On especially long hiking descents, I admit I鈥檝e fantasized about a faster way to the bottom. Elevator? Parachute? Antigravity shoes? For a fringe group of athletes, that faster way is in-line skating. All it takes is the right pair of footwear, a keen eye for navigating rough terrain, and the willingness to get beat up. Frequently.

I first learned about these daredevils when I spotted a man at my local park in Kenmore, Washington, rolling down a wide gravel path, but I got the lay of the land from Vancouver, British Columbia, skater听, 41, who鈥檚 been off-road blading for three years.

Skaters like Talpa call the sport mountain blading.听Hundreds of miles of mountain-bike paths make western Canada an ideal region听to practice, but even with his robust network of skating friends, Talpa only knows a handful of people with the gear and the interest to听bring听their skills to the dirt. 鈥淚t takes a special breed of rollerblader, because it鈥檚 quite dangerous on the mountain blades,鈥� he says.

Enthusiasts have essentially one goal when taking on trails: stay on your skates at all costs. 鈥淭here鈥檚 literally no good way to stop,鈥� Talpa says. Off-road blades have no brakes, which is not uncommon for skates in general, but paved surfaces and polyurethane wheels allow for hockey stops and other maneuvers that slow you down. Slippery dirt paths and off-road tires don鈥檛. At best听you might be able to drag a foot behind yourself to reduce your velocity, but what you鈥檙e really waiting for are flatter sections of trail to dump speed. Even once you scout a听route鈥攁 requirement for the sport鈥攜ou must 鈥渃ommit to the gravity,鈥� as Talpa says. That听horrifies most people, including experienced skaters.

Yet the danger and focus required appeals to Talpa. He calls it exhilarating. 鈥淭he first time I went with mountain bikers, and they took me up a trail that was well-groomed,鈥� he says, 鈥淚 was totally hooked.鈥�

Off-road in-line skates first hit the market in the mid-nineties听with dueling blades from an Italian company called听 and the now ubiquitous brand. Roces launched two off-road products: the Enduro, which looked like a typical听three-wheel skate with larger, grooved wheels for better grip, and the Big Cat, which had two large wheels on a long base like a short ski鈥攁 design sometimes referred to as听鈥渁dventure鈥� or 鈥渘ordic.鈥� Rollerblade鈥檚 Coyote model introduced instead of the hard polyurethane wheels that were (and still are) standard for skating on paved surfaces. In theory, the inflated tires absorb more of a trail鈥檚 vibration to allow for rougher terrain, much like听tubeless bike tires.

I asked Rollerblade鈥檚 product-marketing manager, Tom Hyser, why the brand pivoted away from off-road designs in 2002. 鈥淏ecause skates don鈥檛 work that good in the dirt,鈥� he said, laughing. And they didn鈥檛 sell particularly well, either.

Today听the German company is the only brand manufacturing mountain blades. The bulk of the company鈥檚 sales are in mainstream skates for fitness, but it听first launched adventure models in 2006, followed by its听dedicated off-road label, SUV, in 2014. Powerslide鈥檚 designs went all in on the inflatable tires first introduced by the Coyote. And they鈥檙e not cheap,听retailing for between $400 and $500. The听off-road blades only听make up a small portion of the company鈥檚 sales, though:听2 percent.

Matthew Mickey, who owns Intuition Skate Shop in Bakersfield, California, one of the few retailers on the West Coast carrying Powerslide鈥檚 SUV skates, says听interest in adventure models has grown alongside the overall pandemic boom for in-line skates. About 1 percent of people who contacted the shop had questions about adventure skates in pre-COVID times, but that number is close to 10 percent now. In Mickey鈥檚听experience, off-road models appeal to more than just听aggressive downhill skaters. Any confident skater who is interested in trying new terrain could give them a shot鈥攖hey just might avoid particularly steep hills. 鈥淵ou can totally go on the bike trail and veer off onto packed dirt or grass and start with something kind of mellow with a downward slope,鈥� he says. That made sense to me: the skater I saw at my local park wasn鈥檛 fast; he had more in common with a hiker boot-packing听a snowy slope听than a speed demon.

