Even Hikers Get The Blues

Why do so many people report feeling depressed after hiking the Appalachian Trail?

Editor's Note: A previous version of this podcast included an incorrect comparative latitude of Mt. Katahdin, in Maine.

When Jocelyn Smith was growing up, she told her friends and family she didn’t want to go to college. Instead, her goal was to hike all 2,190 miles of the Appalachian Trail, a rugged journey spanning from northern Georgia to central Maine. Last year, she finally realized that dream in a seven-month long, life-changing adventure.

But as soon as she started her descent from the last mountain summit, she started to wonder… what now? What did all of this mean? For the thousands of people who “thru-hike” the world’s longest trails, this is actually a well-known phenomenon. They call it “the post-trail blues.'' 

If getting out into nature is supposed to be restorative, why do so many long-distance hikers report feeling depressed after they finish? In this episode, we explore how an epic hike turns into a new identity, and ask why some of the biggest achievements of our lives can leave us feeling strangely empty. 

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Featuring: Jocelyn Smith, Shalin Desai, Joseph Robinson, and Anne Baker.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, reach out to the folks at the Crisis Text Line, a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.

Links

Jocelyn Smith’s blog for The Trek

Shalin Desai’s piece about diversity on the trail, originally published in A.T. Journeys, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy magazine. 

More information about the life and music of Earl Shaffer, the first known person to have thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail from end-to-end. 

Anne Baker’s article for The Trek, titled Post-Trail Depression: It’s Not What You Think

Our previous episode on Baxter State Park, featuring ultra-marathoner Scott Jurek: “Champagne on The Rocks”


Credits

Reported and produced by Taylor Quimby

Edited by Rebecca Lavoie

Additional Editing: Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, and Jessica Hunt

Executive Producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions, River Foxcroft, Dew of Light, Golden Age Radio, Matt Large, and Earl Shaffer.

If you’ve got a question for the Outside/In[box] hotline, give us a call! We’re always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

Audio Transcript

Note: Episodes of Outside/In are made as pieces of audio, and some context and nuance may be lost on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.

You know how some people know what they want to be when they grow up from a very young age? Jocelyn Smith was one of those people. 

When she was a kid, her grandfather took her into the woods of Vermont. They were hoping to see a moose. 

They didn’t – but Jocelyn did see something else that day: a chocolate brown sign painted with a bright white arrow.

Jocelyn Smith: So it kind of just became this spark in my mind at a really young age. And I always said to family and to friends like, I never want to go to college. I just I just have this dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail, and it always seemed like It would never happen. But yeah, it kind of did one day.

Jocelyn Smith [instagram clip] : Lemon and I waited a long time to be on this ridge…

Lemon: Since Georgia. 

Jocelyn: Since Georgia, we’ve been talking about it. 

Lemon: [Quack sound]

[goofy mux]

The Appalachian Trail spans (roughly) two-thousand one-hundred and ninety miles from Northern Georgia to central Maine. If you add up all the elevation gained from end to end, we’re talking somewhere around half a million feet - more than 15 times the height of Mount Everest.

It takes as long as half a year to hike the whole thing end to end. People sometimes quit their jobs or break-up relationships just to do it. 


Jocelyn took the plunge in March 2021, and documented her journey in real-time on social media. 

Jocelyn Smith Insta tape: going to be a beautiful day, hopefully we can get up Washington. If we’re all feeling brave [wind picks up dramatically]

There were setbacks. High winds… 

Minor injuries, thigh-deep mud bogs…

Jocelyn Smith Insta tape: That’s about half a trekking pole and I could keep going but I’m scared. 

but also new friends… 

Jocelyn Smith Insta tape: [Friends all singing] We’re going to Franklin… Today! We’ve got ice for ankles… I’m icing my knees! [laughter]

[mux hushes]

And with fewer than a hundred miles to go… [whisper this part] this linear trip took her full circle…when Jocelyn finally got to see a moose. 

Jocelyn Smith: There’s a moose and it’s coming for us… 

Jocelyn’s trail friend: Are you [expletive] kidding me? 

