10,000 Miles on Foot, Madison Blagden’s Biggest Year Yet

10,000 miles, actually more than that. Most people don't even like to drive that far.

Today on the podcast, we have a true walker of the year nominee. Madison Blackdon, aka Pegleg,

threw Hike to over 10,000 miles in 2025. Our award system must be a little off if she didn't win Walker of the Year.

But Andrea Moore did. Maybe we'll have her on to collect it. Truly a really cool story.

A story about finding your passion, diving in. We talked about how she affords it, what she does on trail,

how she makes it work, a little bit of what's next. Truly a fun conversation. So fun.

We went like 30 minutes over the time that I scheduled. So I hope you give it a listen and enjoy a big announcement.

We are going to be making a film about the Appalachian Trail record.

But if you know me, I don't watch a lot of YouTube, at least long form YouTube.

So we're going to keep it on the shorter end. Alison has a background in film, you know, all that stuff,

all those years in L.A. and she's going to be producing the film. We shot some interviews and stuff.

We have an editor putting it together. So that is exciting. What are your action items with that?

Just stick around until it's out and then give it a thumbs up on YouTube.

Next up, do you want to hang out with me? Probably everyone should.

Well, I have a, I have a very small social battery. But I will be on the east coast part of northeast trail adventures,

northeast trailadventures.com, doing a retreat out there in hub north is what it's called.

But in the white mountains, we're going to be running around. But the bigger part is after the runs, the hikes, whatever we want to do every day.

We sit around and chat, eat food. And my best friend actually owns a meal company.

What he's always said is how food brings people together. So I suspect our best time at northeast trailadventures.com

will be the many stories we share over some food.

So use code free outside over there and you get a hundred bucks off as well as a little gift to you guys.

And would love to see you there. It will be a magnificent time.

As for other things that I probably have to say here.

Mount to coast is not yet a sponsor of the show, but we are in some conversations.

But if you do want to buy some shoes, I really like the H1 shoes. I'll probably run Coca-Cola in them.

I wore the T1s, the trail ones, the T1s from Mount to Coast.

I'm the whole Appalachian Trail and they work good because they're pretty durable, good souls and everything.

And didn't have too many issues except when I made myself two left shoes.

But if you want to get some shoes, just use promo code Jeff G and you get I think 15% off or something.

There you go.

Alright, let's get into the episode with border to border calendar, triple crowner and more in one year.

Madison blacked it.

Today on the podcast, we have one of our nominees for Walker of the Year for 2025.

So tell us first, what did you do in 2025 forever and who doesn't know?

Okay, and I've never heard of that Walker of the Year. That's, that's too good.

2025, I did the calendar year triple crown, but I added on the miles from Florida to Springer Mountain.

And then like a Todd into Canada.

And then when I finished that from border to border, I went back and redid Florida to add on like extra 1600 extra miles by like leaping around and stuff to hit 10,000 for the year.

Yeah, and what was your total mileage for the year? It was 10,000, like 70 or something?

Yeah, 10,000, 70, like one or something.

How did you think you could hit 10,000 when you started off at the beginning of the year or did that goal evolve over time?

Yeah, it evolved over time.

I definitely like had done the math on what the minimum border to border would be, which was like 8400 miles and thought like it'd be kind of cool to hit 9,000 if weather and everything went so perfectly that you could do like full maximum miles on the CDT.

As the year went on, it just seemed like there was not even going to be enough time to do that, honestly.

But yeah, just kind of worked out perfectly.

Totally. And let's put it in context. How many other people have done this.

So border to border calendar year triple crown and then over 10,000 miles to.

Yeah, well, so three of us did it last year.

Prior to that, one guy had done the border to border calendar year triple crown.

And like seven years before that, one guy did the border to border triple crown, but he didn't do it in a calendar year period, but he also hit 10,000 miles.

Okay, that is just so crazy.

I had never even heard of it like a decade ago when I did the calendar year triple crown and now it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

How many miles do you think in the ideal because you were, you had some time off because of injury in the perfect year.

Do you think you could hit what's like your peak mileage ever if everything was perfect, you think?

It's hard. I guess if you tweaked it and you specifically chose trails that had less elevation gain and were like easier to make miles on, you could.

I feel like you someone could probably do like 12 or 13,000 in a year, especially if you like didn't do the like super rugged terrain.

But I figured maybe if I hadn't gotten injured, it's like so hindsight's yeah 2020, but maybe 11,000, but yeah, that would be like in a absolutely perfect world.

That's crazy. I did some research in the average person drives like 10,000 ish miles a year. So you walked more than the average person drives, which is a crazy amount of mileage.

What is the, what is the come down or like getting back into real life, like after a full year of going forward and traveling by foot, moving it that speed of life, is it, is it a really hard transition.

It's it's a weird transition and I think I probably made it harder for myself because like the last 2022, 23 and 24, I was on trail all of those years.

So you'd think I'd be like, well, practice like getting on an off trail, but after all of those hikes ended, there was like another big, maybe even bigger hike already like being planned.

So this is the first time in like three or four years that I've gotten off trail, but haven't had a specific thing that I was like immediately like planning to like run away and do.

So it's like different. It's good. I mean, I think it's like nice to sit with those like the feelings that I think a lot of people are like constantly running from when they're hiking.

It's yeah, it's weird. It's different, but I'm just yeah, I've been like, I mean, it's been two months now. So I'm just like doing all kinds of stuff to fill my schedule and like create a new routine and also like planning on doing more hiking and things this year.

Just trying to like reshape my life in a way where like that's not where planning those things isn't like the only thing that's going to like keep me in yeah, keep my mood up if that makes sense.

Yeah, that's the real trick with the lifestyle where it's so immersive and so amazing that you can't you don't want to only look forward to that aspect of life and saving for it too.

It's it's a difficult balance to have for sure. Yeah, it is. So I want to go back in time and kind of hear your story.

What was it? What were you like growing up? Were you outdoorsy? Were you adventurous? Like where did this all come from?

Yeah, it's kind of funny because I mean, I was outdoorsy growing up my I call my parents like beach parents because they were like what like voting and like being on the beach.

So we were always outside and the house that I lived in for most of my childhood backed up to like a big forested area.

So I was playing like imaginatively outside a lot but really had like very little hiking and backpacking experience.

I did like one canoe cup like few day overnight in like seventh grade in Maine, but very tame like like yes, nothing like this.

And then when I was in college right before I turned 21, I was pre-med in school kind of having like a like a midlife crisis, but you're just like, I don't know, 20 years old.

And my roommate had talked about she had climbed Catawden and done sections of the A.T.

And it's just like the idea of something really different sounded cool.

And then I have family out west and heard about the PCT and was like, oh wow, like that's what a 20 year old person thinks like adventure is is like literally going out to California on like some trail.

So I just started planning to do it got like a few of the books the classic books from the time like Zach Davis this book and like yogis guide.

And I had like no idea I honestly thought it was going to be like really quiet like I wasn't going to see a lot of people started May 18.

Yeah, like it's absolutely unhinged actually with no backpack experience, but just kind of like completely one it and nobody.

Everyone in my life was sort of a little bit confused because I'd never I wasn't really I mean I trained on I mean as much as you can train in Massachusetts.

But just wound up luckily like invested time energy and money and just loved it like immediately.

Yeah, did you find a good group or what what about it do you think you loved.

Just the routine and you like all the things I think a lot of people maybe can't put their finger on but it's just like waking up and hearing like those same birds and those like particular smells of like the early morning and in the desert or in the forest wherever you are just those.

Those awesome things and just meeting such unique like especially the PCT diverse people from literally all across the world coming out to do this one very unifying thing.