Still, the sport isn鈥檛 especially beginner friendly. Ricardo Lino has been skating since he was three and runs a popular in-line skating , where he鈥檚 seen hitting the trails with a couple of Powerslide鈥檚 off-road models. (He used to do marketing for the company听and now works at another skate brand.) Lino听says the skates might be prohibitively challenging for the casual hobbyist.

鈥淚t鈥檚 very easy to鈥攕orry for the expression鈥攂ut to eat shit,鈥� Lino says. He chalks that up to a relatively short wheelbase, which makes it easy to fall forward or backwards without听superb balance. Plus, even inflatable tires can鈥檛 hold up against common terrain imperfections like tree roots. The first three times he tried the skates out for his channel, he went ass over teakettle. (You can .) 鈥淎nd I鈥檓 an experienced skater. I鈥檝e been skating my whole life,鈥� he says.

Perhaps this explains why I鈥檇 never seen a skater on trail before, and you probably haven鈥檛, either. But it doesn鈥檛 detract from the fact that these adventurers continue to challenge the gods of grit and gravity, expanding what鈥檚 possible in the outdoors.

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Earlier this spring, a fresh batch of thru-hikers started making their way from Georgia to Maine along the Appalachian Trail. This month, another pack will begin the Pacific Crest Trail,听while many more will begin other routes across the country. But while most anticipate encountering challenges on the trail鈥攆rom rattlesnakes to lack of water to brutal climbs鈥攚hat comes after the journey can be the hardest part. 听

Post-trail depression, also sometimes called post-trail blues,听is a regular discussion topic for hikers on online forums and Facebook groups. Before my own thru-hike attempt in 2017听on the PCT, I鈥檇 read just about every story I could find about the phenomenon. But when I finished my trip in July, I struggled to transition back into my pretrail life. It would take me months to finally figure out that my feelings of depression and anxiety were connected to the end of my thru-hike.

For this story, I spoke with seven thru-hikers whose experiences were eerily similar to my own: they felt like they couldn鈥檛 fit into society at home, even among their friends and family; they had a hard time motivating, spending hours reflecting on their trail experience; and they felt like they were moving in a fog. The identity they鈥檇 cultivated over the last four to six months outside鈥攁s self-sufficient, purposeful thru-hikers鈥攚as now just a memory.

Cory Nyamora, a licensed clinical psychologist, endurance-sports coach, and founder of the coaching and therapy practice , says these feelings of depression are to be expected posthike. Nature has been shown to improve our mental health again and again, whether it鈥檚 walking in or bathing in a forest, and it鈥檚 not too much of a stretch to think that thru-hikers become accustomed to these benefits during the quarter of a year they might spend outside. The abrupt transition from daily prolonged exercise to a sedentary office-bound lifestyle, with the moment-to-moment thinking of the trail swapped for fears about life鈥檚 big existential questions (is my marriage OK? am I stuck in my career?) doesn鈥檛 help either.

Anticipating that the transition听may be hard can help you start making choices when you鈥檙e in the worst of it. 鈥淚t may take several months to readjust,鈥� says Nyamora. 鈥淕ive yourself time.鈥� In the meantime, he recommends some steps that thru-hikers (or former thru-hikers) can take to relieve negative post-trail blues.

For starters, all the people I spoke with said that staying in touch with their fellow hikers helped enormously. The intense, full-time lifestyle of hiking can be isolating off trail, Nyamora says, and it鈥檚 important to surround yourself with people who simply get it. For many听that means their trail family. 鈥淚 talk to them almost every day,鈥� says Tommy 鈥淭werk鈥� Corey, who thru-hiked the PCT in 2018.

That said, too much living vicariously can be counterproductive.听Amelia 鈥淧icnic Table鈥� Pease, who thru-hiked the John Muir Trail and the PCT, said she deleted Instagram from听her phone because endless hiking pictures brought her down once she wasn鈥檛 walking all day herself. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 good after a long hike to get away from that,鈥� she says.