Jocelyn Smith: Moose moose moose… My grandfather’s gonna love this. This is going to blow his mind. 

[inspiring mux rises]

It took her 7 months. Since Jocelyn’s not even 30 yet, that’s something like 2% of her entire life up until now spent hiking. 

On October 6th, 2021 she summited the last peak of the trail, Mt. Katahdin… A video of her last few steps nabbed more than 800 likes on Instagram. 

Friend: Yay, you made it!

Jocelyn: Holy shit.

Friend: You’re a thru-hiker.

Jocelyn: I’m a thru-hiker. 

That’s it. Dream achieved.

Over two-thousand miles… condensed into 12 seconds of social media glory. 

Jocelyn Smith: like, I climbed another mountain and I touched the sign and I took a few pictures. And now that means I'm a true hiker on the AT, I guess…But I don't know. I wanted more. I wanted to feel more, and I didn't. It was very strange.

It’s hard not to be a little envious looking at Jocelyn’s Instagram feed: all of those beautiful sunrise peaks and hard-earned miles. 

But for the thousands of people who thru-hike the world’s longest trails, there’s a common experience that doesn’t share as nicely. 

They call it “the post-trail blues.” 

Jocelyn Smith: I Remember thinking to myself, I said I wanted to hike the whole Appalachian Trail my entire life. I didn't care about going to college, I didn't care about anything of that, and now I did it. And at that point I'm like, Well, what do I do now?

[Somber Outside/In Theme]

This is Outside/In, a show about the natural world and how we use it. I’m Taylor Quimby. 

Getting out into nature is supposed to be restorative - so why do so many thru-hikers report feeling depressed after they finish? 

Today on the show, we examine the post-trail blues… to better understand how a hike becomes an identity… and why some of the biggest achievements of our lives can leave us feeling strangely empty. 

[mux fade]

Jocelyn Smith: I just feel like, I feel like a little Shell of a human. Some days I wake up and I'm like, like , I can't even move or get out of bed. It's weird.

I met Jocelyn at her parents house in Vermont, where she’s been living since she finished the trail last October. 

You can occasionally hear her cat Porky purring on her lap in the tape. 

Taylor Quimby: Hi Kitty!

Porky: [purrs]

She says her first inkling of the post-trail blues actually came when she first saw Mt. Katahdin looming in the distance. 

Jocelyn Smith: I was like, Oh crap, like, that's where I'm going. And like, 5hat's the end. That's it. 

I’ve talked to a few thru-hikers now, and all of them have said the same thing. Maybe it’s only a couple days, or maybe it’s a couple of months - but everybody gets the post-trail blues.

It's an open secret among thru-hikers. A joke when you’re nearing the end of your journey… and then a quiet spectre that haunts you after you’ve put your poles down and walked off the trail.

Jocelyn wasn’t too worried about it though - she says she’d struggled with depression before. 

Jocelyn Smith:... And I'm like, nothing about getting off the trail could be any worse than that.

 And then I was like, Crap, this is horrible. It's really horrible. It's a lot. So it's like just totally Two totally different worlds, you Know.

[mux]

Jocelyn says the first few days after she summited Katahdin, she avoided going home. She and her trail buddies went to the Maine coast - partied, danced, ordered lobster rolls. 

But the club vibe was weird. The lobster rolls weren’t satisfying. It was like they were trying to hang on to an experience that had obviously come to an end. 

Jocelyn Smith: I think I was really just trying to not feel anything, which is why we drank and went to party and whatever.

But then Jocelyn got dropped off at her parent’s house 

And those first few days were like stepping off a boat after years at sea.

Her bed was too soft. She forgot to feed Porky. She walked around the house at night wearing her headlamp instead of turning on a light.

Jocelyn Smith: The Funniest thing that I can remember happening As I like, I  Went to the grocery store or something and I came back at night and I needed to pee And I was literally maybe 20 feet away from the door entrance to the House.

