to get hotter. When I said I was tired, he pointed out correctly that we had just started the day’s miles.��

Our communication, while normally strong, was entirely misaligned during this time. He couldn’t figure out why I was having a hard time, and I needed him to acknowledge that the route conditions were hard, not tell me that they were about to get harder.��

“A response like this, though attempting to give context and not untrue, is likely to amplify the partner’s feelings of overwhelm rather than their feelings of competence,” Dr. , a clinical psychologist with a background in outdoor sports, said when I told him about my trip.��

While this kind of communication can be helpful for some people—it reminds them to keep pushing—Reeves says it can also feel shaming, shutting them down instead of making them feel better.��

Neither my partner nor I was really at fault, but a combination of my physical struggles and subsequent shame combined with his casual ease made everything seem more dire. I was panicking that my fears about my abilities were true, and because I was embarrassed, I felt unable to ask for a different style of communication.��

When I asked what would have been a better communication strategy, Dr. Reeves broke it down into three parts: The stronger partner , reassure them that they are there for them, and find a way to work together to get to the end. This three-part response was tailored to my backcountry situation, but it can also be a blueprint for healthy communication between people experiencing different challenges while they pursue a common goal on the trail.��

(Photo: Jordan Siemens / Stone via Getty)

With the benefit of hindsight, I can understand now that the hike wasn’t easy on my partner either. While he never expressed impatience, I imagine it must have felt frustrating to be held up during the day and to stop earlier in the evenings.��

“A challenge of the better-faring partner feeling frustrated is they are forced to reckon with their priorities,” says Dr. Reeves. “Is the objective more important, or something else? If you and your partner are both equally able, you can and have a great time simultaneously. It’s when one of you doesn’t align that you have to face what you really care about.”��

Shame and feelings of weakness are powerful emotions, especially for thru-hikers or backcountry athletes who thrive on feeling strong and empowered. Struggling on a route others are finding easy can compound shame with the notion that you’re letting your partner down. Left unchecked, those feelings can pull you into an emotional downward spiral.

To counter this, Dr. Reeves suggests breaking the entire route into management chunks. This allows the partner who is struggling to feel accomplished reaching smaller goals, and to feel good that their partner is working with them.

“Often those who aren’t struggling want to hurry their partners through their trouble,” Dr. Reeves says, “but taking a few beats to create space for [your partner] being afraid, overwhelmed, or angry usually pays dividends when the struggling partner can work through their emotions.”��

Pushing through challenging emotions often does little more than exacerbate the feelings or create tension that can explode later on. While we never exploded, I spent the entire trip stressed. When I was reflecting on the experience a few months later, I knew that if it had felt more manageable, or we acknowledged that the route was indeed hard, my morale would have been higher and I wouldn’t have experienced the mounting dread that I was having a hard time during an “easy section.”��

Navigating communication barriers doesn’t have to lead to fighting, and like I said, we never actually argued. In my shame and anxiety, I didn’t communicate my own needs, neglecting to tell him that his responses were less than helpful. But when we talked about it later—removing elements of fatigue, , body aches, and heat exhaustion—we had a productive conversation where I could step away from feelings of inadequacy and communicate more rationally.��

So how will my experience change how I communicate on upcoming trips? I know that my partner and I will both need to anticipate problems and acknowledge that one or both of us may struggle—often with different aspects of the trip. Preparing for these scenarios and working out what type of communication feels encouraging is critical.��

“Shame is a killer in these situations, so establishing that tempers may flare ahead of time and planning to deal with it is useful,” Dr. Reeves says. “Often these feelings are more about fatigue, hunger, or some other discomfort, and talking about this ahead of time can alleviate some of the hurt feelings.”

The inherent challenges and needs of thru-hiking throw a wrench even in the best communicators. The partner who is struggling can feel both overwhelmed by the situation and guilty for holding the other person back, and the person who is doing better might inadvertently say exactly the wrong thing.��

“Try to establish ahead of time that being tired or ,” Dr. Reeves says, “It’s part of maintaining health and safety. There is no shame if they are necessary.”

The post Improve Your Backpacking Experience with Better Communication appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

Her Thru-Hike Went Viral. Then She Quit.

POM Administrator — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 17:17:05 +0000

When Julia Sheehan set out for an Appalachian Trail thru-hike in 2019, she had little experience backpacking and almost no online presence. On a whim, she applied for a vlogging spot with , an outdoor-focused website whose YouTube channel showcases hikers’ journeys on Triple Crown trails. Her videos’ conversational tone and honesty about the highs and lows of trail life resonated with viewers: By the time she reached Katahdin, she was known by her trail name, Rocket, and had over 17,000 Instagram followers and one of that season’s most popular AT vlogs. And her audience wanted more.

“If I wasn’t sharing trail-related stuff, I would get messages asking ‘When’s the next trail announcement? Where are you going next?’,” Sheehan recalls. “It seemed like people felt entitled to my next adventure. But it was me who had invited them on the journey.”

Social media has become a way for users to live vicariously through other people, and the hiking community is no exception. Hundreds of thousands viewers flock to popular thru-hiking Instagram accounts and YouTube channels every month, seeking inspiration for their own adventures or a virtual escape from their 9 to 5.��

In some ways, thru-hikes are almost tailor-made for storytelling: They’re a quintessential “hero’s journey” for viewers to follow along with, a self-contained quest with a defined start, hardship along the way, and the promise of glory at the end. But unlike a fairy tale, no one knows exactly how a thru-hike is going to end. Only around 25 percent of people who start a Triple Crown trail with the intention of thru-hiking it will finish in a single season. Abandoning that goal partway through can feel like a failure, and explaining the decision to walk away to friends and family is intimidating. What happens when you have to do it with tens of thousands of strangers watching?

View this post on Instagram

The pandemic hampered most 2020 thru-hiking plans, and by 2021 Sheehan was itching to hike again. She was ready to pursue a new challenge—both for herself and for her audience.��

“I felt that every month that went by where I didn’t announce a hike or didn’t do an outdoor adventure, I was losing access to this community,” Sheehan said. “I had to keep creating so they would keep loving me.”

In late February 2021, Sheehan started the 800-mile , posting and to her own channels along the way. It turned out to be a relentlessly challenging hike. Her early start meant snow and cold weather for a large portion of the miles, and she toyed on and off with the idea of leaving the trail. Ultimately Sheehan pushed forward, determined to see the northern terminus. In April, she reached the end of the AZT, but even as she headed home, she wasn’t satisfied.��

“I felt the need to keep pushing,” she says.