Many of the hikers started new creative projects when they returned home. Adam 鈥淩osey鈥� Pereira, who has hiked the PCT and the AT, dove into photography. 鈥淲hen you鈥檙e on听trail, you鈥檙e听very听observant听as to what鈥檚 happening around you,鈥� Pereira says. 鈥淚鈥檝e found photography to be a good way when I鈥檓 outside to put me back into that place quickly.鈥� ”听(who asked that we not include his full name) started posting gear reviews and hiking advice online in between stints on the AT. The interaction with hikers helped relieve his trail blues and eventually launched him into becoming a full-time hiker. 鈥淐reate something while you鈥檙e out on the trail,鈥� he says. Having a project to look back on, or to edit when you get home, can give you something to work with when you鈥檙e longing to be in the woods.

Exercise that conjures some of the feel-good endorphins is also useful. , who has completed several thru-hikes including a Calendar-Year Triple Crown in 2016 and the Great Western Loop in 2018, told me that following his 2016 hike, he found exercising near impossible. But after his latest hike, his body was more willing. 鈥淚 think that really听helped,听because this has been the easiest transition for me so far,鈥� he says.

Looking forward to something in the future can ease symptoms of post-trail depression. 鈥淗ave a goal, whatever the next goal is,鈥� says Nyamora. That could be anything from more education or听a career change to building out a van听or starting a new hike. When Pereira finished the AT, he signed up for Conservation Corps and got into grad school. Corey, a photographer, began working on publishing a book, Hiker Trash Vogue.

For many, the goal seems to be to get back outside for extended periods. , a PCT hiker who goes by her nickname and Instagram handle, said her mind was almost immediately focused on a new thru-hike. 鈥淏ut my body, especially my Achilles, they didn鈥檛 want to,鈥� she says. Instead she opted for shorter routes, completing the Tahoe Rim Trail and a section of the PCT in Oregon, as well as day hikes in her new home state of Colorado. Other hikers I spoke with听went on to plan or complete additional sections or thru-hikes.

Regardless of how hikers end up coping, sadness after finishing a long trail is a natural reaction. 鈥淚 look at it now like a bit of a breakup,鈥� says PCT hiker Annelle 鈥淜arma鈥� Carson. 鈥淎 breakup that ended on mostly good terms, which was almost harder.鈥�

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What if you could spend a full season hiking to more than a dozen hot springs, photographing petroglyphs, and camping in the most remote wilderness in the lower 48? Well,听you can do all that and more, thanks to a new thru-hike听created by听Ras and Kathy Vaughan.听

Full-time adventurers, the Vaughans, married for 22 years, have made a habit of setting only known times听where they establish never-before-recorded routes. They call themselves Team ,听and they named their new听trail the UltraPedestrian听(or UP)听North Loop.听The thru-hike combines parts of four established long trails to create a 2,600-mile loop through the best of the Northwest.听

The idea for the trail came about after the couple looked at a map of America鈥檚 long-distance trails and realized that there was a near听complete loop in the upper-left corner of the country, created by听the Pacific Crest, Pacific Northwest, Idaho Centennial, and Oregon Desert听Trails. Longtime residents of Washington State, the听Vaughans had hiked sections of the PCT and PNT before, but the Idaho and Oregon trails offered something fresh. 鈥淭he Oregon Desert Trail and the Idaho听Centennial Trail were both completely new territory,鈥� Kathy, 52, said when I spoke with her and Ras, 47, about a month after they鈥檇 completed their听174-day journey.