And for some reason, I was like, I'm just going to I'm just going to pee outside Like it Felt more normal to pee outside than it did in a toilet. And I was like, I'm like, I'm in my parents yard taking a piss. I'm like, This is not this is not OK. Like, this is not what people do.

[mux ends]

Breaking months-long habit is one thing - but over the next few weeks, Jocelyn’s post-trail blues started to manifest in decidedly less quirky ways. 

Jocelyn Smith: [01:17:43-01:17:59] Speaker4: My body shut down. It hurt. I had Achilles problems all of the sudden, like pain in my legs that I've never felt before, the entire time I hiked.

And all of the luxuries that Jocelyn had pined over when she couldn’t have them - greasy burgers, a plate of scrambled eggs - they seemed alien now.

[01:12:14-01:12:19] Speaker4: My relationship with food got weird on the trail. And then it's continued to be weird since then. Still, I still don't know how to eat, right?

Trail food is utilitarian - nuts and instant coffee and dehydrated carbs… it’s all about getting enough fuel to keep your body going. 

Every so often, they have to head into one of the many towns that border the trail to re-stock their packs. Which doubles as an opportunity to stay in a hostel, shower, rest - or take a zero day, as in zero miles hiked - and indulge in a banana split, or fries. These meals  are supposed to be a reward. Now she could eat whatever 

Now, Jocelyn could eat whatever she wanted - whenever she wanted it. 

 Taylor Quimby: Is it a guilty feeling part partially of being like, Oh, I'm going to get whatever I want? And that shouldn't be the way it is or something? 

Jocelyn Smith: Yeah, I kind of feel like I didn't deserve it. I didn't earn I didn't earn that Chicken parmesan or I didn't earn the steak in the grocery store that I could buy and Watching Like seeing people loading their grocery carts with mountains of food. I was like, This is wild.

[mux]

And then, there were the conversations. Friends and acquaintances would want to hear about her journey, but quickly tire of the details. 

Trail talk can be boring if you’re not into hiking. Bad weather, broken gear,  this peak or that valley: it all has a a way of blending together. 

For thru-hikers describing the power of these moments is like trying to describe a vivid dream that’s already slipping away. 

Jocelyn felt like nobody could understand what she’d been through.

Jocelyn Smith: I've literally had people tell me like, Oh, I like, you can't be that different. And I'm like, You don't understand because you weren't there. 

[mux swell]

#TQ: I’ve never done any proper backpacking, but I hike a fair amount, and go camping every now and then.  So you’d think I understand where Jocelyn is coming from. But I don’t. I don’t know the first thing about going 2,000 miles on the trail. 

[mux post]

So if we’re going to learn why people suffer from post-trail depression… we’re going to need to understand what drives them there in the first place. 

Shalin Desai: Hey there Taylor! 

Taylor Quimby: How you doing?

Shalin Desai: I’m good, how are you?

This is Shalin Desai [SHAH-lin duh-SAI]  Vice President of Advancement at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. 

Shalin Desai: I've been working there now for two years, but before that I’m what’s called a Triple Crowner.

Taylor Quimby: Being a triple crowner means Shalin has hiked three of the the longest trails in the US. The AT, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail.  

And I realize I keep emphasizing how wild these distances are, but bear with me - that’s over 8,000 miles… approximately one-third the circumference of the Earth.  

Taylor Quimby: Having done the Triple Crown, do you say it that way? I've done the Triple Crown or… is the crown a thing you have or that you've done>

Shalin Desai: It's funny. You asked that they actually have a ceremony… where all the people who are completing the Triple Crown get an…An actual crown.

But of the three super hikes of the Triple Crown, there are a couple things that make the Appalachian Trail stand out. 

First of all, it’s the oldest one. 

[old-timey jazz mux]

In 1921, just over 100 years ago, a guy named Benton Mackaye first proposed the Appalachian Trail in an essay.

Shalin Desai: And in it, he used this phrase, which I thought was pretty remarkable, which is that the trail …should be there… to be a solution to the problems of living. It's a big claim, right? Like how does a trail solve the problems of living? 