Eight weeks after finishing the AZT, Sheehan repacked her bag and headed to Montana to begin the , planning to post videos along the route. But soon after starting the trail, her dog back home passed away, and she found herself sobbing for the majority of her hiking hours. It didn’t feel worth continuing, so 400 miles into her southbound attempt, Sheehan hitchhiked to an airport and flew home.��

Sheehan had started the Appalachian Trail in 2019 with the goal of reaching the northern terminus, and had felt like anything besides finishing would have been a failure. The AZT had felt similar. But she had no second thoughts about leaving the CDT. It was the first time she had put her own mental health and desires over the notion of a “successful” thru-hike.

Her new problem: How would she tell her audience? No creator owes their followers an explanation for not reaching a goal. But inviting people into your world is easier than ushering them out. When hiking bloggers or influencers abruptly stop posting, the comments pile up: Hello? Update? Are you OK?��

“At one point I was getting hundreds of messages a day from people asking where I was and what was happening,” said Sheehan. “I was spending an ungodly amount of time responding to strangers on the internet, validating their fears that I did actually get off the trail because they were so invested in my hike.”��

Sheehan decided to be upfront about her reasons for leaving the CDT.��

“I needed to put a bow on it for people to understand that [the hike] was over, to not keep asking when I was going back,” she said. She posted a video explaining the decision, and to her relief, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Her followers understood, and gave her space to process the hike and the loss of her pet. She continued posting outdoor-related content, teasing a return to the trail that following spring.

In mid-March of 2022, Sheehan arrived at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail to begin a northbound thru-hike, this time in front of nearly 30,000 Instagram followers and more than 40,000 YouTube subscribers.��

Another early start date meant Sheehan and her crew hit full snow cover early in the hike, slowing their pace and compressing their deadline for returning home. After 50 straight days of wading through snow and dealing with a litany of health issues, Sheehan made the decision to leave the PCT with 600 miles remaining. It was a tougher choice than it had been to leave the CDT.

“I was worried that people wouldn’t care about me anymore when I left the PCT, but at that point I was ready to let that audience go,” Sheehan said. For nearly four years, she had felt pushed to announce the ‘next big thing’ to keep her audience engaged.��

Again, the audience was supportive. Sheehan had been honest about the challenges of the trail and the snow levels, and posted a similar update as she had after the CDT. But while the comments were cordial, she began to notice her follower count shrinking. Not finishing her two thru-hikes, then failing to announce a next one, had created somewhat of an exodus from her pages.��

For years, Sheehan’s audience—and the support that came with it—impacted her feelings of self worth, and it was clear that removing herself as a constant presence meant losing a significant part of those viewers. So while the response to her leaving the CDT and PCT wasn’t necessarily negative, watching droves of followers leave her pages was challenging.

“I was worried that my only value to people came from being Rocket, and it turned out to be true,” Sheehan said. ”Most people were there for one kind of content. When you have so many people bombarding you with love and support in one category, then you say, ‘Hey, I’m sick and I can’t do this anymore’, and they leave, it proves that you don’t have that value for people. But they subscribed to a certain genre, so I can’t blame them—it’s not about me.”

Ultimately, Sheehan had to come to her own conclusions about the meaning of success. The longer she was off trail, the more she began to understand the accomplishment she craved wasn’t about a sign or monument in the wilderness, or her number of followers.��

“I have watched a beaver swim across a lake at dusk, [felt] the sun warm my skin, and [felt] mosquitoes torment me relentlessly.” she said. “The value of a thru-hike comes from getting to be in the wild … I have been gifted the opportunity to share the wild with millions of other humans looking for connection and adventure. Being accepted and loved for everything I have shared, good and bad, ugly and dirty, has made this journey absolutely worth it.”

When you look past the terminus photos and the numbers game of creating content on the internet, failure and success become more nuanced concepts. Through bailing on two hikes in front of an understanding audience, Sheehan redefined for herself what it means to fail or succeed.

“Our goals change,” she said. “Did you fail or did you change the goal? The thru-hike might have been goal one, goal two might be to have a good time with that section that you did. Nothing will change , regardless of how many people are watching you.”

The post Her Thru-Hike Went Viral. Then She Quit. appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

My Thru-Hiking Community Showed Me Just How Lonely My Real Life Was

POM Administrator — Thu, 04 May 2023 16:12:19 +0000

I felt foolish and needy the first time I stuck out my thumb for a hitch on the Appalachian Trail. My hiking partner badly needed a ride to town, but the self-consciousness I felt around begging for a lift was all I could think about.

At the time, I couldn’t place why I felt so ashamed asking for a—short! Easy!—ride with my thumb in the air. Now, years later, I get it: The concept of independence had been drilled into my brain for my entire adult life. Self-sufficiency and success were so intertwined that even the idea of needing something I couldn’t provide for myself brought an unexpected challenge to living on foot for five months.��

I was proud of my adulthood independence, but the overemphasis I and our culture had put on it left me deeply lonely. Once you get to a certain age, asking people for help (aside from a partner or family members) becomes more challenging, whether it’s a sympathetic ear or pet care when you leave town. But on a trail, the focus on independence fades, and you find yourself part of a community built around not just shared values, but shared needs. I’ve described , and this sense of relatability is similar. While some hikers might have more resources—think hotel rooms rather than bunkhouses—overall, we’re going through similar things and working towards a shared goal. For many of us, it’s our first time being part of a community like that.

We in the United States live in one of the world’s most individualistic societies: Speaking generally, we tend to hold independence in higher esteem than community.�� As the writes, “Americans are more likely to prioritize themselves over a group and they value independence and autonomy.” Whether or not you recognize it, chances are you’ve felt this pressure to be autonomous. Independence equals success; neediness is not rewarded.��

Hikers are a needy bunch by choice. Though many , hikers put themselves in a position without transportation, instead hitching to resupplies and help from people at home shipping replacement gear. To make a long journey on foot is to exist not just without the comforts of home, but without the resources either. By placing ourselves in a position where we don’t have what we need to make it on our own, we take the first steps to reconnect with what it means to rely on your community.