They plotted the details of the UP听North Loop听for a year before embarking on the journey, spending more than听100 hours poring over official trail maps, satellite imagery, and GPS tracks. Ultimately, they created a purist GPS line to follow and .听

They decided to begin the hike on听an isolated stretch of land between the Idaho Centennial and the Oregon Desert Trails. 鈥淭he other three trails鈥攖he PCT, PNT, and听ICT鈥攁ll overlap each other, so it鈥檚 a seamless connection from one to the other,鈥� Ras says. 鈥淏ut the Oregon Desert Trail just floats … out there in between the ICT and the PCT.鈥澨�

To navigate听this remote section, they relied听on a track conceived of by thru-hiking triple crowner and Oregon Desert Trail coordinator Renee 鈥淪he-Ra鈥澨齈atrick, who had听mapped the route听using extensive research. The catch: neither she nor anyone else had actually hiked it before. Even on paper, the听Vaughans听knew it would be rough, requiring a听35-mile water carry between sources and a possible 200-mile food carry. (A听friend ended up being able to drop a resupply for them midway.) Their first day on trail, Ras carried a 72-pound pack, primarily full of food and water, and struggled through tall sagebrush and dry, dusty heat waves. Monsoons hit them every afternoon like clockwork for nearly two weeks.

Not all of the Vaughans鈥� challenges have been听of the human-versus-nature variety. In 2017, while attempting to complete another only known time by yo-yoing the Grand Enchantment Trail in the Southwest, Kathy started experiencing symptoms of high blood sugar and was later found to have听Type 1 diabetes. The UP North Loop was the first major undertaking since her diagnosis听and the longest thru-hike of her career. Steep climbs in Washington left her shaking and sweating as a result of听low blood sugar. While high blood sugar was dangerous for her long-term health, anything听too low could be instantly fatal. She learned to monitor how she felt and react accordingly, and she also traded in much of her dehydrated meals for heavier fresh ingredients from towns. She injected听herself with insulin twice daily using alcohol swabs for sterility in a dusty tent. 鈥淓ach time we changed the terrain we were in, or the climate changed听or the elevation, my numbers would fluctuate again,鈥� Kathy听says. 鈥淚t was a constant area that I needed to pay a lot of attention to.鈥�

Of course, not听every day was brutal. The couple spent hours soaking in natural hot springs in Oregon鈥檚 Owyhee Canyonlands and swimming in the 听in central Idaho. In Washington, Kathy said, the ,听near Snoqualmie Pass on the Pacific Crest Trail, were magical. 鈥淵ou actually step into a narrow cave in the top pool,鈥� she says. 鈥淵ou feel like you鈥檙e in a womb.鈥� They lodged with hunters near the Wilderness Gateway Campground in Idaho, staying in cozy canvas tents with wood stoves. A detour took them on a 55-mile walk along听an abandoned railroad. 鈥淸It] turned out to be one of the most special sections of the hike,鈥� Kathy says.

Their biggest disappointment happened听in central Idaho after coming off the Lolo Trail. They鈥檇 intended to follow the Idaho Centennial Trail to the Selway-Bitterroot听Wilderness through to the Frank Church鈥揜iver of No Return Wilderness, the . But the area had听been hit hard by snow, Kathy was out of blood-test strips, and their weather window for completing the circuit was running out. So instead they routed around the wilderness areas, completing the trip at lower elevations.

That means the purist line the Vaughans听conceived of is still up for grabs, although they hope that people will take their route as a guideline and then make it better鈥攍inking more hot springs, passing by more petroglyphs, seeing even more remote wilderness. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to get caught up with these artificial lines that we鈥檝e drawn,听whether it鈥檚 Washington or Oregon or Idaho,鈥� Ras says. 鈥淏ut when you connect it all on foot, and you find these hot springs and lava flows, you realize that there鈥檚 this geological underpinning to the entire area.鈥�

Though much of the loop is rugged and less than ideal from a scenic perspective鈥攊t includes听at least 200 miles of road walking and several areas with limited water resources鈥擱as hopes the planned improvements on the Oregon Desert and Idaho Centennial Trails over the next handful of years will encourage people to try out the circuit. Kathy is hopeful it could off-load some of the traffic that the big three thru-hiking trails have seen in recent years. But mostly, they鈥檙e glad they had the opportunity to see their home region, one step at a time. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 know what the听American听Northwest is really like until you do something like this,鈥� Ras says.