Mackaye thought the Appalachian Trail because he thought it could create jobs, help to conserve forests, and make people healthier.

He thought people who were struggling with mental illness, or burn-out… They just needed to get into the woods for a week or two and sort out their priorities. 

Sounds idealistic? 

[mux fade]

Shalin Desai: But if you think about it, 1921 is a lot like twenty twenty one, right? We were coming off the heels of a major world war. There was, at that time, a flu pandemic. You know, there were immigration rights that were being litigated. There were women's rights, especially the right to vote that was being contested. There were racial issues. You know, the Tulsa riots just happened. Does that sound familiar to you? It sounds a lot like twenty twenty one, right?

[mux]

In 1948, a poet, musician, and World War II vet named Earl Shaffer became the first person to hike The ATend-to-end. He did it to quote “walk off the war”. 

[mux]

Today, more than three thousand people join that same club every year. And they do it for very different, but also similar reasons. 

Shalin Desai: When I was out on trail, I was back on trail. In twenty fifteen. I met a lot of people that were coming out of a divorce. A lot of people that were about to go to grad school. A lot of people that were taking sabbatical from work. I actually met quite a few people that were out there for what they consider to be grief therapy. They had lost a loved one and they wanted to walk off the grief…

[shaffer mux rises and fades]

Taylor Quimby: I mean, did you go into it thinking like, there's something specific that you wanted to get out of it?

Jocelyn Smith:]: Yeah, I think I think I was honestly like kind of in a way, just wanting to hit the reset button. So when I made the decision to go out there, I didn't like feel like I shot a ton of people out of my life. But I expressed to them, I'm like, I'm going to do this thing. And if you're not supportive of that, that's not my problem.


As someone who played a lot of Nintendo growing up, I can tell you - people don’t usually hit the reset the button when you’re winning the game.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the dance studio where she taught closed down. In her other job, as a bartender, she was sequestered behind a plexiglass screen, and then she got fired in December of 2020

Her apartment lease was also about to end - so pretty soon, she’d have nowhere to live.. 

Jocelyn Smith: I had no money, I had no jobs and I was just like, crap, like, what do I do with myself now?

[mux swell and fade]

One of the things that distinguishes the AT, aside from its age, it’s just how easy to get to it is. . 

One might like to imagine remote mountain peaks and trails surrounded by vast forests, and sure there is some of that. 

But get this - the trail passes just thirty miles North of New York City. 

Nearly two-thirds of the entire US population… can get to a point on the Appalachian Trail in a single day's drive. 

Two-thirds. 

Some thru-hikers may be seeking solitude - but they’ll spend a lot of time around one another. 

Most thru-hikers start in Georgia around the same time. 

They’re all using the same shelters and campsites strategically set up along the way. 

If you pass someone at 4pm, there’s a good chance they’ll just catch up to your campsite in a couple hours. 

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: You're with people, but you also feel by yourself because there's no one there that you're actually familiar with that, you know? 

This is my friend Joseph Robinson. He lived in my Mom’s basement for awhile after he finished his thru-hike in a few years ago. 

Joseph told me those first few hundred miles were the hardest for him. 

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: I thought about my friends back at home, I thought about my parents. I thought about how my mom thinks I'm probably going to die out here, like how my dad's like, what the heck has gotten into him?

I was listening to Johnny Cash for like probably a week and a half straight, do you want to know really?

Taylor Quimby: You were going through the Ring of Fire.

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: Your boy was on fire!

Hiking through rain, with blisters the size of gumballs, choking down re-hydrated meals that taste like cold oatmeal.

Thru-hikers relish these stories. They share them like veterans of some strange, badly planned war.

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: I mean, I've seen it all like, dude, I've had people walk up behind me while I've been taking a poop, and I didn't even know it. And they did. And when you look back behind you, they're just going to keep walking. They're just walking right past you.

One of the natural consequences of these shared hardships are what thru-hikers call “trail families”, or “tramilies” for short. 

What at first makes you lonely is later what brings you together.