Yeah, it was just amazing and we were just babies I was in the classic like tramily of everyone's first through hike like we weren't doing crazy big miles everyone's packs were absolutely huge.

And but we just we didn't even know what we didn't know and it was just a really great time.

The 2017 on the PCT was a record snow year so like are we all nobody we all survived this year which is crazy because it was a really sketchy year.

And yeah, it was just amazing.

Yeah, how did that.

All right, change or like brought in or influence kind of the rest of your life was it like this is what I want to keep doing because my first through hike was at 20 years old on the PCT too and it was just like this whole other avenue of life was unlocked and it was good but also kind of crazy because the traditional life I thought I would go down was kind of turned upside down how did it influence you.

Yeah, it was similar to that honestly, I think the best immediate thing was like you're young and not like necessarily awkward but like the confidence boost of coming back from something like that.

I feel like definitely was and I mean it's what who I was then and as a hiker to now it's like impossible to compare but it was a huge shift for me even the back then in such as like even with such slight hiking experience.

But I knew I wanted to do more hiking and more stuff like that I don't think at the time I definitely would never have guests that I'd be here like right now having done this much backpacking because after the PCT in 2017 I did like tons of travel the adventure stuff for the next handful of years but I didn't through hike.

Well, I didn't through like anything more than a couple hundred miles again until 2022 but it kind of did like shift that next whole chapter where I was like living out of a vehicle for a couple years and like bouncing around doing that and was able to do some like very random are you in Michigan Montana actually Montana dang okay well I did battle out of backpacking in Michigan.

Super randomly yeah and I knew I knew I wanted to go back to the PCT I just think then the I the dedication of like putting all your stuff away and like when I did the PCT in 2017 I kept paying rent the whole time.

I hadn't figured it out like she didn't know she had no idea like in my mind I was like oh it's so daunting to do all that I'm like do literally just sell all your stuff and get rid of your apartment.

It's not that hard but it seemed hard because I was I kept all my stuff when I did that yeah yeah it is tricky you have to figure out how it even works yeah my first through hike it was just like leave immediately take a term off of college and then I've never said this before and I still feel bad about it.

I just left it was also like May 12th start and I just left and left my entire apartment with everything except for my stuff to my roommate to move out at the end of the year like I just threw the entire moving process at 20 on him.

But the big thing and I wonder if it felt like this to you is I kind of needed something like that to grow up where you know 20 early 20s it's like now if you don't buy enough food you literally are going to run out of food.

You've got a plan water you've got a plan town stops maybe you got a budget money you got to be scared to hitchhike but also do it because you need stuff like it stretch my comfort zone so much from sort of the standard childhood to finally have to do things that my parents didn't know anything about and I had to learn for myself did you have that same experience out there.

Yeah it was definitely it's yeah just change like the whole trajectory of like my entire life pretty much in ways that at the time I didn't even like fully grasp it just seems it was like a semester abroad you know but I feel like people come back and things like that and it has like its impact but whereas like through hiking and yeah the way it's like you're survival and I mean 2017 was a crazy year like someone I started with at

Campo died in a river crossing. I remember that the story. Yeah like so I think like even even more so than like what I understood at the time it was like the way I look back on that hike now I think it had more it has more of an impact in my mind now than I even really understood then like I was so naive and had so little knowledge I didn't even really realize like what we were all out there doing and how absolutely sketchy was a spell.

Especially with no experience at all I guess if you're going to go out and do something terrifying you should either be super experienced or have no experience because at least when you have no experience you're not like all like freaking out because you have no clue how scary what you're doing is but yeah hindsight I'm like that was yeah I was absolutely crazy do you remember a particularly scary story or time from that that first through hike.

So there's like a couple that stand out it was all the river crossings and mountain passes in the Sierra I mean like the desert was super hot I literally was carrying like seven liters of water which I've never done that since and is I guess just a downside of being kind of slow and having a heavier pack is you have to carry tons of water.

But I remembered like mother pass and some of the high passes in the Sierra people were just going like up completely random ways and I remember like people were above us so like stuff was coming down at us because all of these novice people are all in the Sierra like with no like and you can't even be mad like no one had any courtesy no one had any idea what they were doing.

Um and then there was like some river crossings where like I remember two large dudes like getting in the water and like pulling us or like there was a lot of wet log crossing and the end of the log was like a foot of no log so you had to jump at the end of the wet missing log and I remember like slipping but like someone was right there and grabbed to grab you and I'm like if that dude hadn't been there like maybe I wouldn't have died.

But like would have probably slipped in the water and one of the guys I was with on a different river crossing he slipped and fell upstream so then he was getting like smashed into the down log and he was fine but he was like shook obviously like yeah it was just like tons of crazy stuff and we're going super slow and and yeah like no one had any idea what they were doing.

There's something pretty magical about the first three because you just don't know what you don't know we 2011 was I think the previous records know you're my first year and we we were like let's climb Mount Whitney at like at night and so we watched the sunrise and then we started just like climbing pinnacles that weren't the peak and it's like we're doing like scrambling guys like I think this is the wrong way but it was a bunch of us it's just following each other and.

Man it is I think somehow things stick in your mind a little different when you're like early 20s then then now it would have been like immediately I'd know and not do that but back then it's like everyone's doing it so this is what we do.

This is fine why is it like a 20 year old right of passage that you have to be in a record snow year on the PCT on your first through like yeah we did we did Mount Whitney when we were in the shelter on the top of Whitney it started thundering and lightning.

And we so we all started descending running like running for our lives whole groups split up and there was so much snow like there was no trail.

And I wound up going on like a very narrow patch of snow and if you did fall down you'd fall off the entire mountain and everyone was behind me and I made it across and turned back and they had all turned back and gone a different way and no one had told me.

Oh my god.

Are you guys crazy?

But like I mean we were all fine with stuff like that is like now I'm like I probably would be mad now about things like that but none of us yeah no one even knew to have courtesy so it's like you can't be offended by that.

Yeah and people don't know Mount Whitney's like the beginning near the beginning of this year so that's like your first real experience and it's like we have.

Like 400 more miles of this type of thing coming up to you get a trail name on that first through I know and no one in my family got a trail name it was four of us and we hiked a thousand miles together and we all had real names.

Wow did you just you just hated trail names or what happened it's just I feel like we all spent so much time together and we were such awkward non hikers that like.

People tried to throw like random ones and then like there were a couple that maybe could have stuck but they just weren't they just were like really forced I guess and then yeah we all dispensed too much time together and we never got trail names which is so weird.

It really is people just think you're like section hiking or something yeah section hiking for forever yeah so you so you finish this first through hike and then what how do you change your life how does that impact the trajectory of things.

Yeah well the funny thing is I thought I could do the PCT in 90 days so I took off a semester of college but was still enrolled in fall classes and shocker didn't do the whole PCT in 90 days in a record snow year so I like made it to the halfway point and then went back to school finish school.

It didn't it all motivate me to like be a better student I was actually like the worst student ever when I went back.

I slept in classes once I went back to college I was just like not into it I could have like failed it got if I hadn't been a little more careful I would have just like wound up completely failing out I just had.

Yeah it was definitely like kind of depressed going back and then you go back to normal life and all everyone early said felt to me all everyone does is like talk trash about people.

Like the friends that you liked before who like you thought were perfectly great well for starters the girls I lived with stole like everything I owned while I was gone.

So that was crazy went back and like like all my a lot of my clothes and like everything I owned were gone but like we're friends so I'm like oh it's whenever you get a chance guys just like wash my stuff it's cool you used it all summer.

And then like they just like wound up never giving it back to me and just started being super weird so it was definitely like an eye opening for like a lot of transitions in friendships and just like yeah like I didn't you don't want to really be around the negative stuff as much like you just spent a whole summer on.

