When Teresa Martinez was a mountain-bike racer, she suffered a recurring anxiety dream. Days before any competition, Martinez would envision herself woefully unprepared, five minutes before the start. First, her shoes would go missing, then her bike, then her water bottle, then her gloves. With her gear finally gathered, she still had to find the starting line. 鈥淎nd then, you wake up in a cold sweat,鈥� she told me recently. 鈥淎nd think, 鈥極h my god, that was crazy.鈥欌��

Martinez doesn鈥檛 need to sleep to feel that way these days. Now the executive director of the Coalition, the nonprofit that supports and sustains the 3,100-mile trail across the country鈥檚 rocky spine, Martinez has spent the last four months navigating the administrative roller-coaster of edicts and executive orders from the Trump Administration and its Department of Government Efficiency that have gutted public land agencies.

She has seen staff cut at partner agencies, wondered if the CDTC would be reimbursed for money it had already spent with prior government approval, and fretted about changing plans to balance the books for this fiscal year. It鈥檚 neither a dream nor a nightmare, just reality. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like the racecourse is being built while we鈥檙e riding it,鈥� Martinez said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like you鈥檙e waiting for the next shoe to drop as we continue down the path, not knowing if we鈥檙e going to get there.鈥�

Throughout the spring, I’ve had similar conversations with the leaders at four other iconic American trails鈥攖he Appalachian, Colorado, Ice Age, and Pacific Crest鈥攁bout how federal uncertainty has hamstrung them. The nonprofit groups that manage these trails all depend, to varying degrees, on federal funds and symbiotic relationships with federal organizations such as the United States Forest Service and National Park Service.

Their concerns, of course, varied: The Pacific Crest Trail Association had just cut six expert trail workers and more than a year鈥檚 worth of trail maintenance to be done by youth crews when I spoke to leaders there. The Colorado Trail Foundation worried about water spigots and pit toilets at trailheads. The Ice Age Trail Alliance paused registration for its trail-building season.

But they all agreed on one partial remedy: Ordinary people donating their money or volunteering their time could not only help plug some gaps created by federal instability but also bolster the spirits of those still left to do hard work with less resources. Too, it鈥檚 a way for those frustrated by the administration鈥檚 decisions or indecision to feel a little less helpless.

鈥淲e鈥檙e in an unprecedented time, the middle of this dust storm, so we鈥檙e not exactly sure where our needs are going to fall. But I have no doubt that they鈥檙e going to grow,鈥� said Sandi Marra, the ever-candid head of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to need skilled volunteers. We鈥檙e going to need people in numbers that we haven鈥檛 needed in the past, because we鈥檙e not going to be able to rely on the federal support we鈥檝e had in the past.鈥�

At the Colorado Trail Foundation, for instance, executive director Paul Talley was looking for a few people who could wield a chainsaw. Cutting trees on trail is subject to a series of byzantine regulations and certifications. If a downed tree can鈥檛 be handled with a handsaw and requires either a crosscut saw or a chainsaw, volunteers have to be trained and approved by forest service personnel. But since the Federal government began slashing jobs at the Forest Service, many people with the power to vet amateur sawyers have been let go or accepted buyouts. So Talley is working his connections in Colorado and networking with other organizations to find folks who have already been certified that simply might not know about the Colorado Trail’s needs.

鈥淲e鈥檙e making a call list: 鈥楬ey, can we call you?鈥� We need help with this big tree,鈥欌�� Talley told me. 鈥淲e鈥檙e also developing a process where trainers can come to our facilities to get people certified. If we鈥檙e just relying on the Forest Service at this point, it鈥檚 a multi-year wait.鈥�

All volunteers, of course, don鈥檛 need to be highly specialized. Megan Wargo, who leads the Pacific Crest Trail Association, listed a half-dozen ways folks who couldn鈥檛 wield a chainsaw might help. Each year, the trail must be 鈥渂rushed,鈥� essentially meaning someone walks it to clear it of any overgrowth. Others lead mules to remote trail work sites, literally taking the loads off the backs of other volunteers. Some still command the kitchen, cooking for trail crews on sites, while others can help with administrative tasks and educational outreach from the association鈥檚 Sacramento office. Still, there is a catch.

鈥淣ew volunteers and existing volunteers putting in more hours can make a big difference, but they can鈥檛 close the whole gap of not having federal funding,鈥� Wargo said, noting that the PCTA鈥檚 federal funding of just less than $700,000 has remained flat for a dozen years even as material and labor costs have risen. 鈥淭he PCTA can help provide training to get those folks on the ground. But if we don鈥檛 have staff to do that, it鈥檚 hard to increase those volunteer hours.鈥�

And so, of course, it all comes down to money. Most trail organizations told me they鈥檇 found ways to mitigate their dependence on federal funding. The Colorado Trail, for instance, has built a sizable emergency fund through 20 years of compounding interest on a surplus. The Appalachian Trail intentionally diversified its revenue streams after recognizing that their federal partners were chronically understaffed, anyway, even before the genesis of DOGE. The Ice Age Trail reinstated its trail-building season not only after most of its funding finally started to trickle in but also when private donors stepped up to help because they cared about the work. The Ice Age, after all, hopes to finish 15 new miles of trail this year.

