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When Julia Sheehan set out for an Appalachian Trail thru-hike in 2019, she had little experience backpacking and almost no online presence. On a whim, she applied for a vlogging spot with , an outdoor-focused website whose YouTube channel showcases hikers’ journeys on Triple Crown trails. Her videos’ conversational tone and honesty about the highs and lows of trail life resonated with viewers: By the time she reached Katahdin, she was known by her trail name, Rocket, and had over 17,000 Instagram followers and one of that season’s most popular AT vlogs. And her audience wanted more.

“If I wasn’t sharing trail-related stuff, I would get messages asking ‘When’s the next trail announcement? Where are you going next?’,” Sheehan recalls. “It seemed like people felt entitled to my next adventure. But it was me who had invited them on the journey.”

Social media has become a way for users to live vicariously through other people, and the hiking community is no exception. Hundreds of thousands viewers flock to popular thru-hiking Instagram accounts and YouTube channels every month, seeking inspiration for their own adventures or a virtual escape from their 9 to 5. 

In some ways, thru-hikes are almost tailor-made for storytelling: They’re a quintessential “hero’s journey” for viewers to follow along with, a self-contained quest with a defined start, hardship along the way, and the promise of glory at the end. But unlike a fairy tale, no one knows exactly how a thru-hike is going to end. Only around 25 percent of people who start a Triple Crown trail with the intention of thru-hiking it will finish in a single season. Abandoning that goal partway through can feel like a failure, and explaining the decision to walk away to friends and family is intimidating. What happens when you have to do it with tens of thousands of strangers watching?

 

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The pandemic hampered most 2020 thru-hiking plans, and by 2021 Sheehan was itching to hike again. She was ready to pursue a new challenge—both for herself and for her audience. 

“I felt that every month that went by where I didn’t announce a hike or didn’t do an outdoor adventure, I was losing access to this community,” Sheehan said. “I had to keep creating so they would keep loving me.”

In late February 2021, Sheehan started the 800-mile , posting and to her own channels along the way. It turned out to be a relentlessly challenging hike. Her early start meant snow and cold weather for a large portion of the miles, and she toyed on and off with the idea of leaving the trail. Ultimately Sheehan pushed forward, determined to see the northern terminus. In April, she reached the end of the AZT, but even as she headed home, she wasn’t satisfied. 

“I felt the need to keep pushing,” she says.

Eight weeks after finishing the AZT, Sheehan repacked her bag and headed to Montana to begin the , planning to post videos along the route. But soon after starting the trail, her dog back home passed away, and she found herself sobbing for the majority of her hiking hours. It didn’t feel worth continuing, so 400 miles into her southbound attempt, Sheehan hitchhiked to an airport and flew home. 

Sheehan had started the Appalachian Trail in 2019 with the goal of reaching the northern terminus, and had felt like anything besides finishing would have been a failure. The AZT had felt similar. But she had no second thoughts about leaving the CDT. It was the first time she had put her own mental health and desires over the notion of a “successful” thru-hike.

Her new problem: How would she tell her audience? No creator owes their followers an explanation for not reaching a goal. But inviting people into your world is easier than ushering them out. When hiking bloggers or influencers abruptly stop posting, the comments pile up: Hello? Update? Are you OK? 

“At one point I was getting hundreds of messages a day from people asking where I was and what was happening,” said Sheehan. “I was spending an ungodly amount of time responding to strangers on the internet, validating their fears that I did actually get off the trail because they were so invested in my hike.” 

Sheehan decided to be upfront about her reasons for leaving the CDT. 

“I needed to put a bow on it for people to understand that [the hike] was over, to not keep asking when I was going back,” she said. She posted a video explaining the decision, and to her relief, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Her followers understood, and gave her space to process the hike and the loss of her pet. She continued posting outdoor-related content, teasing a return to the trail that following spring.

In mid-March of 2022, Sheehan arrived at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail to begin a northbound thru-hike, this time in front of nearly 30,000 Instagram followers and more than 40,000 YouTube subscribers. 

Another early start date meant Sheehan and her crew hit full snow cover early in the hike, slowing their pace and compressing their deadline for returning home. After 50 straight days of wading through snow and dealing with a litany of health issues, Sheehan made the decision to leave the PCT with 600 miles remaining. It was a tougher choice than it had been to leave the CDT.

“I was worried that people wouldn’t care about me anymore when I left the PCT, but at that point I was ready to let that audience go,” Sheehan said. For nearly four years, she had felt pushed to announce the ‘next big thing’ to keep her audience engaged. 

Again, the audience was supportive. Sheehan had been honest about the challenges of the trail and the snow levels, and posted a similar update as she had after the CDT. But while the comments were cordial, she began to notice her follower count shrinking. Not finishing her two thru-hikes, then failing to announce a next one, had created somewhat of an exodus from her pages. 

For years, Sheehan’s audience—and the support that came with it—impacted her feelings of self worth, and it was clear that removing herself as a constant presence meant losing a significant part of those viewers. So while the response to her leaving the CDT and PCT wasn’t necessarily negative, watching droves of followers leave her pages was challenging.

“I was worried that my only value to people came from being Rocket, and it turned out to be true,” Sheehan said. ”Most people were there for one kind of content. When you have so many people bombarding you with love and support in one category, then you say, ‘Hey, I’m sick and I can’t do this anymore’, and they leave, it proves that you don’t have that value for people. But they subscribed to a certain genre, so I can’t blame them—it’s not about me.”

Ultimately, Sheehan had to come to her own conclusions about the meaning of success. The longer she was off trail, the more she began to understand the accomplishment she craved wasn’t about a sign or monument in the wilderness, or her number of followers. 

“I have watched a beaver swim across a lake at dusk, [felt] the sun warm my skin, and [felt] mosquitoes torment me relentlessly.” she said. “The value of a thru-hike comes from getting to be in the wild … I have been gifted the opportunity to share the wild with millions of other humans looking for connection and adventure. Being accepted and loved for everything I have shared, good and bad, ugly and dirty, has made this journey absolutely worth it.”

When you look past the terminus photos and the numbers game of creating content on the internet, failure and success become more nuanced concepts. Through bailing on two hikes in front of an understanding audience, Sheehan redefined for herself what it means to fail or succeed.

“Our goals change,” she said. “Did you fail or did you change the goal? The thru-hike might have been goal one, goal two might be to have a good time with that section that you did. Nothing will change , regardless of how many people are watching you.”