In the woods like talking about real stuff and now just like my tolerance for like trash talking people was like kind of zero.

But I just like finished school and worked and was saving for something maybe a through hike or just some big adventure and was saving and saving and saving and then COVID hit.

So then it was like I was going to through hike I think I had maybe gotten PCT a PCT permit for that year and wound up is buying a vehicle and traveling for the next like couple years until things sort of just

Because 2021 I know like people went out and we're hiking it just seems like it wouldn't have been a super blast like a lot of the towns didn't really want people.

They either did or they didn't so I didn't through hike again until 2022.

Yeah, what did you do for work and what was your degree from in college?

Yeah, I was so it was like a pre-med biology major and then wound up just graduating psychology with like a lot of like a focus in biology.

But when I went back I got like a restaurant job and just did that and was able to save so much money and graduated without debt.

So I was just like racking up money like could have probably done something more like normal and stable with it like maybe buy a house or something.

But yeah, I bought a vehicle and then just like pure magic. I mean I bought it at the regular market and then as COVID progressed like the vehicle I put 40,000 miles on it and then sold it and made money.

So it was like that's like the only time in your life you ever get to do that and then it that paid for the whole PCT.

Yeah, our parents said they'd fall they'd decrease in value the second we drove them away and you know take that mom and dad.

That's what they tell you apparently they don't.

Yeah, so you see you're living in this vehicle are you wanting to do another through hike and just kind of figuring out how to make it work or you just adventurous phase of your life.

Like when do you kind of go back to through hiking?

Yeah, I really wanted to I thought and talked about like it must have been so annoying to everyone in my life is like why are you still talking about the PCT like that was such a blip in time.

But the cool thing about living out of a vehicle was I was just treating it like training.

So like you'd go to some beautiful place, spend the entire day hiking and I had all my backpacking stuff. So like went up.

Did like day hikes all over the place like tried to go to as many national parks and stay parks and stuff as possible and then did like a short backpacking trip pictured rocks.

Michigan, which is just like really beautiful.

Like the home of blue water and you get to like walk around it in Michigan and then like randomly got to do.

It's actually a really hard permit to get but when you live in your car and you just happen to be somewhere things are easier.

So I got a last minute permit to backpack on IO Royale, which is like, yeah, Michigan, you have to take a ferry across and like did a huge loop up there.

And then probably sometime around then I got a PCT permit and like a lot of stuff like kind of changed in those next like five or six months, but I knew I really I really wanted to do that.

And at that point, the only thing standing in the way was selling the car honestly.

Yeah, and you were going to make money on that too.

So before we move on, I'm curious, what is a day in the life like when you're living in your car? Like, yeah, just go walk us through a day. What would you do?

Yeah, yeah. I feel like it is very hiking adjacent where like you get into your routine.

And I will say like doing that for almost two years, like some aspects of it definitely get old.

But and like, I mean, some things about it are great. But so I was like cheap, oh, so I would spend the whole day in the cool place, but then instead of paying $20, $30 to camp in the cool place, like you're just sleeping, I would like drive out and go see put a Walmart or a cracker barrel or like some place that was free or like way cheaper.

So you'd wake up in the morning, like go get brush your teeth in the Walmart or wherever you are, get ready for the day, get breakfast or make breakfast.

Like I had a two burner stove of fridge and stuff like that. And then like have already decided or just figure out drive somewhere, stop off at everything cool along the way and do a bunch of hikes and sightseeing and yeah day via day hiker and cook food and park and watch it.

Great view somewhere and then just like do it over and over and over while driving like all across the country.

Yeah, are you just always looking for the next spot you want to go as far as like a hike or a destination kind of along the way as well.

Yeah, it sort of depends like I went down, I drove down from like mass to Florida at one point and then I did like work for stay in Florida for four months or something just because it was January through May. So I guess there were there were in a ton of places you could drive the vehicle to unless you wanted to winterize it.

So I did that like for a four or five month period just like work for stay on using an app and just like lived and parked on someone's property and did that was actually pretty cool, like did all jobs and learned how to do a bunch of like household like man, man chore things or like tile a bathroom and like put in drywall and super random stuff like that.

But generally, I just was yeah, looking at like an end destination and then trying to find like as much cool stuff to stop off on as you made your way there.

That's cool. What's the weirdest work for stay project that you did.

Oh weird. Well, honestly, like worked for this one guy and he was just like finishing his whole house. So we did like a million things in the house, but he wound up being a little bit crazy.

So I wound up doing work for stay for his other friends that he had a falling out with while I was there and they they're everything there was super weird like I sold a bucket truck like one of those tall like electrical things that like take you up so you can work on the polls.

Like sold that for them, sold a boat for them like spent a whole month organizing electrical supplies because they were electrical contractors. So

I know nothing about being an electrician, but like I could tell you or at least I used to be able to tell you like what everything was like all the different little pieces and sizes, because I had to like sort a whole shipping container of electrical supplies.

Oh, wow. So that would be your day. You'd just like wake up and go start sorting some stuff.

Yeah, yeah, just try to sell. It was like they they were just rich electrical contractors near Orlando and we're like if you sell stuff, you can get commission on anything you sell. I'm like also everything you

That is amazing. Okay, so so it's a funny period of life, but back to the hiking world. So PCT and then do start over. Once you start once you do the PCT because you've done half of it or so.

Do you decide to start over and go from the beginning this time?

I was so I got a southbound permit and was going to start like July 7th or 8th because I thought start on the end you haven't done. So God forbid something happens and you can still do the whole thing.

But that was 2022 and they wound up being a super big snow year in like the North cascades. So last minute I emailed the PCTA and switch and got like a flip flop permit. So I started in trucky.

I think I'd gone past trucky, but I started there anyway. And my plan was just to go north and then I would just go back and redo the section that I'd already done before if everything went well.

And it went great. It just was like every year on the PCT 2022 like 500 miles of trail clothes in the drop of like a hat because of fire. So I flip flops like three or four times that year.

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Pretty much any fashion centric item you need for the trails. They will have and tell them I sent you.

And then did you finish the majority of the trail. Yeah, I only miss like a hundred and 50 miles on that year. And it wound up being the best part. It was it was like 30 to 60 miles in each state.

So I didn't technically finish every mile in any state because just like 30 miles here 30 miles there were just like completely on fire.

Yeah. And so do you get a trail name this time?

Yes, I got a trail name in the first week this time because I started jumped up. It's July. You're surrounded by northbounders who've hiked 1200 miles.

And I was in like really good shape. So like the days are long. You've sent to like nine o'clock at night. I went out like throwing down miles and felt really good. But wound up getting crazy ice he band issues and was like limping couldn't bend my knee at all.

So sometime in the first week, I got you on him. Pag leg.

It's a pretty good trail name, honestly.

Yeah, it's classic is classic. But honestly, like I meet strangers and they're super. They look down at you and they're so bombs that you have both your legs. And I'm like, that's a really wild.

You can see it in their eyes that they're like super disappointed that that's not why you're Pag leg.

They want you to have an eye patch of peg leg, a pirate in a hook on your hand.

That's amazing. Okay, so now this is your second through like our plans or thoughts kind of in your mind about doing something bigger in the future or when did the kind the the idea or the year for 2025 kind of come about is this when it started.

It didn't start yet. Honestly, the PCT was like in 22 was the first time that I just started pushing bigger miles and like fell in with a couple groups of people who at the time.