Existing in an individualist society can feel isolating. This winter, I found myself driving to the airport multiple times, dragging my suitcase down the sidewalk from the economy lot because somehow there was no one around to give me a ride. Was this a symptom of getting older and losing community, or was it that my self-sufficiency over the years created an assumption I never needed help? I thought about how hitching had gradually lost its stigma for me as I normalized it throughout the trail and subsequent hikes. I compared it to being turned down when I sought a ride from friends, the indifference because they knew that I had my own vehicle and I could pay for parking.��

The puts it bluntly: “America today is characterized mainly by rampant individualism no longer held in check by communal ties.” While this may be a generalization, it does seem like we are trending towards being a lonely society where individualism has superseded community, felt in everything from workplace isolation to the acute loneliness of driving yourself to the airport at 5 a.m.

The pandemic years have only. Returning to the outdoors is a reminder of what community can feel like. It isn’t just that thru-hikers share a common goal. We expect we’ll all need assistance at some point, and in turn we help others.��

It might mean sharing a hotel room to save money, trading food we’re sick of, or offering to help with a clogged filter at a water source. We’re climbing the same passes and planning for the same distances between water sources. We might stop to point out a giant spider web and share the awe with hikers around us, or stop in the middle of an arduous climb around other stalled hikers, lamenting the never-ending switchbacks with people who are also climbing the never-ending switchbacks. This isn’t just idle chatter: It’s community building.

Since becoming embedded in this community, I’ve given rides to hikers and sought ways to be a resource for nearby trails, including the Continental Divide Trail and Great Divide Mountain Bike Race. I’ve hosted hikers, run shuttles, and picked up hitchhiking skiers. My off-trail life represents the majority of my days, which makes me wonder how else we can take that sense of community and present it in a way where it’s not out of the question to ask for a ride to the airport. Even if our common goals in the real world are more vague than a distant terminus, we should try to bring that sense of connection off the trail and back into our everyday lives.

The post My Thru-Hiking Community Showed Me Just How Lonely My Real Life Was appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

When Hikers Die, Why Are We So Quick to Judge?

POM Administrator — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 13:14:03 +0000

On November 20, 2022, 19-year-old Emily Sotelo set out on a solo hike on New Hampshire’s Franconia Ridge. Her mom watched her disappear up the trail, expecting to meet up with Emily later that day at a prearranged spot.��

Emily never showed up, and three days later, searchers on the northwest side of 5,249-foot Mt. Lafayette. From news reports, it seemed she had gotten confused on a section of the Lafayette descent, lost her way, and succumbed to exposure as the temperatures dropped and winter weather blew in.��

At first, I skimmed the news. I’d heard a hiker was missing in the , and I’d been following the story. When her body was found, I felt a stab of sadness and regret that it had ended this way. Then, I pushed it out of my mind, I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to entertain the similarities between this 19-year-old hiker and the 19-year-old hiker I used to be, venturing solo on the same trails in pursuit of my own 4,000-footer list.��

It wasn’t until I sent the article to my father in New Hampshire that I actually had to think about the tragedy with something other than surface-level consideration. My dad, big-hearted and unabashed with his feelings, responded “That poor girl. She must have been so scared.”

His simple, sincere message felt like a gut punch. I’d felt sadness for her and her family, but I hadn’t let myself get deep enough to really put myself in her place. I had gotten into the same situation as her before—lost and in the middle of worsening weather. But I had always returned with nothing more than a tale of stumbling around in the woods for longer than I would have liked.��

My dad’s message forced me to consider what it might have been like if I had been just a little less lucky. is a prolonged process. I imagined a solidifying understanding of her situation. Perhaps it took a few minutes to notice she’d lost the trail. Initial calmness might have given way to mounting panic as she scanned trees, rocks, and patches of snow for anything familiar. The more she walked around, the harder her footprints would have been to retrace. Slowly, it would have gotten darker until she was on the side of a mountain at night with exposure beginning to set in. Maybe I’m letting my imagination get the best of me. Once you slip below the surface of a tragedy that could have happened to you, it’s hard not to.��

When I went online and poked around some of the New England hiking groups on Facebook, I was relieved to see most of the comments about Emily’s death—and there were hundreds—were compassionate. People talked about how shocked they were, and sent the kind of thoughts and prayers that make up every online reaction to a tragedy. There were service-oriented responses— and links to good GPS devices—as well as genuine questions from readers trying to understand how the hike went so wrong.

Mt. Lafayette in sunnier weather

And then, like I’d anticipated, there were the self-aggrandizing commenters who announced everything Emily had done wrong, and that they would never make those same mistakes:

“How about her core! Did she have a big puffy down jacket to put on when she was caught [in] dreadful conditions?….A good wool hat. Energy bars. Big puffy overmitts and hand warmers. This is certainly a recurrent problem up there.”

“Trail runners are equally useless in these conditions.”

“Some are really stubborn and don’t want to hear it…regardless of how one attempts to share in a non-threatening way, non-critical way [their] minds are set and there is no changing them.”

People can be unrelentingly judgemental when someone dies in an accident or from the elements, but maybe other reactions are just too painful. What’s the alternative? Putting yourself in her shoes? Pausing to think about the terror that must have encompassed her final hours? Maybe people who criticize a deceased hiker’s decisions are afraid that if they acknowledge it could have been them, they’ll crack the door for self-doubt to creep in. If they accepted that only a few mistakes and some bad luck separated them from an accident victim, could they still summon up the courage to chase winter summits, backpack solo, or travel through bear country?

How much easier it is to judge the deceased.��

When other hikers tear apart an accident victim’s decisions, gear, and experience, they’re telling themselves: This is sad and scary, but it won’t happen to me. I’m better than that. It alleviates fear by reducing a human being to the choices that led them to their final moments.��

When someone dies in the backcountry, there will always be speculation about what they could have done differently. Maybe Emily wasn’t prepared for bad weather or losing the trail—according to reports, she was missing some standard winter hiking gear. But does everyone leave for a day hike with a GPS unit, headlamp, and supplies for spending the night outside? According to the best advice, we should, but I doubt most people in the comments follow those directives perfectly every time, and most of them get away with it; Emily didn’t. There’s a way to discuss those mistakes without abandoning compassion.��

There is a certain amount of powerlessness we accept every time we go outside, and it can be easier than any of us think to Regardless of precautions and space blankets and GPS devices, there are elements that are out of our control. A , a loose rock, or a missed turn can get the best of the most prepared hiker.

