How far can you go before the world comes back? I left the East Verde River just before sunset, climbing into the Mazatals with wet clothes cooling on my skin. Three thousand feet of elevation ahead, stretched together in fading light. A disco remix in my bone conduction headphones gave my legs a rhythm that […]
Why does stopping feel wrong before it feels right? I planned to keep moving. That was the default. Miles meant progress. Progress meant I was doing it correctly. But I reached the East Verde River at sunset and didn’t feel like earning anything else that day. I cowboy camped between two fallen logs, more as […]
The town came alive below me as the sun sank behind the ridge. I’d followed the Pine–Strawberry Trail out of town without much thought, just climbing until the noise softened and the air cooled. Halfway up Strawberry Mountain, I found an alligator juniper and leaned back into its bark, patterned and solid, like it had […]
I wasn’t thinking about the trail anymore. Somewhere around mile ten, walking into the Mogollon Rim Ranger Station for a dollar ice cream and three sodas, my body kept moving forward, but my mind had already left. It was fixed on something warmer. Tastier. Alive in a different way. Empanadas. PIEbar. Thirty miles off trail […]
I filtered water and brushed my teeth along the river below Double Springs, the current moving steady over rocks like it had somewhere else to be. The days stretched out in that easy range, seventeen to twenty-two miles, the kind of terrain that lets your body fall into a rhythm without asking too many questions. […]
Stealth camping in Great Barrington under a sky that threatened rain but never delivered. I laid out my sleeping pad and bag directly on the grass, no tent, just open air and the possibility of getting soaked. A half gallon of milk, and a flashlight that probably gave away my position to anyone who cared […]
I’d been depressed for almost a year when I arrived at Jenny’s Cabin. Normally I tuck that away, but it has a tendency to resurface in quiet moments. In the empty Airbnb at the start of this hike, and now in the quiet solitude of an off grid cabin where I stopped running from my […]
The Sawyer water filter had been hidden in my backpack since February, when I got off the Florida Trail and disappeared into the digital exile of Cancun. I’d never bothered to backflush it or check its flow rate, and somehow had managed to avoid filtering water for my first thirty miles back on the Appalachian […]
The Appalachian Trail’s shelter system makes a potentially overwhelming journey manageable by breaking it up into small segments. Each day becomes simple, just make it to the next shelter. One after another. Until you reach your destination, whatever or wherever that might actually be. Wiley Shelter surprised me with its nonexistent mice population, hosting only […]
Seventeen dollars and a train ride out of New York City left me in Pawling, New York. My backpack felt light, and I floated out of town, feet barely skimming the asphalt. After too many months sedentary in Mexico, staring at a laptop and trying to build a future, it felt good to be moving […]