I was like, oh my gosh, they're like the strongest hiker I'd ever hiked around and like push myself trying to keep up with them. So got to become a stronger hiker and push limits. And like, that was the first hike. We're like, we were doing consistent 30 mile days. And it's like, thought we were just like, kink shit, you know, like, you're the baddest hiker out there. Like no one's doing bigger miles than you.

I still there was just still so much I didn't know. I didn't

2022 is when Professor Carl went out. So I'd heard about that. But that wasn't even remotely in my brain. Honestly, the I'd say what I thought about more in 22 is that I heard about a guy named

a massacast who did the ECT key west to Quebec. And I remember being like, that's that's so crazy. And just kind of like getting into the community enough that you even knew what was going on.

And by the end of the hike, I had no plans to necessarily hike again. But it was finishing up. And it was I want to say early December, because I did wind up flip flopping.

Redid the whole desert portion Sierra, everything. And then I was finishing and I still had money.

And was like, what what now? And everyone's like, you have to hike the Appalachian Trail. Of course.

So I went home and was like, okay, like I could do this, but I wouldn't start until maybe March or April. And then my buddy, Jive Turkey,

and I was like, I'm finishing the Pinhoti Trail. That would be a perfect way to get your AT trail legs. Um, so that planted the seed of like starting to do parts of the ECT.

And then that hike in 2023, I wound up doing the whole ECT key west to Newfoundland. And that was just another year where things just totally grew like practically day by day and just kept like getting out of hands.

Really disciplined because not a lot of hikers finish with extra money. Are you just really smart with how you you do these adventures and stuff too.

Um, I guess like I just always I always had way more money saved than what you needed for a through hike, probably just because I had no idea.

And no idea what you spent doing something like this. But like, I mean, the vehicle I lived in was like super was like pretty expensive. So like, I probably could have paid for the this whole last year by selling that vehicle.

So it just like, yeah, it just left me in a better position. And then I was pretty thrifty. I think I was lucky on the PCT. I was just in a family of like five.

I was just, we double zero and you're spending like $13 a person for a hotel, you know, so I wasn't even that thrifty. It just worked out.

And then I would get off trail and like wind up just doing like popping back into a restaurant for a few months. And I feel like you can make pretty fast money doing that.

Especially if, because I've always, it's kind of like if you give up time today, then you can go on a through hike or do something tomorrow. It's sort of that mentality, especially in the service industry that you can just work a bunch and you give up a lot of your life, which is rough, but at least you can put away a bunch of money.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so the ECT Eastern continental trail, what, when does it kind of shift like I can do this, I can do more than just a traditional through hike and how did, how did that kind of trip go and come about and shape things in the future.

Because you're sort of going bigger and bigger. It's like half the PCT, all the PCT, ECT. Yeah, you're stepping up.

Yeah, it's funny. I was just talking about this yesterday because my friend, who I did all of Canada with on the ECT, she's like trying to hit 10,000 miles this year and just started.

And I was just like gone on. It was a totally regular like Alabama to the AT pretty standard AT through hike where I was hiking with people who we pushed miles like a little more than your standard person starting, but nothing too crazy.

Like we were still taking plenty of days off and hanging out with people.

But it really wasn't until finishing the AT and getting into Canada where the time window was just tight where like I actually wound up running into two other hikers like the only people in Canada.

And we had a little tiny trail family.

But if we wanted to get through before the end of October in Newfoundland, which is freezing cold and by the ocean, we had to do 30 miles a day.

So that was the first time ever that I like now was in a schedule of like I'd done a bunch of 30s, but there's a huge difference between doing 30s whenever and taking days off and like doing 30s every day.

No zeros in sight for like two months. I think that's just a big jump. So that was kind of like the foundation of me realizing like I could do more as a hiker.

And sort of pushing myself past the point that I ever had. So that year when I was finishing up the whole ECT because I want to flipping down again and like doing all Florida.

When I was somewhere in Florida, like getting close to 5600 miles, I remember thinking, wow, you know, I'm going to run out of physical land soon.

But I looked up like what's the most anyone's done in a year because I had scraped together almost 6000 miles and didn't set out to do it. So like the timing of everything wasn't great. I didn't really.

Yeah, I wasn't really in crunch mode for 50% of the year. So just made me wonder what if you had gone out with the intention of doing more.

And what had people done and that just I just started day dreaming about the calendar, your triple crown after that.

And then thinking, what if you did the calendar, your triple crown and finished and then thought, wow, maybe I should have tried to do more because we'll like go out again and do that again.

I mean, probably not. So I was that what a funny thing to be nervous about, but I was nervous like what if you try went out to do the hardest thing you could think of and then you did it.

So maybe you try to make it harder just, you know, just so you don't feel like you left anything out there.

And in between, I was just going to work for a year and save money and then a bunch of through hikers convinced me to do the CDT in 2024.

Like called me and we're like, I'm going to be out there and so and so and so and so and we're going to have a huge tramily.

I'm like, I don't even have enough money to do that. And then I'm trying to save to do this big thing in 2025.

But they convinced, yeah, they convinced me to do the CDT and I was just like, if it's meant to be, it's all going to work out.

And hindsight, I'm really glad I did the CDT because I think it made last year a lot more feasible, honestly.

Yeah, totally. And so just real quick before we move on, can you break down the ECT, like how many miles are in Florida and then connected to the 80 and then north of that because it's a huge trail that less people know about.

Yeah, yeah. So Florida, there's like a bunch of different routes and stuff, but I'd say if you just do one regular route Florida to Alabama is like 1100 miles.

And then there's like some different connector trails and things that are maybe like 50 to 100 miles and then you have a 200 mile ish road walk through Alabama.

That takes you to the Pinhoti trail, which is Alabama in Georgia. That's 350 miles.

And then the traditional route takes you back south on the Benton Mackay for 70 miles before and then you parallel the 80 for 10 miles miles that you have to do twice.

And then you officially get on the 80, which is like 2200. And then there's like 100 something miles between the end of the 80 and the Canadian border.

And then there's like 1400 or 1500 miles in Canada.

Yeah, I think a lot of us forget or don't know how many miles are in Canada, too. And fun fact, they actually have.

Well, a number, a small subset of people want the AT to officially start on Flag Mountain, which is like the southernmost thousand foot peak in the.

I know range.

Yeah, cool concepts like to say you did the whole Appalachians, but like if for anyone who's done the Pinhoti trail, if you were down there, you'd realize in what world could that teeny little community hosts the AT's population, like they would just drown.

And even just getting to it too, like if the drive up to the middle of nowhere on Flag Mountain to and stuff, just it's not feasible, but it is an interesting concept and gives the Pinhoti a little more credence.

And okay, so let's move into this year. So how so you've got us on the edge of our seats, you are, you didn't have enough money, but you still did the CDT, how do you get enough money, how do you decide to start winner, you're going to start your 2025 endeavor to do more than the calendar, your triple crown.

Yeah, so CDT just worked out pretty well, like I budgeted well was in a tramily. So if you're trying to save money, I mean not to say you want to hike.

I only want to hike with people when it's really natural, it's a perfect fit, you're not forcing it. So you can't make it happen, but it just I did 2000 miles on the CDT in a group of like four or five.

So even when we were staying in town a lot like we saved a ton of money.

And then the weirdest thing that I've never done before is like wall, I'm on the CDT in Colorado, like that was crunch time for trying to like make a pitch deck and try to get people to start supporting my 2025 hike.

And I feel like it was a little bit easier because I was writing for the track and I'd been writing them for writing for them for a couple of years. So they really wanted like we're incentivized to help me like pull this off because it was just going to be like an endless year of content, you know of writing.

But I just started messaging like every gear company that I was using their stuff and started with the things that like I loved and like luckily, I mean most companies wouldn't send money, but gear is so expensive and I knew I was going to go through probably like $5,000 of gear.