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The Triple Crown is often considered the pinnacle of the thru-hiking world. To complete the feat, a person must hike the 2,190-mile Appalachian, 2,650-mile Pacific Crest, and 3,100-mile Continental Divide trails鈥攁 task that typically takes at least three years, with five or six months dedicated to each effort.

But for a select听few, there is an even more impressive Triple Crown to be had: Hiking all three trails in a single year, a challenge that鈥檚 dubbed the Calendar-Year Triple Crown. At nearly 8,000 miles, you could hike across the U.S. from coast to coast twice with still a quarter of the trip left.听On November 8, seasoned hiker Heather 鈥淎nish鈥� Anderson became the sixth person, and the first woman, to claim this听elite crown.

Anderson is a recognizable name among long-distance hikers. Before this trip, she鈥檇 already Triple Crowned twice, setting the overall self-supported Fastest Known Time (FKT) for the Pacific Crest Trail and the self-supported FKT for the Appalachian Trail. (A new FKT for the Appalachian Trail was set by Karel Sabbe in August, but Anderson still holds the women鈥檚 record.) After this season, Anderson is now the fastest woman to ever Triple Crown and the first woman to triple Triple Crown. 听

鈥淭hese trails have been really important in my life and in my hiking career,鈥� Anderson says. To walk the three longest national scenic trails, one after the other, seemed like a good way to honor them on the 50th anniversary of the National Trail System Act, she says.听

The trip began on the Appalachian Trail at the southern terminus on March 1. But there was another surprise in store before her hike could really begin: her partner had a question for her. 鈥淗e proposed on Springer Mountain right when we got to the top,鈥� Anderson says.

Right after that, she听started walking. First, north on the Appalachian Trail until May, exiting at the Connecticut River in New Hampshire. Then a couple of weeks on the CDT before starting the Pacific Crest Trail northbound on May 22, where she walked with her fianc茅 as he completed his first Triple Crown. After finishing the PCT in August, Anderson made her way back to the CDT, trekking south from the terminus in Glacier National Park to northern Colorado. Then in October, she went back to the Appalachian Trail to hike south from Maine to New Hampshire before her last miles through Colorado to a small, nondescript tree鈥攃hosen for its accessibility rather than its significance鈥攊n Grants, New Mexico.

The trip was not without its challenges. These national trails are full of pristine wilderness, yes鈥攎ountains that have been made famous by Ansel Adams and John Muir, alpine lakes, deep woods that break for huge vistas. They are also full of cow troughs from which Anderson needed to extract a day鈥檚 worth of water and miles of viewless summits and descents (which hikers call 鈥淧UDs鈥�, for 鈥減ointless up and downs鈥�).

But the real challenge was not the terrain or the distance, but having to hike in less-than-ideal weather windows. Spring and fall are hazardous seasons in the mountains. In Virginia, Anderson thought she could reach shelter before a storm hit, but instead was caught in icy rain, her clothing drenched before she could get her rain gear on. 鈥淚 was trying to hike to stay warm but I wasn鈥檛 staying warm enough,鈥� she says. She reached a campsite, but couldn鈥檛 get her stakes down in what she learned was an old road bed. She found another spot, but as she crawled inside, the tent flooded due to the slanted ground. By the time she finally reached a suitable sleeping area, her tent was completely soaked and the only thing dry in her kit was her sleeping bag. The rain turned to snow. She spent the night shivering until she could hike out in the morning and make it to town to dry her gear. 鈥淭he thing that thru-hiking has taught me (more than anything else) is acceptance,鈥� Anderson wrote on her in March. 鈥淎cceptance of what is and what is not and to not waste mental energy on wishing things were different.鈥�

Physical pain was another factor that听had to be accepted. For the first 2,500 miles (鈥渨hich seems like a really long time, but in the scope of the whole trail鈥︹�� Anderson says), she struggled with a nagging foot pain that seared when she stepped the ball of her foot on an exposed root or rock. Toward the end of the trip, long road walks flared IT band syndrome and shin splints. Yet none of these issues stopped her. 鈥淥verall my body held up much better than I thought it would,鈥� she says.