No matter how many times we make it home, misfortune can befall any one of us. We owe it to each other and our community to withhold judgment in the face of these tragedies and practice a little empathy instead. We can and should make sure we’re prepared to experience the outdoors as safely as possible. But in the end, none of us are ever fully in control.

The post When Hikers Die, Why Are We So Quick to Judge? appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

Seasoned Hikers Still Make Boneheaded Errors. Here’s Why.

POM Administrator — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 16:56:11 +0000

Hiking isn’t just a hobby—it’s a lifestyle.��tackles the hiking life—and all of the joys, problems, arguments, and weird quirks that go along with it—in her column.

When I look at how I prepare for a trip now versus when I started backpacking, the difference is stark. I wrote with columns and categories before my first backpacking trip, laying out my options for layers, staring at two down jackets like they were going to stand up on their own and tell me which one to take. I brought the Sawyer cleaning kit for an overnight trip, plus multiple options for hiking clothing in case I wanted to change during the two days. I prepared enough food and snacks to feed a family, and brought two water bottles plus a hydration reservoir. It was…a lot.��

Yes, I was an over-packer, but this was about more than that. Back then, I tried to make up for my lack of experience with extra planning and prep. I planned my , reserving hostels and motel rooms far in advance of reaching the town. I researched road crossings and local shuttle options. I sent to towns that had plenty of places to buy groceries. I felt new and vulnerable, and knowing what to expect when I got to a town helped ease my anxiety.

I’m sure someone on the internet will read that and say “OK, you’re just describing adequate preparation and responsible backpacking.” That’s fair. But in my experience, it’s also indicative of a newer backpacker. The less you leave up to chance, the less intimidating the experience is.��

These days, I have my system fairly dialed. I don’t bring a filter plunger during a three-day trip, and I’ve worn enough down jackets to know which one serves me best for the forecasted conditions. But now, the mistakes I make are entirely different.

The more you’ve done a specific activity, the less mysterious it becomes. You know what you can do without, and unless you’re tackling something unusual, you’re usually comfortable bringing less. But then you reach a tipping point: You’ve gotten so used to prepping for your weekend hike that you go on autopilot and start to overlook things. It’s something I’ve learned the hard way, on trips both short and long.

I was pretty casual about planning my town stops on the . I didn’t take any zeroes, but I did occasionally want to stay in town to shower and wash my hiking clothes. As I headed into Twin Lakes, an overnight stay felt necessary. I’d been caught in freezing thunderstorms for days, and I was ready for a few good town meals and a hot shower. But when I got to the tiny town, every room was booked. Everything. I watched the hikers around me disperse to their hostel bunks and motel rooms or meet their rides to another town, and I dragged myself to an empty church where I sat in a pew and charged my phone, feeling wretched and regretting my lack of planning.

I huddled in the bed of a pickup truck bouncing back to the trail in another storm, thinking about my first backpacking trips where I planned my mileage and reserved housing in advance. For the most part, experience had shown me that I could show up and figure it out on the fly. This time, it had come back to bite me.

I’ve made other mistakes like that. Before I left for the this spring, I got talked into upgrading my phone charger and battery pack. I swapped my standard iPhone cable for a USB-C one that supposedly charged my phone faster, and bought an upgraded external battery.��

As I packed, I gave the battery pack a cursory glance to make sure it had a USB-C port, then hopped a plane. A few days into the trail—about 20 miles from my first town—I stopped at a mud puddle to fill my water bottles and charge my phone, which was hovering around ten percent. I plugged the phone cord into the USB-C port. Nothing happened. I pulled it out, blew away imaginary dust, wiped both ends on my sweaty bandana, then tried again. Still nothing. I pushed the power button on the charger, and all four battery indicator lights lit up. I squinted at the fine print next to the USB-C port. Input only. My phone clicked down to 9 percent.��

If I’d been more thorough, I would have actually checked the charging capabilities instead of seeing the port and assuming it worked both ways. Even though I was getting to town that day to buy a new charger, I am for navigation, so I wasn’t thrilled.��

A few days later, around the 100-mile mark, I was sitting at a water source with several hikers when one of them groaned and tossed one of two identical water bottles onto the ground.��

“I just drank from my dirty water” he moaned, dropping his head between his knees, muttering about not being careful enough. The water source was also a source for cows, and it was not something I’d have wanted to drink untreated.��

After trying to convince him that he *probably* wouldn’t get Giardia, we talked about how easy it was to become spacey and complacent in familiar territory. The terrain was reasonable, the conditions were good, and we were in the comfortable space of a long trail with easy resupply logistics and an app that told us exactly where the next water was. It was too easy to take the details for granted.��

This is how slip-ups happen. When the consequences of carelessness are clearly deadly, we’re careful: We know to never let our guard down with our climbing knots and anchor systems, and to always carry a repair kit on long bike rides, no matter how many rides we’ve done. On the other hand, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve gone on a run or day hike without adequate water or food because “I’ve gone longer and it was fine.”��

Like the routines and rituals of daily life, someone who backpacks a lot might get so accustomed to the systems that the actions become automatic. But unlike life at home, there’s not much of a backup plan if something goes wrong. I couldn’t walk over to my junk drawer and find a different cord. If we were at home, my AZT buddy wouldn’t have accidentally chugged from a bottle of dirty water in the first place.��

Now that I’ve started seeing this pattern, I’ve also noticed the beginning of a reversal. I don’t foresee myself reverting back to overpacking and mapping mileage, but as I pack for my next trip to the desert in a few days, I’ve checked all of the battery indicators on my headlamp, external battery, and headphones. I ran water through my filter to make sure it wasn’t gunked up, and I double-checked the cords to charge my electronics. I reviewed the forecast to make sure I had the right sleeping bag and layers, and I downloaded maps ahead of time so I don’t get caught off guard if I lose service faster than anticipated.All of these precautions might seem like no-brainers, but after getting too relaxed in the planning and on-trail life, it’s never a bad idea to check back in with myself and make sure I’m not developing bad habits.