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: And so all of a sudden, it's just a group of strangers that come together and. We all just say, start talking about family, friends, what we would be doing, things like that. And then that's where the emotions really create that cement in that trail family.

[mux]

All of this feels key to understanding why thru-hikers might feel depressed after they finish.

From day 1, they begin forming their own mobile communities along the trail. And with those communities, new alter egos. 

You can reinvent yourself on the trail. 

People don’t judge you by your job, or your income. They judge you by your attitude. By your ability to laugh through pain, and sing in the rain. 

Thru-hikers often hike side by side for hundreds of miles without ever learning each other’s real names.

They go by “trail names” they receive from fellow hikers on the AT. 

Wacky stuff: Sliced Beets, Mouse King, Chilly-Willy, or Lost and Found. 

Joseph’s trail name is General Hendrix. Hendrix, because well, Hendrix. 

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: I used to go around singing it until I used to sing all the lyrics and everything

And general, because he has the uncanny ability to start a campfire with military efficiency.

[mushrooms line]

Jocelyn got her trail name because of something that was always dangling from her pack. And fair warning - this trail name is NSFPR. Not suitable for public radio. 

Jocelyn Smith: in my dance classes, we would use a massage like foam Roller, and I Brought one on the trail with me, and it's a double ball foam roller. 

[more here]

She kept the foam roller in a sack. A ballsack. People kept asking about it - and thus, her trail name became “Ballsack.”

Jocelyn Smith: It became kind of a weird, awkward challenge to get over at some point, like the sweet church lady is doing trail magic, asking everyone their trail names, and I've got to look them in the eye and be like, Hi, my name is Balzac and I'm a six foot tall woman, and here I am.

But here’s the thing about a mobile community. They’re together for the journey - until that is, the trail ends and everybody goes back to wherever they came from. Who you are, or who the people around you think you are, changes overnight. Like a dream.

Jocelyn Smith: What does any of this mean now? What was the point of this adventure and this trip and this journey? I felt very, very much like a loss. It still feels that way.

Before the hike, Jocelyn had lost her jobs, her apartment. The trail felt like an escape, but…it was more like a delay of game.

She’d made seven months of forward progress - but she was measuring success in miles, instead of dollars or any other kind of off-trail  milestones, like dating. 

Afterwards, it was like she had woken up from a dream that had seemed to go on forever… And there she was: living with her parents, single, looking for a job. 

So what if the way we’ve been thinking about the post-trail blues… isn’t quite right? What if it’s more like a type of heartbreak?

Jocelyn Smith: it occurred to me that nothing people were describing actually sounded like depression. Hmm.

That’s after the break. Outside/In is a listener supported podcast - if the show means something to you, if this kind of story is the kind of story you want to hear more of it - donate at outside/in radio dot org. 

BREAK

Welcome back to Outside/In. Today, we’re exploring what long-distance hikers often refer to as “the post-trail blues.” 

Taylor Quimby: Is this still an OK time? Did I did I catch you by surprise?

Dr. Anne Baker: No, no. I was planning on it. I'm just moving. I did something to my ankle yesterday and it's like maybe broken, so I'm just moving a little slow, so you didn’t catch me by surprise. 

Dr. Anne Baker is a post-doctoral researcher and therapist.  Anne’s trail name is Scrappy. And she is. 

In 2018, she was hiking several hundred miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, when her lower leg starting acting up. She pushed through the pain, but got off to see a doctor. Turns out she had been hiking on a broken tibia. 

Dr. Anne Baker: Yeah, it was just sort of a lost goal and a rough time all around. And on top of that, you know, having a broken leg is uncomfortable.

Having had to end a long hike because of injury… and then having finished the Pacific Crest Trail the year later… Dr. Baker has experienced firsthand the sting of post trail blues. 

But having trained as a therapist, she was never quite convinced that depression was the right word for it. 

Dr. Anne Baker: loss is actually the word that kept coming to me. It was a loss. …And I kind of just had this little inkling of like, I think this is maybe closer to grief than depression.