Honestly, if not more depending on like what fails.

So like before I even finished the CDT, before I even got to New Mexico, I had like all of the contracts and things signed for like sponsorship with the few people that we're going to give me a little bit of money and the couple of things that we're just going to do gear or food or things like that.

And it wasn't going to be enough exactly, but I thought if I could get I had like very specific small boxes. I was trying to check. I'm like if I could like lay a little bit of a foundation with support.

Maybe I can keep growing it once I'm actually on trail. And then also I was like I have five weeks between the CDT and the calendar year that I can go back to my restaurant. I'd already talked to the manager.

They were like we'll fire someone and we'll put you in and you can take all their shifts because you know restaurants like when you're good and you don't steal and you're just like a really hard working person who's going to give us many sales as possible.

Like there's always an employee that you could come take their spots or there's just always room for a good employee in the restaurant industry.

And then they're like, okay, we'll fire the one girl who's been driving us crazy. And then you'll work for five weeks and we'll find someone to replace you.

So I finished the CDT November 7th, went home, saw my parents for the first time, grabbed a backpacks where the stuff flew to Philly, rented an Airbnb for five weeks, which was pretty cool.

Never lived in an Airbnb before, but it was the only where do you live for six weeks, five weeks and worked like 12 hour shifts, six or seven days a week.

I was sick for like five weeks straight. I felt terrible, but I saved like a very fat chunk of money, not enough to pull off the year.

And enough like to bare bones, maybe I could make it, I would be stressed so much. But then I was like, you have enough to go. And I, my plan was really just to like write and do as much video stuff as possible to just try to make it work.

Yeah, totally. And I think there's this key thing that a lot of people don't realize more, maybe the fans of through hikers world, but there's like a key point when you're deciding if you can pull off this lifestyle for longer term or not.

And that's like when it's usually middle or later 20s when you're like having to give up things to make more money to keep doing this, like it seems easy like summer camp in your early 20s.

But when you're like spending your time in town where you would have been hanging out by a pool, now you're sending emails or you're baking a pitch deck or when you're home, you're working seven days a week.

I think this is the part and maybe where some of the animosity towards through hikers, like it just doesn't have this answer that it does take so much and people do put so much into it.

But that's not the stuff that makes it out there. I think there's just so much that goes into making these big things work that it's definitely a privilege, but it also takes an insane amount of work that as someone else he's done this a couple times.

It's hard to convey how much you give up to go on these through likes would you agree?

And people just think you're like spoiled rotten like it is a privilege like I am grateful to like that is the stuff that's occupying your mind and that you're stressed like I have to do 30 miles today and also have to do all these you know online things like it's an incredible privilege to have I wouldn't change it for anything.

That's like you know this niche version of people working and having a more traditional life, but it's so funny the responses you get like on the internet and people just fund baby or like you're fully supported by your parents.

I'm like like my parents support me emotionally and are like very supportive of what I'm doing.

But it's just funny I guess it's just more of a it's more telling of like the culture we live in of how in debt people are and how much they own and how tied down they are that I think the idea of like breaking free of that you must be rich to do that where it's more like you've just formulated your life in a such a simpler way that you don't have so many of those things like hanging over you that other people do.

Totally and I would even say like the traditional through hike would be you get to a town and then there's like downtime maybe take a zero day and when you're trying to make this more sustainable and do it for longer term you're finding those moments when you want to be laying on the bed watching a movie but you're editing a video you're working you're communicating you're trying to have things lined out to continue this life after because.

At some point it becomes not just like the summer camp for adults but more of like I want to keep doing this as long as possible and that involves doing things you don't always want to do too yeah.

So okay so now we start the year when did you start in 2025.

January 1st and then where at did you start.

Yeah Key West Florida like the southernmost points terminus thing and was the goal was to all the way north or as far as you could get on the AT.

I had such a pipe dream and I knew I wasn't like super attached to it emotionally I knew is not the most likely thing but I thought it would have been really cool to like continuous football all of these trails obviously but yeah I just went until weather was so bad that I'm going to do it.

It was so bad that I'm like you're just driving yourself crazy by dealing with the the snow and stuff up in Vermont and going into New Hampshire.

Yeah and only five weeks after being done with the last through hike are you still in that like mindset and know where everything goes in your pack and have your trail legs are you still bringing that from the CDT.

Yeah honestly there couldn't have been a better prep for last year like a full through hike and one where the whole group we like really pushed miles.

We I yeah it laid a great foundation and then you get to take five weeks to kind of rehab but also I was on my feet for 12 hours a day every day.

And when I before work or depending on days ahead off I was trying to do like the stair master for like one to two hours.

Like three times a week so when I hit the floor to trail I just felt like so good.

Yeah knew where everything was in my pack all my gear was like exactly the same it was just brand new.

And just like right yeah ready to rip and average like 30 miles a day for the first five weeks which is much better than I ever would have.

Yeah like I was going to give myself grace you know to ease in and whatever way I needed to and I was very pleasantly surprised that my body felt I was so tired but I was able to make that work.

Yeah and this is sort of the first time you're almost in off season as you're going through some of these towns especially on the AT was it was it lonely was it different than previous through hikes because now your goal is bigger than everyone else out there on the trail.

It was different the funny thing was like three people did the same exact hike last year and the one person Punisher also started in you asked we met on New Year's Eve.

We didn't hike together for the first week but we did like the swamp together in big Cyprus and then we hike together to Massachusetts.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah so like a fat chunk and it's just cool when like our mileage goals and our pace and stuff at that point in time we're just exactly the same like we just like never sat down we just did 30 miles a day and it was good because like the we had a huge group of friends and hikers down in Florida and we broke all of them off like day two.

Day one was a 32 and I think like most people were not ready for the road walk 32 mile day like obviously and when you don't have to why would you you know so we lost the majority of the group one other hiker long shot actually hiked the first three weeks with me to he made it all the way to Christmas Florida which that was cool so like we had a little three person group for a few weeks.

And it was nice because I mean the 80 was so quiet we got on their February 18th hostels were just opening or we're empty we saw a couple of like the older time or guys who started like January 1st.

But by the time we hit Virginia we had passed pretty much everyone and the only people ahead of us was like the one other guy slide who was doing the border to border calendar your triple crown.

Because he had his whole where he started and stuff was like completely different from what we did.

But there was no one out there so it was completely it would have just been like totally me on my own until until it just wound up being me on my own for the rest of the 80.

Yeah hit bad weather and then flipped and then was in the bubble when I flipped out to the PC team.

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So check them out GarageGrome Gear.com to tell them I sent you. Yeah totally did you how did you get a how did the PCT permit work for not really knowing when you were going to start.

Yeah we got permits in the swamp which was I think just like very fitting in knee deep water in a swamp got a bar of service and Punisher and I had both had lottery dates for that date and time.

And he was like I have service right now we stopped we got permits. I just like made an estimate of the rough day and wound up starting fairly close to the dates not exactly but I really feel like at that point you're it's you're getting a permit.

Yeah and those people are like starting in the desert and getting off trail for like such as yeah getting off trail and getting injured or whatever so I'm like no harm no foul I guess.

Totally yeah so you get to the PCT from New Hampshire so walk through the kind of the red what the plan was the rest or how the rest of the year went from there.

Yeah so really would have been stoked to keep going on the 80 but when I got to Vermont the snow was crazy the days were just really long like I was still hitting 30 34 miles a day but I was hiking from like five in the morning until 10 or 11 at night and I just remember calling home and my dad was like I've never heard you sound like this before.

I was just like had nothing left in the tank like it was not sustainable and had a had a bunch of those moments where like you slip a certain way and you're like oh do you like I could break.