The post Seasoned Hikers Still Make Boneheaded Errors. Here’s Why. appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

In ‘Yellowstone,’ Transplants to the West Are the Enemy. Is the Hit Show Right?

lwhelan — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 10:00:43 +0000

I don’t remember thinking Bozeman was particularly trendy when I moved here in 2012. I was drawn to the place because rent was cheap, it was located near my seasonal guiding gig, and the peaks were bigger than the ones in the northeast, where I’d come from. We stuffed three people into a cramped two-bedroom apartment, and I paid my $265 portion of the rent entirely from barista tips.

As far as I knew, any notable money in the area was channeled to Big Sky and the ghastly specter of the Yellowstone Club—in the real world, Bozeman was plenty affordable for someone living off coffee shop wages and the occasional dog-sitting gig. The town felt compact but never claustrophobic: Montana State University and local businesses were bordered by expansive pastures that swept into foothills before rising into mountains visible from downtown. Hit TV shows about the region didn’t exist yet, and no one could have predicted that a global pandemic the bloated expansion of a town I’d somewhat accidentally landed in.

I felt like a harmless cog in a community of aspirational college graduates looking for accessible climbing, biking, and hiking. What I didn’t think about was how our seemingly modest presence was changing the culture and landscape, transforming Bozeman from a town of ranches, dirt roads, and classic diners to a hot destination with a sprawling REI, multiple sushi restaurants, and nearly a dozen local breweries.

Now, it’s changing again. A new wave of remote workers, wealthy second-home owners, and urban dwellers looking to escape claustrophobic city life during the COVID-19 years have swarmed the valley, snapping up homes above asking price and waiving the inspections.

These days, within five minutes of my house, I can get a CBD smoothie, Botox, and an $18 cocktail. There’s a Lululemon on Main Street, and it seems like every new restaurant name has a vendetta against vowels. McMansions dot the foothills with man-made ponds dug into acres of non-native grasses—a cruel jab to a drought-stricken landscape. Rents for two-bedroom “luxury” apartments in Bozeman now range from $1,400 to $2,400, and the is $800,000. Core members of the community have left, because of the cultural changes, or being priced out, or both.

My instinct is to bash this newest generation of transplants—abundantly wealthy and full of media-fueled romanticization of Montana—but my aversion comes with an asterisk. I’m a transplant, too, and no matter how long I’ve been here, I will never be from Montana. How many years do I have to live in a place before I can mourn the cultural shift and the heartbreaking rate of development? Can I answer the question of who deserves to live in the West? Being a resident and watching these changes happen in real time make the answer even less clear.

I’m far from the only one thinking about this. In fact, is about similar tensions playing out in a fictional version of the region surrounding Bozeman. The Paramount Network show takes a preservationist stance on the influx of wealthy, coastal transplants to Montana. In the show, the Duttons, a legacy ranching family, fight to protect their land from soulless developers. Granted, the Duttons’ situation—owning the largest ranch in the U.S. and feeling threatened by a developer wanting pieces of it—is very different from the standard Bozeman resident getting priced out of two bedroom apartments. But the show’s tension is relatable.

How long do I have to live in a place before I can mourn the cultural shift and the heartbreaking rate of development?

Everyone wants a piece of this majestic scenery, and in visually stunning episodes, the Duttons prevail in narrative arcs that wrap up neatly by the end of each season. In this simplified, digestible manner, the show gets it right. If the area was facing a caricature of a developer bulldozing hundreds of acres of the valley, I might feel hopeful that the rapid development could be slowed. But if you side with the Duttons, you have to be ready to answer the question: OK, who does deserves to be here?

The popularity of the show has generated even more interest in southwest Montana, and has helped launch a thousand takes on the area’s spiraling cost of living. Perhaps the most widely talked about was a by columnist Ross Douthat, which caused a stir on social media, where Westerners heckled Douthat for trying to diagnose Montana’s woes after watching Yellowstone and taking a brief road trip to the region.

It also didn’t help, in these parts at least, that he tried to make a case for settlement by smitten newcomers. “As an Easterner accustomed to big cities and dense suburbs, to experience the West’s mixture of majesty and emptiness is to feel more intensely what John Dutton’s various foils and rivals feel,” he writes. “That something extraordinary is being effectively hoarded here, with whatever admirable intentions, and that more Americans should be able to live in the shadow of such beauty.” Douthat argues that everyone deserves a piece of western heaven, and that Montantans have no right to hog their wide-open spaces. He doesn’t think a little more population density in such a massive state would necessarily be a bad thing, and that no one truly owns the rights to these places.

While I can’t argue directly with any of those points, I feel strongly that this is the opinion of someone not embedded in the culture and community. While Douthat acknowledges the “coastal gentrification,” and mentions Bozeman as a case against expansion, he understates the insidious, irreversible cultural shift that accompanies rapid population increase. It’s true that longterm residents live here for reasons that may entice others: the lack of population density, the open spaces. But if this growth explosion continues, those reasons vanish, and what will we be left with?

Here’s where it’s hard to make an argument on either side. If I refuse to accept change and growth, I’m taking the stance that certain people don’t belong. If I pretend that nothing is wrong with the current development, I’m putting my head in the sand and ignoring the heartbreaking rate of expansion. This whiplash leaves me stranded in the middle of the argument, my head spinning as I witness the unchecked growth of a town that no longer feels familiar. One part of me wants to frantically build blockades to preserve what’s left of the humble mountain-town culture; the other part knows I can’t. I moved here, too, and the newcomers who see what I saw in 2012 also deserve to follow their desires.

If something doesn’t give, I’m left with the question of who this place will be for once all the land has been developed, the ranches have been subdivided, and everyone under a certain income bracket has been priced out. I wonder what will be left of the town we moved to, and where we’ll all end up.

The post In ‘Yellowstone,’ Transplants to the West Are the Enemy. Is the Hit Show Right? appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

Why I’ve Given Up on Lottery-Based Outdoor Permits

cobrien — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Hiking isn’t just a hobby—it’s a lifestyle.��tackles the hiking life—and all of the joys, problems, arguments, and weird quirks that go along with it—in her column.

I have attempted exactly one lottery-based backpacking permit in my entire life. It was for the in 2020. I was an anxious wreck leading up to the first permit day—I marked it on my calendar, triple-checked the time zone, and then logged on 15 minutes prior to the start, refreshing my browser every few seconds. I had been planning for the PCT for two years, but thanks to a family wedding in April, I had a narrow window of workable start dates.