The last thirty miles felt like any other day on trail. She woke at 5:30 a.m. so she could be hiking by first light. She packed her gear听in the dark, and as the sun rose she put one foot in front of the other across a long mesa in the Cibola National Forest. There was a dusting of snow at the highest elevations, but nothing compared to the storms she鈥檇 faced early in the year. It was a clear, sunny day in the mid-40鈥檚.

Ten miles before the end, 鈥淔lyin鈥欌�� Brian Robinson, the first person to complete the Calendar-Year Triple Crown, stood on the trail waiting for her. He鈥檇 driven 15 hours to surprise her and walk with her to the end. 鈥淲hen Brian showed up it was really like, oh yeah, this is the end of the hike,鈥� Anderson says.

In October, I called Robinson and asked him to describe what it takes to tackle the route in fewer than 365 days. 鈥淭hink of the hardest thing you鈥檝e ever done physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 really, really impressed with what she鈥檚 doing.鈥�

All told, the effort took Anderson 251 days, 20 hours, and 10 minutes. Mostly, as she reached the tree in the middle of nowhere, Anderson felt relieved. She鈥檇 accomplished what she鈥檇 set out to do. She was ready to enjoy the comforts of climate-controlled rooms and regular showers, to start planning a wedding, and to .

As for the most important lesson she learned while hiking? 鈥淭he hard stuff never lasts that long,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just temporary.鈥�

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Thank her or blame her,听Cheryl Strayed and her mega-popular book have turned听thru-hiking into a mainstream national pastime, with trails like the Pacific Crest, Appalachian, and Continental Divide getting exponentially more popular鈥攁nd crowded. 听

But there鈥檚 one great U.S. thru-hike that鈥檚 been mostly spared the influx. Few people have heard of, much less attempted, the , a 7,000-mile route that patches听together portions of the Pacific Crest, Pacific Northwest, Continental Divide, Grand Enchantment, and Arizona trails, with sections of trail-less walking through the Sonoran and Mojave deserts. No official designation exists for the Great Western, which traverses some of the West鈥檚 most beautiful, rugged, and remote terrain, dipping into nine states,听12 national parks and more than 75 wilderness areas.

Only one person has ever completed the epic鈥�professional backpacker and guide Andrew Skurka, who started the Loop听in California and ended in Arizona. Jeff Garmire, a 27-year-old from Vancouver, Washington, plans to be the second. And judging by the more than 5,100 miles he鈥檚 already completed, he鈥檚 got a pretty decent chance at success.

Although the Great Western Loop reaches some of the highest elevations in the U.S.鈥擥armire chose to summit 14,505-foot Mount Whitney鈥攊t鈥檚 not the terrain that makes it so daunting. 鈥淭he biggest challenge of the GWL is a mathematical one,鈥� Skurka told me this fall. The Sierra and San Juan mountain ranges stay buried in snow much of the year, raising the risk of blizzards and avalanches, and making long-distance backpacking gear untenable. 鈥淭o do it in one shot, you have to complete about 4,600 miles of trail in about four months.鈥� In other words, you have to hike the entire distance of the Appalachian Trail twice in less than the length of a single season.

Garmire has already met that goal, an achievement that brought him much relief. 鈥淪ince starting on April 29, I鈥檝e been nervous about hitting Colorado early enough,鈥� Garmire听said when we talked in late September during his rest day in Silverthorne. Now that he鈥檚 reached Colorado? 鈥淚 feel really good about it.鈥�

Garmire started his long-distance hiking career in 2011, when he completed a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. There he earned his trail name, Legend, for hitching to town and back to bring his hiking friends pizza. 鈥淚 grew up with a path in front of me, which is, you know, do good in high school, go to college, get a career, have a family, retire, close scene kind of thing,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t opened up this whole side door.鈥� In 2014, after graduating college, he hiked the still-rugged 1,200-mile Pacific Northwest Trail. The following year, he took a job in Colorado, and spent the summer hiking every 14,000-foot peak in the state on the weekends. There are 58 of them.