How dumb would I be to like break my ankle out here or something.

Yeah flipping out to the PCT I want to say it was April 29th or something like that and I was psyched after I mean you know I actually listen to your book on the audio book in either New Hampshire or Maine this year and it's just like couldn't be more relatable except obviously you didn't flip so you just went through all the horrors.

I had a lot of breakdowns now like flipping is the mental move when you're like when you need to hit a certain mileage every day it's just such a different experience of the way you feel like when you're moving slow it's so stressful and so like getting off the East Coast and being on the PCT and it's gorgeous and it was actually a very mild heat like time of year for the desert like I had no experiences with a hundred plus.

Degree heat but I got out there I'm in the bubble first day I saw a hundred people and I was just I just felt so strong and it was so cool to see people like I had been so lonely and I had like a really creepy encounter on the 80 right before I flipped so like being away from the shelters and surrounded by people I was just like this is exactly what I needed and then like first day was like a 42 and just.

Just like rip and yeah it was just amazing to be able to to be moving and yeah let's hit on this really quick because I think it might have been a part of your year and a lot of people don't know this but when you are doing something so weather dependent I think you really hit on it really well there of like you get this nervous feeling to look at your watch or to look at your mileage or your map because you are moving slower than you're supposed to.

And it's just like you know you're giving yourself future work it's almost when you're dreading opening a bill in the mail or a bad email or something is it is like the most emotionally taxing thing when you're in the snow and just like watching time slip away.

Yeah it's honestly like sickening because it's not the rate at which you're moving isn't changing anything like if you don't if you have a mileage goal for the day and you're going slow there's only two options hit your goal no matter what which means very little sleep and a late night or roll miles into another day.

So it's like which is the word I think the worst case scenario because you're actually just giving your future self like a nightmare so in the snow on the 80 for me I'm like I'm hitting the mileage go every day it doesn't matter so every it was like 17 hour days just to pull 32 miles which I think it's hard for some people to gauge but that's not great.

No and it's a ton of time with the headland too yeah and oh and like Vermont or these different places like the night hiking was actually the worst because you'd read comments and there's like it's early season so there's lots of down trees you're getting on and off trail you're having navigational issues like yeah it's just super time consuming and then you're getting to camp and you're exhausted and you have such a short amount of time to sleep and then you're just doing it over and over.

So yeah it's stressful it's hard to explain but there is that is like the was the hardest thing in the many sections of the year that that happens where you you can't change what's going on honestly like after a while you do have to just like accept it I'm going I'm not even going to check I'm going as slow as fast as I physically can it's all I can do.

And like I think maybe by the time that that had happened like a hundred times last year it does get easier because you're just like I could freak out but it's not going to make it better it's actually going to make it worse so I just have to yeah you just have to make it work whatever it takes.

Yeah you have the mindset of someone who can be really good at FKT because that's basically what it is over and over again okay so PCT we're moving north things are still fairly going according to plan when like do you have any issues with fires or snow in the Sierra like how does the PCT go over all this time because it's your third time out.

It was pretty good it was my peace was perfect I knew based off the snow that I was it was a good chance I wasn't going to be able to go straight through the Sierra or like if I did it just would have been really really slow.

I started having some pains for the first time the whole year I was having like this weird pain in my hip but it wasn't that bad it was like it was worse at the start of the day and then you'd get going and it would be totally fine.

But yeah everything was fine did the big miles no there was one small fire closure but a road walk around it made it all the way to Kenya Meadows south in like 20 days so couldn't have been better like I had set myself I was so above ahead of schedule I was like you're going to do an exactly what you have to do.

And then two guys were in front of me who I was watching them do videos and they were one guy was doing the great Western loop so I knew he wanted to be going fast as well and watching him and get slowed down by the Sierra I was like okay I'm going to flip it's may at this point I'll go finish the 80 I'll come back perfect plan and everything will be great.

So I got to the Sierra I jumped back out to the to the PCT as a New Hampshire it was great within 72 hours of being back in New Hampshire there was a freak late May snowstorm like that I'm from the East Coast like that's not common.

And it's so I was I was able to do the first couple like 4,000 photos in the whites a buddy of mine actually came out we hiked for a day together they then they got hit with a photo snow I did frankonia in a foot of like fresh slippery powder snow and it was leading on the girl who I did and this makes me feel better because it was like a horrible day and the girl I was with had done the grid which is like.

You do every 4,000 footer every month of the year so she done like 500 plus 4,000 photos and she said the day we had together on frankonia was the worst weather the most scared she was for body temperature regulation that she'd ever fell on all of them on but so it was so bad of whether you couldn't stop moving I slipped and like got a shooting paint through my hip but couldn't I was soaked through like we had to keep going we did like Garfield.

Whatever got down to like this hot zealand hot we were freezing and what sat down we actually went by people who were getting search and rescued out but we ran oh my god they had a search and rescue with them so we didn't leave them but we ran past them you're like dying I sat down and then stood back up and I was limping and couldn't bear a lot of weight on my left leg.

I was like okay like obviously like we pushed really hard today I tweaked something and then like went back to a hotel like walked out on a side trail to bail out went to North Conway and then the next day I couldn't bear any weight on that leg and like that just so like to a whole week went by I couldn't bear any weight on my left leg at all.

wound up just going to Shaw's hiker hostel in Maine because I like know them and I was like I can't hang out in North Conway for a week um and I was yeah I was like where do I go and then I spent 17 days off at Shaw's like really just like I was depressing times honestly yeah were you thinking it's over are you thinking that hike is over some first share like I remember calling my friend because the PT.

Who like Morgan blaze who does PT for the PCT I called her she thought I stress fractured the head of my femur just based off of the descriptions that I was giving for pain and like range of motion I never wound up going to a doctor but my thought was just okay it's either the worst case scenario and I'm off trail anyway or I take as much time as it takes and I get better.

But yeah a huge part of me was like oh dang like there's no coming back from this luckily I was so ahead on time that I I was like you can burn a week without even blinking you could burn two and it'd be fine and I mean like three or more I was like okay we're getting into like a range you can't really come back from um but it just like the timeline kind of somehow worked out it was just I've at one point I just sort of gave up.

On being depressed about it because I'm like it's whatever like this is either the end or I'm somehow going to make this work.

And great place to be laid up was like with hippie chicken poet and they're like beautiful family honestly like I yeah but also a hard place because all the Appalachian trail hikers are coming through.

It's cut out and had just opened and so like almost every day people are like oh my gosh you're the person doing X Y and Z I'm like please like don't even talk to me like I'm actually doing nothing right now.

Yeah and laid up for 17 or 18 days and then did like a few days of basically no miles using back in and then did two weeks of 23 miles a day.

But then you're good then I was yeah I was good enough finish the whole 80 and by like the start of July I was back on the PCT and honestly like looking back on it.

The weather everywhere was really bad like the people who I knew who were trying to do like calendar your triple crowns and stuff like they were like battling through snow and like horrible conditions in the Sierra.

And people skipped the Sierra but like Oregon and Washington had really bad snow so of any time of the year for something like that to happen it was the best case scenario because when I did get back to the PCT the Sierra was perfect.

Gorgeous did massive miles every day and there was like no snow and no river crossings so it was good it just created like a new the numbers had shifted from like a very comfortable daily average to I think a daily average that a lot of people would have probably been like oh yeah I'm going to go home because there's no way that I can do that for the rest of the year.

Especially coming off off an injury so yeah yeah like you actually have to do bigger miles more consistently than you've ever done and you never went to a doctor and you still have pain and you have no idea what's wrong.

Yeah classic just ignore it so do you make it all the way north on the PCT then.