I stared in disbelief when my lottery number populated. I had landed in the mid-7,000’s in the queue. As the minutes ticked by and the little pixelated hiker walked in place on the screen, I checked the PCT chat threads as they filled up with screenshots of the start-date calendar. The “ideal” start dates were gone in minutes, then one by one the rest were blocked off, including every day during the two weeks I needed to start. Maybe I can , head back for the wedding, then fly back to the trail, I thought, watching the remaining dates in early March vanish. By the time I got into the reservation space, every start date was gone. My plans had evaporated in the span of 30 minutes while staring at a computer screen.

This is not a dunk on the PCT permit system, the PCT Association, or permits in general. I fully support permitted hikes and dedicated start dates; I understand that as thru-hiking blows up, it may be the only practical solution to protect the trail; and I know that there may be ways to plan around not getting the date you wanted. But if there’s one thing the experience taught me, it’s that permit lotteries just aren’t for me.

There are plenty of permitted trails I’d love to hike, like the ��in Washington, and limited-access areas I’d love to see, like the Wave in Arizona. I don’t try. Like many backpackers, my schedule is unpredictable enough that I can’t commit to a backpacking trip four months in advance.��

Beyond that, part of the joy of backpacking for me is the spontaneity. I base my mileage by how I’m feeling and the conditions, and sometimes trips and opportunities pop up at the last minute. The stress of submitting itineraries and trying for the first-, second-, and third-choice routes and campsites is just too much for me and my anxiety.��

Don’t get me wrong. There are benefits to permit lotteries. These systems allow avid hikers to plan their season around the most elusive permits, then fill in the blanks once they have a trip locked in. Prescribed routes and set dates also take pressure off mileage planning—those hikers will never show up to a campsite only to find it full.��

The Wave, in Arizona (Photo: tiny-al/iStock via Getty Images)

Limited-access areas and lottery-based permits are also wonderful tools for sustainable travel. They allow the most popular routes and fragile areas to remain open for travel without exceeding the upper limit of foot-traffic volume.

Arguments abound online—often during “permit season”—that restricting public-land access via lotteries and numbers goes against the idea of public land. But the choice is rarely between open access and permits; it’s between permitted access and nothing. Why would you argue against strategies to protect these lands by limiting traffic?��

But it’s OK to admit that permitted trails aren’t for you. That’s OK! There are plenty of other trails to hike (though with the boom in outdoor recreation over the past few years, it seems very possible that there might be fewer soon). I hike trails and visit areas that don’t require permits. These areas might not be as popular, but they can be just as beautiful. I don’t want to enter the lottery system to hike the John Muir Trail, in California, but there’s always the . I don’t want to plan a backpacking trip, but I’ll do day hikes on the same Montana trails.��

Like anything in the outdoors, balance is key. We love removing barriers to entry and helping people experience the outdoors. But when those barriers to entry help protect the places we love, sometimes that has to trump easy access. As I’ve discovered, if you don’t want to deal with permits, there’s something out there for you if you know where to look.

If you’re one of those people who likes to hike spectacular trails no matter the obstacles, well, my dropping out only benefits you. After all, if everyone was trying for a tricky permit, the lotteries would be that much more competitive.��

As for the conclusion of the PCT permit saga? I entered the second permit day a few months later, landed an incredible lottery number, and got my first choice of a start date. Three months later, I canceled my trip as COVID exploded across the country. There are some obstacles you just can’t plan your way around.

The post Why I’ve Given Up on Lottery-Based Outdoor Permits appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

In Defense of Visiting an Instagram-Famous Destination

cobrien — Tue, 24 May 2022 10:30:57 +0000

Hiking isn’t just a hobby—it’s a lifestyle.�� tackles the hiking life—and all the joys, problems, arguments, and weird quirks that go along with it—in her column.

One of the most Instagram-centric outdoor destinations I’ve ever visited was ��in Arizona. I was on an impromptu road trip with another backpacker, and we were driving from Montana down to the Grand Canyon.��

“Should we detour and see Horseshoe Bend?” he asked. I said yes immediately, not making the connection between the spot’s name and the images I’d seen splashed all across outdoor instagram accounts. When I looked it up, I groaned.

“This place? We’re going to have to fight through piles of people taking the same dumb picture,” I lamented, scrolling through dozens of identical photos. Too late: we were there. We stopped at a kiosk to pay the $10 entrance fee.

The most iconic places on social media and outdoor bucket-list roundups have a few things in common. These spots are usually easy to access and have a big visual payoff that looks great on the internet.��

Click through thousands of hashtags and nearly identical 100-word blurbs in travel blogs and it isn’t hard to roll your eyes at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, Havasu Falls in Arizona, McAfee Knob in Virginia, Peek-a-Boo and Spooky slot canyons in Utah, or Park Butte Lookout in Washington. Included in this is Horseshoe Bend, where I found myself adrift in an ocean of cars and people, heat waves rippling from the pavement in the late-afternoon sun.��

As with plenty of trends and destinations that have found traction in the greater population, the judgment from the more “hardcore” enthusiasts—backpackers and hikers in this case—runs like a current through the community. I am not excluded from this: I was absolutely feeling judgmental as I reluctantly joined the migration of tourists wearing strappy sandals and wielding iPhones for the half-mile walk to the photo op. I felt like I’d outgrown this type of outing.

Havasu Falls in Arizona is one of many popular destinations for Instagrammers. (Photo: Colton Williams/Getty Images)

But when I saw Horseshoe Bend in person, I understood the hype. Hundreds of feet below me, the water swept in a dramatic curve around a towering pillar of sandstone. The color of the water was somewhere between turquoise and navy, and the contrast between the water and the brilliant reddish-orange rocks looked like the backdrop of a movie set.��

Seeing Horseshoe Bend in front of me was a far cry from the photos I’d seen featured in listicles and edited influencer photos. The sheer scale of the feature, the contrast of the colors, and the perfect sweeping curve of the water was inspiring. We stayed for an hour—snapping photo after photo, naturally.