In her spare moments Dr. Baker also writes occasional articles and gear reviews for a hiking website called The Trek. 

So she asked if they would be interested in a piece on post-trail blues. 

Dr. Baker conducted 30 hours of interviews with 20 long-distance hikers, hoping to identify common themes in their experiences. 

She cautions that this work was not nearly as rigorous as it would need to be to be peer-reviewed and published. 

But what she came up with was five principles, five virtues of the trail that hikers often talked about when describing what they missed. 

Coincidentally, when lined up by the first letter… those five principles spelled a word: SPACE. 

Taylor Quimby: What is it with acronyms?

Dr. Anne Baker: Why do academics want to do that? I Don’t know.I think it makes it a little bit more tangible, you know?

So let’s begin with the letter S.

S stands for “simplicity.” No more distractions. Here again is Shalin Desai, VP of Advancement at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

Shalin Desai: Imagine that you wake up with the sun and you go to bed with sunset. 

Dr. Anne Baker: Simplicity was people actually used the word simplicity. That was a really easy one because it just kept coming up simple simplicity

Letter P? That stands for purpose. 

Shalin Desai: Imagine that the only thing that you have to be concerned about every day is putting one foot in front of the other. 

The goal is clear as day: Move forward. Do not back down. Get to the other side.

Next up, the letter A: Adventure. Dr. Baker says one could also be called adversity. 

Shalin Desai:  Imagine that your entire sensory surroundings are completely changed 

Dr. Anne Baker: We were just like cold and rainy and we were hungry and we were ready to be done. And it was awful. And it was so much fun

Then comes the letter - and this is a big one - C! For community.

Shalin Desai: Imagine that you were surrounded by people who are exactly in the same position that you are going on the same journey.

And community isn’t just your fellow hikers, but networks of people who offer their homes and barns and beds, a hot meal or a word of encouragement. 

Thru-hikers discover that people are rooting for them. 

Dr. Anne Baker: It sort of opens a window into what it would be like to live in a truly compassionate world.

And finally…. The letter E. Extreme Exercise!

Dr. Anne Baker: You are literally exercising all day, every day for months, and that releases endorphins.

Here’s General Hendrix: 

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: For me, physically, I felt good, like mentally, I felt sound.

So…SPACE. 

Dr. Anne Baker: the real kicker of it turned out to not be space. It turned out to be the person you are in that space. 

Shalin Desai: That is a very simple simple lifestyle. And then imagine all of a sudden it stops after a couple of months… That is the very definition of withdrawal. 

[mux shift]

In her article, Dr. Baker theorized that post-trail grief boils down to a reluctance to give up your trail self. 

Dr. Anne Baker: I like trail me. I don't want to go back and be real me. 

But in all of Anne’s interviews, she would ask thru-hikers - is there a reason you can’t be your trail self in the real world? 

Every single one said “I don’t know.” 

It’s like Jocelyn Smith said at the beginning of the episode. 

Jocelyn Smith: It’s a lot, it’s like two… two totally different worlds you know. 

But Dr. Baker slash Scrappy may have a unique perspective on Post-Trail grief. 

Taylor Quimby: Do you feel like you can be your trail self in the real world?

Dr. Anne Baker: I do. I do. Good. Yeah, I mean, I think. Obviously, there are degrees, you know, I find myself like last week at a conference at Harvard. No, not really. Like, I'm a pretty like rigid, like controlled version of myself that's like, I need to be in high control. But there's I feel like there's always sort of an underlying sense of authenticity that I have worked really hard for. I've done a lot of my own therapy and created a really intentional way of life that does sort of sort of modeled around space. Yeah, I do, I feel like for the most part, I am both scrappy and an. In my daily life.

[mux]

Whatever you want to call it, I’m struck that the post-trail experience is both incredibly specific… and at the same time, applies to so many other aspects of our lives.  

Swimmer Michael Phelps says he fell into a state of major depression after each and every time he came home from the Olympics.

 Olympic athletes have a straightforward purpose, adventure and adversity, a community of trainers and coaches and teammates, and an absolute deluge of endorphins. 

