Hiking across Florida was everything I’d hoped, good people, endless sky, and a life spent outside. But beneath the ease of it all, a nagging thought filled me with subtle dread. A goal left unfinished. Something that felt beyond my capabilities, beyond what I could take on while living out of a backpack. And yet, […]
The winter pilgrimage begins on New Year’s Day at the Southernmost Point of the United States in Key West, but I was already a day behind, and had only made it as far south as Marathon when I saw the first familiar faces hiking north. Longshot, hiking with Peg Leg on her audacious border-to-border calendar […]
I finished the Pinhoti Trail before the end of 2024, spending my last night in the shelter on Weogufka Creek, listening to the water slip over rocks, the sound as familiar as my own breath. At the base of Flagg Mountain, I contemplated my need for significant alone time in order to process emotions and […]
I woke to a cool morning fog at Laurel Shelter on the Pinhoti Trail, the kind that clings to everything and slows the world down. The plan for the day was an easy ten miles to Lower Shoals Shelter. But when a friend canceled our meet-up in Heflin the next day, I thought, “Why not […]
By the time I reached the Georgia-Alabama state line, all doubts about a life spent hiking had dissolved. The societal detox was complete, and the trail had me in awe once more. After leaving Cave Spring, I stopped at Spring Creek Shelter for the night, realizing there were far more shelters along the Pinhoti than […]
From Mack White Gap, the Pinhoti Trail stretches southward, a ten-mile ridge walk through the crisp fall leaves of the Chattahoochee National Forest, before spilling down to Georgia State Route 100. Not quite a road walk, though close enough, the trail clings to the roadside, occasionally meandering out of sight. I’d been told that this […]
I was still coughing up thick green mucus, but compared to the wreck I’d been when I left the trail, it felt like a new lease on life. The road walk out of Chatsworth stretched for miles ahead, but I didn’t make it far before a car pulled over, unbidden. No thumb needed. The driver […]
There was a heaviness in me that went beyond exhaustion, a bone-deep weariness that no amount of rest could touch. I’d barely set foot on the Benton MacKaye Trail when I noticed the blister that wasn’t a blister. Squeezing the swollen lump on my foot, I watched in disbelief as a string of green and […]
I resumed existence somewhere in the backwoods of Tennessee, summoned to feast with friends, new and old. The gathering was an annual tradition, though it was my first time attending. Hosted by Root 66, the same friend who once led me down a forgotten, snow-laden trail from a frozen mountain, where we stumbled into town […]
Got a little sidetracked after I got off trail… #ilovemushrooms