“Pretty cool, right?” My hiking partner asked. I fully agreed, aware that my preconceived notion of a place just because it was popular hadn’t been fair.��

These easy-access, high-reward destinations might be the beginning and end of someone’s outdoor adventures, but for others, these spots could be the gateway to further exploration. can help people discover the wonders of the natural world, as well as help them understand how to get out there. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the mindset that going big is the only way to go, and I often have to remind myself that no one starts out with 20-mile day hikes.��

There is a fair argument to be made, however, that the increased popularity of these Instagram-famous spots harms them by drawing hordes of hikers, many of whom may not understand the basics of Leave No Trace. This is a delicate balance. How, after all, are we supposed to share our love for the outdoors in the internet age without loving the outdoors to death? Conversely, when we keep the best spots to ourselves or insist that people only learn about them by word of mouth, ?��

Colorado’s Hanging Lake boasts greenish-blue water. (Photo: Jeremy Janus/Getty Images)

Permitted access and reservation systems help keep fragile areas intact by limiting the number of visitors and campers. Land managers have added parking fees to spots like Horseshoe Bend. In some extreme cases, like , the spots are more regulated or even closed. The idea of limited, permitted access is a whole essay unto itself, but it’s hard to argue that limiting visitors this way helps preserve these incredible spots while allowing people to experience them, as long as they plan enough in advance.

These spots have become popular for a reason, and every time I’ve been to one, I’ve shared them with plenty of other people. Sure, the crowds can be frustrating, but the awe and appreciation of everyone around me also makes the experience that much more special.��

It’s easy to judge these locations simply because they became popular on the internet or because they have a big payoff without an arduous journey. But as someone who has now been to many of the spots on these bucket-list roundups and backpacked way too far to get to a remote hot spring, I’m ready to admit that there are different, equally valid ways to appreciate getting outside.��

And really, isn’t being outdoors and appreciating the natural world the whole point? Whether you walked a half-mile to see a cool bend in a river or hiked thousands of miles to touch a sign, the sense of wonder that these places leave us with is the same.

The post In Defense of Visiting an Instagram-Famous Destination appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

When Quitting Is a Good Thing

cobrien — Fri, 13 May 2022 11:00:30 +0000

At this point in the year, we are well into the northbound thru-hiking season. hikers might be deep in Virginia, hikers are getting closer to entering the Sierra, and Continental Divide Trail hikers are making tracks across the New Mexico desert. Not all of them will see it through to the end, though: statistically, around three-quarters of the thru-hikers who set out this season won’t reach their goal. In 2022, for the first time since I began taking extended backpacking trips, I found myself among them.

“Never quit on a bad day” is a well-known maxim, and the day I left the Arizona Trail had actually been better than average. I felt strong, the scenery was amazing, and the path was smoother than it had been, despite intense climbs and descents over the 20 miles.��

However, my skin had been giving me problems since the first few days of my trip. First, a prickling rash blossomed across my legs and hands. I doggedly applied every two hours, but it didn’t help: within days it had evolved from a reddish inflammation to full-blown heat-rash blisters on my legs, chest, and down my fingers.��

At the same time, my was getting steadily worse, until each step felt like someone was grinding salt into a road rash. After the first 100 miles, the palm-size patches of chafed skin were splitting open from the constant abrasion. The oozing pus and streaks of blood acted like an adhesive, gluing shorts to the open sores. I added gels and ointments and creams to my resupplies and started hiking in my camp pants to alleviate the worst symptoms.

Family obligations meant I hadn’t planned to finish the ��(AZT) in one go anyway, aiming instead for Flagstaff, with loose plans to finish the final 200-ish miles in the fall. My skin was bad, but it wasn’t bad enough to make me want to quit before Flagstaff.��

Then one night, unable to sleep for the third night in a row thanks to the burning of my various skin ailments, I opened my GPS app around 2 A.M. to see what the elevation for the next day looked like. About 15 miles from my campsite, I noticed a road crossing. Maybe I’ll go into town and try to heal my skin for a day or two,��I thought.��

A view of Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks��(Photo: Deborah Lee Soltesz)

I turned my phone off and tossed and turned, trying to keep any material—from my pants to my sleeping bag—off my oozing skin. Another hour went by. I turned my phone on again and looked at the map. It would only take a few hitches at most to get back to a town that had an airport. I thought,��What if I didn’t get to Flagstaff this time?��

It wasn’t my original plan, but no one was forcing me to stay. I liked the AZT, and I felt strong and fit, but I also didn’t feel incredibly compelled to reach Flagstaff. I turned the thoughts over as the minutes crawled by and I still couldn’t sleep.

By the time dawn brightened the walls of my tent, I had formed a plan. I didn’t have to reach my arbitrary goal. That’s all Flagstaff was: an arbitrary goal. I could go home. I didn’t have to consider my several hundred miles of backpacking a failure to complete a longer trip. What if I looked at the miles I’d done and felt like they were enough?

This might not seem like a particularly enlightened mindset, but it was a big deal for me. I’ve spent a long time making my ability to suffer part of my personality. What I lacked in natural athletic ability, I made up for in grit and determination. If I cut this trip short, what did I have left?��

I packed up at first light and hauled out of camp, my mind racing with the idea of making a choice within the next 15 miles. I pulled out my phone, overwhelmed almost to tears. I didn’t know how to define what I was feeling.��

Who am I without my accomplishments? What should I do?��I typed out a message to my friend who was probably still asleep two time zones away. I stared at the screen as the red exclamation point materialized: no service.��

If I wasn’t feeling so wretched, I would have laughed. I was on my own.��

My “tough it out” mentality has been with me as long as I can remember. I’d jump up immediately after wrecking my mountain bike or falling on a climb, proving I was unaffected by the impact. My first instinct has always been to prove that nothing affects me, to show I’m fine before checking with myself to see if I actually was.

On trails, that has meant fewer crashes but more long-term toughing it out. But in the end, I had to wonder what exactly I was proving with this. That I was stronger? Tougher? Better at suffering? That I always reached my goals?

Of course, when you make toughness a pillar of your identity, . For many people pursuing extended backcountry travel, stopping can be harder than continuing. Reaching your goal is seen as the be-all and end-all of any endeavor, which means stopping early is a lot more complicated.

What if I don’t reach my goal?