His biggest achievement to date came in 2016, when he hiked the three crown jewels of American long-distance hiking鈥攖he Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and Appalachian Trail, for a total of nearly 8,000 miles鈥攊n 252 days. He was the fourth man to ever complete the Triple Crown in a single year. (Accomplished long-distance backpacker Heather Anish Anderson is attempting to do the same this year. She would be the first woman to do so.)

Then 2017 was a bust. Other than some trail running and a race, Garmire听didn鈥檛 have any big goals. 鈥淚 had pretty good depression all year just because I didn't have this big thing out there that I was chasing,鈥� he said. He wasn鈥檛 sure his body was up for logging hundreds and hundreds of miles under a backpack, yet he missed his long days outside.

He found a path back to that life in February, when he undertook a 100-mile round trip traverse across Zion National Park. He wanted to see if his body could take another beating. When he completed the route in less than 48 hours, he started looking at what he wanted to do next. He was drawn to the Great Western Loop because of how difficult it would be to execute, timing-wise. So in April, he quit his job as a small business consultant and began walking.

It鈥檚 a good year for the attempt, according to Skurka. California had a dry winter, making the Sierra less daunting. But that didn鈥檛 make it easy. 鈥淭he Sierra Nevada was probably the hardest I鈥檝e ever worked through anything,鈥� Garmire said. On his daily adventure blog, , he described post-holing up to his knees with each step around Pinchot and Mather Pass, the falling snow adding inches as he walked. Meanwhile, a small cut created an infection in his toe that put him in ongoing pain.

Other factors presented exhausting challenges, too. On the Pacific Northwest Trail, old burn areas made for tedious work crawling over downed logs and navigating barely-there trails, his body blackened in soot. Colorado had been a real ass kicker, too. 鈥淭here's a lot of 3,000 foot climbs stacked on top of each other,鈥� he said.

Garmire comes from an outdoorsy family, and he鈥檚 used to the comedy of errors that often comes with wilderness adventures. 鈥淚 got giardia when I was a year old,鈥� he explains. Not long after that, his parents tried to drop him off at daycare after a family backpacking trip. 鈥淭hey wouldn鈥檛 let me stay because they thought I had chicken pox, but I just had so many mosquito bites.鈥�

While walking, he tries to make himself laugh. He tests out accents on himself鈥擫iam Neeson, Donald Trump, Steve Buscemi. 鈥淭hese are only good enough for me to laugh at them,鈥� he says. This year he ordered a sweatshirt with a large tiger face, which cracks him up when he sees himself in photos. He chuckles a little when he tells me about a family of hikers who saw him relaxing naked in a creek.

Still, it鈥檚 hard to imagine that fun is the only thing he鈥檚 after. After we get off the phone, Garmire decided to add an additional challenge to his route鈥攈iking Nolan鈥檚 14, a challenge to hike and scramble fourteen 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado听on trails and cross-country scree slopes in less than 60 hours. He nearly fell asleep while hiking. He cliffed out multiple times, rolled his ankle, missed a junction, and lost the trail often. But he finished. 鈥淭oughest thing I have ever done,鈥� he texted me the day after.

Skurka says there are two challenges ahead for Garmire: the Grand Canyon and the Gila Mountains in southern New Mexico, both of which, despite being desert, can hold their fair share of snow and make hiking treacherous. But that shouldn鈥檛 stop him, he says, because there are plenty of alternate options that would put him at lower elevations. 鈥淗e's come a pretty long way to quit now,鈥� Skurka says. 鈥淚f he's hit with something, I think he'll probably figure it out and keep going.鈥�

Now in New Mexico, Garmire听was met with winter鈥檚 approach. Temperatures stayed below freezing and wind blasts covered half his face in icicles, frosting his glasses. But when I texted听with him earlier this week, he sounded confident. 鈥淚 have done a lot of snow hiking the last couple years, so I鈥檒l make it through this one, too,鈥� he writes. Meanwhile, he鈥檚 still got two states and 1,900 miles left.听

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