Military service. Community theater. Even college. You can see how you could apply the same model of SPACE to any of the myriad communities that people build identity around.

I’ve even found myself thinking about post-trail blues in relation to the pandemic. 

I remember telling my partner way back in March of 2020, as we listened to a dire radio story about the first lockdown, it felt like we were grieving for life as we know it. 

It’s like one day there was a version of the world that I understood, and the next day that version of the world was gone. 

So much has changed I’ve found myself asking sometimes - who was I before the pandemic? Who am I now? How do I get back to being who I was?  

The answer is, you can’t. There is no going back. 

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: I'm not going to say it didn't affect me. I just took it in stride going through it.

For General Hendrix, moving forward has meant shifting which reality is the one he chooses to acknowledge. 

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: I call it the Second World because the real world is out there like having fun, you know, like experience in the outdoors. So like this is like the secondary world to me. 

He’s working as a landscaper in Flagstaff right now - saving for his next adventure, and considering living out of a van in order to save on rent. He works to play, and not the other way around. 

Joseph “General Hendrix” Robinson: For pete’s sake, we didn’t bathe for like ten days sometimes. We were all happy and stinky, we were living our best lives, you know? I was a kid. I’m still a kid. I’m never growing up. 

For Shalin Desai, moving forward meant finding purpose in the trail… even when he’s not actually hiking on it. 

When he finished his first thru-hike in 2015, he almost immediately reached out to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. And what started out as a conversation, or better yet a critique, turned into a mid-life career shift. 

Taylor Quimby : it sounds to me like you had that experience and then turned it into a mission almost. 

Shalin Desai: Yeah, yeah. And I also was driven by frustration. You know, it's I think that on a podcast, it's hard to see what I look like. But you know, I am Indian-American. I'm the son of immigrants from India… I'm also queer, so that makes me a double minority on the trail. And when I was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, I literally only counted four people of color the entire way that I saw. And I kept a running tally in my trail journal because I was curious, you know, like how many other people of color would I see along the trail? Turns out less than five. 

Shalin believes in the mission of the Appalachian Trail - he believes in the vision Benton Mackay’s laid out 100 years ago. He also knows there’s a long way to go before it’s realized.

Shalin Desai: Yeah. And that really angered me. I'm going to be honest, it really angered me because this is ostensibly a public resource. You know, it's it's the nation's trail. We nicknamed the Yeti the People's Trail, but it turns out that a very specific type of person was accessing the benefits that you could receive by being out on trail. 

But despite all that –  Shalin couldn’t stop fantasizing about getting back to that world he had left behind. That’s what drove him to hike the other two longest trails in the US. 

Shalin Desai: now you've exhausted the three biggies and then you ask yourself the question What now? 

What now? 

That’s the question Jocelyn asked herself when she completed the AT last October.

Jocelyn Smith: At that point, I’m like wwwwhat do it do now? 

When I met with Jocelyn, it had been less than a month since she finished the AT. 

She hadn’t even unpacked her backpack. Her cooking pot still had the crud from her last trailside meal. She was still deep in the throes of her post-trail blues. 

But already, a kernel of a plan had started to take shape. 

And shortly after, she applied for a spring permit to hike another one of the big three. The Pacific Crest Trail - which runs from the Canadian border in Washington State… to the Mexican border in California. Just an hours drive from Tijuana. 

Jocelyn Smith: I'm going on another three hike this year, and in the back of my mind, I'm like, Crap, my body crap, money, crap. I don't know what I'm doing with Myself, but it's all going to work Out.

One of my favorite videos that she/Jocelyn recorded when she was hiking came towards the end of her journey. She had just crossed over the border into Maine - 1900 miles of trail at her back - when she came across a bright green caterpillar slowly working its way through the dirt. 

And, from one traveler to another - she gave it a little pep talk. 

Jocelyn Smith [talking to caterpillar]: Hey little guy. One day you’re going to be a beautiful butterfly just like the rest of them. You’re a little late, but you’re doing a great job. You’re so pretty. Get it.