I thought about this for the seven hours it took to hike the 15 miles to the road crossing. When I got to the road, I got a ride to town, and I went home.��

What happened then? Nothing. I put aside my somewhat arbitrary goal, had a good trip, and nothing about my inherent self-worth has changed.��

As hikers fall short of their initial goals this season, whether it’s an extended section or the full trail, I hope they can realize that not reaching the goal doesn’t change their inherent worth. It’s about what you got out of the experience and how you respect yourself in the process. It’s taken me a long time to get to this mindset, but it feels like the right place to be.��

The post When Quitting Is a Good Thing appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

The Six-Person Family Chasing the Triple Crown

awise — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Monica Strawbridge had always dreamed of thru-hiking with her husband, Vince, after their kids—13-year-old Georgie, 15-year-old Henry, 16-year-old June, and 18-year-old Aiden—left home. But following a 67-mile family backpacking trip near the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee and North Carolina in 2017, the possibility of thru-hiking with the kids took shape.��

The children didn’t quite know what they were getting into when their parents first suggested the Pacific Crest Trail. “You can’t comprehend something as long as the PCT,” June says. “We just agreed to do it.”

They thru-hiked its 2,650 miles��in 2018, and the seed was sown for attempting what’s known as the triple crown of hiking: the PCT, the Appalachian Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail.

In the thru-hiking world, the triple-crown trails each have distinct personalities: The AT is known for a crowded start, frequent town access, and a social atmosphere. The PCT is a bit longer, but the scenery is more majestic.��The CDT is the most intimidating, and rumors of its difficulty abound.��The CDT is also the remotest of the three and��with some of the harshest conditions, ranging from snowy 13,000-foot peaks to extended sections of desert.

When traveling southbound, as��the Strawbridges did, thru-hikers need to start late enough for the passes in Montana to clear, yet��move��fast enough to get through the south San Juan Mountains before winter weather returns. This means covering over 2,000 miles between late June and early September. CDT hikers wake up, hike, eat, sleep, and repeat. Most hikers attempting the triple crown save the CDT for last. The Strawbridges teed it up for hike number two.

Monica and Aiden in Yellowstone National Park, walking a geyser basin in the early morning (The Strawbridges)

Aiden condensed her senior year into four months to accommodate the CDT. The younger three children are homeschooled��and designed projects they could do on trail: Henry would collect��data for Trout Unlimited, June would work��on a weather-tracking project, and Georgie, who studied photography, planned to snap��thousands of shots��along the way. The family set off on June 24, 2020.

At 6 A.M. each day, Vince made��the rounds, waking up the kids, paying special attention to the tent that housed June and Georgie—the hardest pair to rouse. They’d break camp quickly, eating an energy bar or stashing one in their pocket for later. The first hour of their morning was spent together. They would play a history lesson on a portable speaker, discuss a Bible verse, or talk about the kids’ projects as they began walking.

Then the family would string out along the trail, hiking at their own paces. They’d regroup for lunch around noon and chat about their mornings. From there, they’d walk until dark.��

When talking about their family, Monica and Vince are quick to laugh��and quicker still to eliminate romanticized notions of a picture-perfect group of hikers. On the trail, there were frequent tears and arguments, but there was also a tight bond.

“We have no choice, we have to reconcile,” says Aiden. “It’s just us out there. You can’t go to your friends and complain about your siblings when your siblings are all you have.”

Each of the childrens’ trail personalities developed over the course of nearly a collective year of hiking. Aiden is rock-solid, cranking out miles and consistently having a good time. Henry’s natural athletic abilities developed on the CDT, along with his appreciation for thru-hiking and positive attitude about the rigors of the route. As the strongest hiker in the family, his love for��thru-hiking grew immensely on the CDT. Georgie is sensitive and artistic, a natural peacemaker who can be upset by unresolved tension. She works to alleviate disagreements among��everyone. June is the most hesitant. Sometimes she loves the trail, sometimes she doesn’t want to be there. She struggles on long climbs, something Vince grapples��with��as he calculates��their mileage.

Henry and his cousin Silas heading up Arapahoe Pass, Colorado, into the whiteout (The Strawbridges)

Though the family stayed within a safe��weather window, the mountains don’t follow rules. In early September, a storm system rolled through the Colorado Rockies. The Strawbridges��stayed an extra day in Denver to wait it out, then returned to the trail at Lake Granby, near Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. As they started ascending 11,906-foot Arapaho Pass, the weather began to turn. The storm they thought was over had a second wave.��

They tried to stay together as the squall��worsened, but the slow pace was hard for Henry and Aiden, who needed to keep moving to stay warm. They went ahead into whiteout conditions.

Vince was in the back with June, who was struggling immensely. Suddenly, she sank into the snow and lay down. Vince panicked, trying to get her to move.

Georgie crouched down near the top of the pass, the wind so fierce it prevented her from standing upright. The visibility was so poor that they didn’t know if they were heading in the right direction.��

“It was a breaking point,” says Aiden. She didn’t know how far the climb continued, and she saw Henry getting cold. “Our family couldn’t see us, but we were too cold to stop.”

Vince stayed low with June as the storm continued unabated. Finally, with continued pleading and cajoling, he got her to move, one step at a time, to the top of the pass, where they found the rest of the family and descended safely to the other side.

Arapaho Pass was a pivotal moment in their��hike, the only time they questioned the wisdom of the endeavor. When the Strawbridges��returned home to Lakeland, Florida,��after completing the trail several months later, they took June to the doctor and��discovered she was suffering from anemia—a major factor in her reduced endurance.

On November 2, 2020, the family arrived at New Mexico’s Crazy Cook Monument, steps from the Mexican border in the��remote Chihuahuan��Desert—the��southern terminus of the 3,100-mile CDT.��When they touched the obelisk, they became the largest family to have ever hiked the trail.

Aiden taking in the beauty near the top of Parkview Peak, Colorado (The Strawbridges)

In early March of this year,��the Strawbridges��began the��AT, and they plan to finish their triple crown this summer. Coming off a CDT thru-hike makes the family��outliers in the northbound AT crowd, many of whom are��attempting their first thru-hike on what most consider to be the easiest of the triple-crown routes.

But after a cumulative 5,000 miles, the family now has thru-hiking down to a science: they are fluidly efficient at camp, put in big miles almost every day, and are accustomed to the trials of trail life. In short, they��are��ready for their final triple-crown segment.��

“So much of our experience in the world is comfort driven,” says Monica. “There is some dullness that comes from that. Our family has a desire to be sharp, not quite so comfortable.”��

The post The Six-Person Family Chasing the Triple Crown appeared first on ��ϳԹ�� Online.

Maggie Slepian Archives - ���ϳԹ��� Online