Yeah so I made it through the Sierra I made it to Oregon and when I was getting into Oregon I did the math like for the first time in a while I did the continued Oregon and Washington what time will I get through Colorado.

So the math was just not math and if I kept so I wound up deciding to skip Oregon and leave it for later because if if I didn't skip Oregon if I just yeah okay sorry if I skipped Oregon and just did Washington Montana Wyoming Colorado I had to average 37 miles a day and I would still not get through Colorado until like the 10th of October.

So that was like cutting it insanely close so if I hadn't skipped Oregon it would have been I guess maybe like 40 something miles a day to get through in like a safe whatever you would consider to be safe.

It's getting close to FKT pace yeah yeah so I skipped Oregon and then yeah wash for the whole rest of the PCT and all of the CDT it was nine weeks average 37 miles a day every day and we was just a little loose loans some little person and on the CDT ever because I didn't hit the south on bubble until steamboat springs.

Yeah like everything was alive the forest is very alive when there's no hikers so it's like every day was I was like living usually you don't see all these animals and you can pretend that there's nothing out there it was like every day for me I was having a really close weird animal encounter.

And then you'd be like well I got that out of the way that'll never happen again and then like the next day it's like you're following up your two bear cub and mom a cub and mom a bear with like three bear cubs or like a mountain lion it's like when will this stop you know yeah what was the scariest of the interactions.

Probably all the bears um I saw a mountain lion it was that was like cool I actually um was in somewhere near somewhere and why oh me.

Near the boy and the the train rained and there was no tracks and I woke up in the morning and there were wolf tracks right in front of my tent like two wolves like maybe like a large one and a baby.

That was just cool that was super cool but like gris now you're seeing all the tracks so there's just bear tracks everywhere I had like a kind of close encounter with what I would assume is a grisly just because of the noise is it made but I couldn't it was very close but I couldn't see it because of like the brush.

And then yeah mom a bear and two cubs mom a bear and three cubs and it was just it's just and it was always right before dark when you're thinking I have miles to make I need to keep going the bears like on the trail and I'm like I don't have time to wait for you and also every time now that I'm waiting now I'm hiking in the dark and like grizzly bear country in the dark is scary.

Like yeah I was yeah it was just like so uncomfortable all the time at night yeah it was just like not enjoyable but also you have no choice with the mileage I had to do I'm like you're hiking in the dark for a couple hours every night for sure.

Are you still enjoying it through through that section at all is it do you like the process and this is just a tougher part of the process type of thing or how are you thinking of it.

I feel like the the best part of that time was I was like headset this new goal that was like harder than anything I'd ever done like if I could do like 10 weeks if 37 miles a day like I had never even come close to that.

So like the first two three four weeks like by the time I'm in Wyoming it's like I had stock I had actually was a teeny bit ahead of my perfect schedule.

So I was just like very proud of like what I had been managing to pull off and I'm like if you just did this for four weeks like you can you can pull this off.

So I think like the want to do that was stronger than the intense discomfort of all of the wildlife and I also knew every day that goes by you're getting closer and closer to Colorado.

Like once you're in Colorado all I'm scared of is moose like you're going to see 10 moose a day but to be out of grizzly country.

I don't even mind bears honestly like the moms with their cubs they they didn't care that I was there I scared them as much as they scared me.

It's just like yeah it's just that ever present fear of like to you like what's going to happen are you going to get a good night's sleep or something going to be like around your tent.

You're going to have to be pulling your bare face out like.

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Yeah totally and so okay so we're in Colorado and then when do you start to think like I could probably finish this do you are you starting to feel comfortable with the triple crown at this point or what's the the feelings as you get out of a grizzly country.

Yeah when I was getting into like Rawlins or you know like the road walking I did get I got bumped off in the winds and had to do a crazy road walk because a whole section of trail was closed.

Um and yeah that was a whole thing of its own like really long road walks aren't actually super fun especially when you're by yourself.

Um but by the time I got to call a rato I realized like you aren't running anymore.

Now you're just checking the daily weather like you're fine.

You're here actually like you're probably going to be okay the whole time and I got hit with like one snow storm where it was like I was hiking in some pretty good snow um and had to yeah like it.

It wasn't stuff happened and it wasn't ideal but then that melted out it was fine.

I did I didn't have to do like the great divide green line but I did creed.

Um my goal I really wanted to do the sand wands like all year I was saying I was going to just do the sand wands but the peep there was some friends of mine who were there and they got hit with a huge snow storm I was like yeah I'm good like all void as much road walking as I can but I'm not going to kill myself but

well at least once I was in Colorado I knew all that was left was the rest of Colorado in New Mexico and Oregon.

So I thought I had it in the bag honestly and I got through Colorado and made it to New Mexico and I got back out to the PCT and like clockwork I hiked for about 72 hours on the PCT and they got hit with a freak snow storm in Oregon that all the locals were like this hasn't happened in years this isn't typical at all.

Um got like two feet of snow and it was fine it wound up being fine it was just like really added it made what should have been a really easy like fun section of trail into a tedious really cold navigational nightmare because there's nobody out there um yeah but it was fine.

It's you I think it's you with the record snow years the 72 hours storm it seems like you're the common theme here.

Yeah it's dude it's just a funny thing that yeah you just do all this stuff to plan and then but that's exactly what everyone should be expecting is like you all save Oregon for last because in the last three years they never get snow until January it's like yeah so they're going to get snow the previous year when they got snow that early was

Professor Carl sported a border okay in the last 10 years those were the only two years it's yeah the universe can feel that someone has all this intention and it's just like let's see let's see yeah let's test that person test that person a little more.

So you're also like putting out content and growing quite a platform how does that feel and how does that complicate the hike because I wrote right one paragraph a day.

Maybe take a photo that's about it kids these days because I'm so old you guys are doing like way more how are you doing that and this mileage.

Um I feel like the the best way to get into something like that was just making it a part of the hike immediately when I started so starting in Florida where you have like service every day you're charging your phone pretty frequently.

I got into like just a really good daily routine of the videos and the blogs and I think because I it just became a part of the every day that as I got into harder sections of trail.

I just got better at you know you don't have time to write with your on your phone but maybe you can voice to text or when you were on a flat section of trail like i'm editing wall i'm walking i'm writing blogs on road walks i'm because up until.

I'm up until like getting injured so like maybe I was five thousand or something miles in I was only one day behind like I was posting in real time whoa basically so it went really well and then I fell behind because like this being in the Sierra and stuff like that but it just was a full time job but it makes it easier when you're telling yourself like this is what is

as things grew it's like then you do have more wiggle room for the luxury of like okay the only thing in town is an expensive hotel but you have tons of editing to do and you're so tired and you want to shower so bad and it's like i'm glad that i'm spending all this time doing social media stuff because I can afford to get this room and i'm going to you know say up all night editing probably anyway but yeah it when you making money were you making money through social media or youtuber yeah especially through the blog.

but I did like my youtube monetize the first month or two of last year so that was like not enough that if you're a real person it's not like an income but when you're hiking if you have any especially slightly predictable income coming in it just made a huge it was a big relief honestly totally yeah and did it change or did it help even like in these sections like grizzly country and stuff to have like this outlet

or people to interact with online too for the lonelier parts of the year yeah I think oddly the lonelier or those parts of the year I feel like or when you had the least service but it is just nice to be able to like writing you really work through all those thoughts and fears and things and I think it kind of gives them more context and makes you realize like you're not you don't hate hiking you're in this really hard time right now but also

you yeah like you had a horrible encounter with a bear yesterday but now it's like this it stopped oh and it like rained every single day on the city to but it's like oh well today it stopped raining and like you're following wolf tracks and that's like so cool and it's all of those like really intense lows were matched with like really really cool highs and I got to experience all of it in like extreme exhaustion so I feel like I was I feel I'm not

imagine you must have felt this way on your FKT where it's as this oddly spiritual element to the way you experience nature because I just felt like I felt like I was seeing signs and I felt like the world around me was trying to communicate with me and sometimes I'd be so in my head and the day would be so low and then you'd like turn a corner and the you'd get like hit in the face with like the craziest like sun optical thing

and you're just like okay I hear you like I see what you're trying to convey that I need to like stop with this negative cycle of thoughts like I hear you loud and clear and I don't know if that was like the actual delusion of how overtired I was and like my mind was melting but I had so many of those where I just felt

yeah like a spiritual experience but I'm not even really like I'm not particularly religious but I had a lot of those last year.

Yeah it is a wild feeling it's it's almost like the cleanse of once a rain stops or like smells good and feels really good and brings you back to present and I had a lot of those two where

because I would like remember something from I've done the 18 9 years prior so I could bounce between like present day to nostalgia or a memory from the past and then like boom a sunset right in the current moment your feet hurting that you're trying to block out all that doesn't matter because it's incredible again it it really is so rewarding to just keep stripping things from your life and like push your body harder physically and demand more of it with

video or editing or more work but also to still be thriving and successful I don't know it's like such an empowering feeling that's so hard to explain to people yeah I feel like it's something that was lacking from all my previous through hikes I just think you I hadn't ever pushed myself hard enough to tap into that before.

I feel like a lot of people go out and that's their goals they want to have like a spiritual awakening and I really do feel like it would be different for everyone but I think the key is that is like giving you I don't know if you can have that unless you give every ounce of what you have to the point where you almost have nothing left and then you have to give even more and then you're like so raw and like right there at the surface that you're able to like here in person.

I see all of these things that I think other people are just walking right past oh totally yeah I think it's that's where the magic of the first through I really happens is it's like this awakening on you know how you could go to the store anytime you're hungry now you have to think about these things that are so basic in life but now they're front of mind again finally so let's as we close out how did the rest of the year go so get through Oregon jump back.

To the CDT close out the CDT and then do you decide you want to do more hiking at this point or how does the goal morph and how do you fit in stuff yeah get to 10,000 miles I think honestly after the Oregon snow every I was like nothing everything's going to be chill anything could happen and it wouldn't matter for the rest of the year and the rest of the CDT was amazing I caught the whole bubble like I caught a bubble of like 30

people and they were hiking in a tramway that was 20 plus people oh my god yeah it was so coming from like the loneliest hike ever to that and probably five or 10 of them were people I'd hiked with on other trails so the yeah cash I caught those people right before pi town and they were having a Halloween party at the toaster house so I like slow down took zero's like hiked with this big group of people for a few days and I feel

like by doing that for the first time in weeks, I wasn't tired anymore. Like I

didn't feel that overwhelming, all encompassing like sense of exhaustion

anymore. I was fine again. I was just hiking and doing whatever the daily

mileage. And that's when I started to think, okay, well, I'm still gonna finish

this thing before Thanksgiving, which was my goal from the start of the year

before I even got injured. And so that's when I started to think maybe I'll go

somewhere and scrap together the miles to hit 9,000. It just felt like it would be

there was so much time left. It's like, are you ever gonna do this many miles in a

year again? It would almost be a waste not to do as much as you could just so you

feel like you didn't leave anything out there like you won't have regrets. And

I had been like talking sense like back before the big mile push and at the

end of the PCT, I had been in communication with the other guy's side who was

doing the border to border. And like we crossed paths in towns a few times. So I

knew he was down in Alabama finishing up going to Key West. And he had done the

math out perfectly because he wanted to hit 10,000 miles. So I started thinking

okay, like I could go down there and just do as many miles as I want. But and he

did the math and he had to average 38 miles a day to hit 10,000. So I was like, do

I want to do that? You just actually spent your whole life doing that. But at

least it's Florida and you wouldn't be alone. So I think when I went down a big

part of me is like obviously you're just going to try to hit 10,000. But maybe

because the pressure in a way was off. Like I'd hit my goal. I'd hit my goal. I

posted every video like I was caught up. I'd satisfied all of the, you know, contractual

agreements or whatever for the whole year. I did everything I set out to do. And now it's like,

okay, I guess I could just go try to do this and keep pushing. And if I only hit nine or 95

hundred, like I won't care. Yeah. And then you did. You got to 10,070. How does that

feel? What would, what would you of two years ago think if you knew what you did last year?

I think that's the craziest thing to think about is no part of me in 2022 or 2023.

I would, it just would have blown my mind to even think about doing anything like this. And when

I was actually an organ, I ran into a guy who was in my 2017 family. And I hung out with him.

And I think that was the craziest thing because I'm like the person that he knew who is,

doesn't exist anymore. A little novice hiker who had never overnight camped with her big

offspring backpack. Like that memory exists in this dude Michael's mind like forever. And now here I

am almost 10 years later, eight years later, a completely different person. And yeah, it's,

it's crazy to think about. I definitely wouldn't have ever imagined that I was, that I would wind

up here. But it's also just crazy to think that last year was wild and a lot went on. But it's,

it wasn't, it doesn't feel like it's the hardest thing that necessarily I might ever do in my

higher life. Because it didn't destroy me. Like it broke me down. I mean, there were times when

I was like so unwell, especially mentally like I was like a cackling maniac like crying and laughing.

And like I'd call my friend and she'd be like, you sound psychotic. I'm like, yeah, I've gone four

hours a seat for 10 weeks. Like I'm not well. But I was like, my spirits were like really high.

I felt good. Like a part of me felt really good. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So what is next? What are future

goals? Um, there's nothing sat in stone at all. I am toying with ideas about maybe trying

to do an FKT this year. I think something a little more digestible in time commitment sounds

appealing. Um, probably a through hike or two, but I don't know if it'll be, I, I would imagine summer or

after. Um, like I have a PCT permit because of course I had to get one, but I don't necessarily think

I'm going to be on the PCT. Yeah. I don't know. I'm very unsure. Like there's a lot of things

that I would like to dip my toes into. Right now I'm honestly just trying to like train and get

back to like I'm still like oddly tight. Like my calves are so tight. I'm trying to get my body

back into like a more rounded level of fitness. Yeah. These things change your body because it's just

the same motion. What probably like a few million times over the course of the year.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining. Um, where can we find you online? Yeah. Everything's

just my name Madison Blackden, Instagram, YouTube, um, like sub-stack. And then I blog for the

track, which is like Madison Blackden or Pegleg. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on. This was great.

Yeah. Thanks for having me. This is cool.

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So we talked about the Appalachian Trail documentary coming out. We talked about North East

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supported people. So that's fun. Wow. We have so much. There's a sub-stack. There's a movie you

can watch free on to be about setting the Colorado Trail FKT. That movie is just called free outside.

Just like everything in my life. I wrote a book called free outside that you can buy.

Free outside.com is a place. Thank you guys for being here. It's amazing. If I would have told my

high school self that I actually would be talking on a podcast and have a podcast and be able to

communicate with other people in a semi-normal way. He probably wouldn't have believed you or would

have hoped to not have to say a word in that conversation because he was nervous and afraid of

talking in high school unless it was sports related, like calling a fly ball on the baseball field.

Anyways, that's what we're at in life. I want to have on Allison Powell, my fiance. Again,

so that might be the episode this Friday. I'm recording one here in a few minutes.

And we just have a lot of good stuff to keep rolling. You are always welcome to shoot me a message

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elite my friends.