As questions loom about if and when money will arrive, such contributions mean that work that鈥檚 already been planned and authorized can proceed for now, that the effort of building and maintaining the country鈥檚 hiking trails doesn鈥檛 end with any specific administration. 鈥淎s we have funding uncertainties, private money can either step in and cover some of the costs that aren鈥檛 being covered by federal grants right now or provide us with stability when we鈥檙e asking for federal reimbursements that have been paused,鈥� Wargo, at the PCTA, said. 鈥淭hat gives us flexibility to be able to continue our operations.鈥�

But times, of course, aren鈥檛 only tight for trail organizations. Some estimates, by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, say 60 percent of Americans now live paycheck-to-paycheck; new tariffs will compound that problem, because, as The New York Times recently noted, 鈥淸they] will touch almost every aspect of American life.鈥� While hiking across the United States multiple times, I鈥檝e seen at least a half-dozen trail crews consisting only of white-haired retirees. I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 because older Americans have some special relationship with civil service and volunteerism. They, instead, have more disposable time and resources than most Americans cannot afford. Trails need help鈥攎oney, time, energy鈥攖hat many working Americans do not have the ability to spare.

But Martinez reminded me that there are ways to assist that don鈥檛 cost much at all. You can call American officials, both elected and appointed, and tell them that supporting trails matter to you. You can drop caches of water off at trailheads where there鈥檚 no working spigot. (Remember to pick up the refuse.) You can deliver a box of donuts to an agency鈥檚 office, whether it鈥檚 the headquarters of a trail coalition or park rangers, and tell them you support the work they do for public lands. See a forest service crew at a bar? Buy 鈥檈m a beer and say thanks. That鈥檚 all, Martinez said, volunteerism.

鈥淲hether it鈥檚 picking up trash at a trailhead or leaving water or setting up a feed station for volunteers, if it鈥檚 something somebody wanted to do, we could say yes and support that,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an act of kindness, and right now, we need to be reminded of how kind we can be.鈥�

The post Do You Love Hiking Trails? It鈥檚 Time to Donate and Volunteer. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Jack Jones was not a cheat-code kid.

When he played computer games like World of Warcraft or EverQuest, Jones always wanted to know about the next level, where the struggles and the stakes would both be a bit higher. This characteristic hasn’t changed. Jones, now 38, is better known as Quadzilla, a hiking powerhouse famous not only for the gams that gave him his trail name, as well as his , and his righteous political advocacy, but also for his willingness to push new extremes. Midway through a 100-mile race in 2021, for instance, Jones decided that he would pursue the Calendar-Year Triple Crown in 2022: the Appalachian, Continental Divide, and Pacific Crest trails in the same year. , Jones opted to level up in a different way during 2024: to hike the entire while spending just $1,000 total on gear, food, and shelter.

鈥淚 knew I could hike the AT, that I could do 30-mile days,鈥� Jones tells me from Vietnam, where the Army veteran has begun an indefinite self-imposed political exile. 鈥淚 knew this might force me to go two weeks without a shower. It might force me to eat a whole chicken in a Walmart parking lot鈥攁nd then continue on.鈥�

So on May 21, 2024, Jones鈥攁nd a younger hiking friend, Tate 鈥淧yro鈥� Dobson鈥攍eft the trail鈥檚 southern terminus in Georgia, carrying he鈥檇 methodically made himself or ordered after hours of research on AliExpress, a sort of Chinese Etsy-meets-Amazon in overdrive. In the past, Jones had carried backpacks that cost more, but he was attempting to reach Maine with an , an , and shoes he purchased on clearance. 鈥淚t was my extra layer of challenge,鈥� he says, grinning. 鈥淏eing a little more creative to be a little more comfortable is fun.鈥�

The sacrifices came quickly. Aiming to finish in less than 100 days, or just more than half of the six-month average, Jones left Georgia late, which exposed him to the soaring Southern heat. An early encounter with a poison ivy stand left him with a massive rash that he suspects he could have mitigated with more showers and laundry. Those, however, would have cost money he intended to save.

The poison ivy was but a prologue for what came next, for what Jones worried would cost him not only his budget hike but also his left leg. He鈥檇 struggled with shoe selection; thru-hikes can often burn the tread and compress the cushion in a half-dozen pairs, a line item that can push a grand itself. Jones had ordered multiple shoes from AliExpress, only to realize that their floppy construction and nearly non-existent grip created their own dangers. So when he found a deeply discounted set of used name-brand kicks at REI, he rejoiced. 鈥淭urns out, if there鈥檚 a whole bunch of used stock of a shoe,鈥� he says, 鈥渋t鈥檚 probably junk.鈥�

Less than 200 miles into the hike, a plastic piece inside the shoe began cutting into his foot. He knew he needed something else, so, in desperation, he grabbed a pair of waterproof trail runners from a North Carolina . Not long after he entered Virginia, the fever and cramps began, an infection steadily spreading up his left leg in visible lines. He caught a ride to an urgent care with a prison guard, happily popped open a bottle of antibiotics, and found a free place to stay courtesy of an old friend who happened to be a doctor.

鈥淚f I鈥檇 let that go for a week, I could have died. It was that serious,鈥� says Jones. 鈥淚 got cut because I tried to be cheap with shoes. So there鈥檚 a lesson, right? Don鈥檛 cheat on footwear.鈥�

Jones knew his budget was permanently blown, since he estimated the doctor visit would cost him $250. (He hasn鈥檛 been billed yet, either thanks to a mistake or Missouri Medicaid; he鈥檚 not asking.) He opted to relax just enough to buy what was necessary鈥攊ncluding new Altras for the rest of the trail鈥攂ut not to splurge. He made it to New York, or two states beyond the AT鈥檚 halfway mark, on his preset $1,000. By the time he鈥檇 reached the northern endpoint at Mount Katahdin, after tacking on the tricky northern half of Vermont鈥檚 Long Trail and slowing down to enjoy Maine鈥檚 splendor, he鈥檇 spent $2,397.19, or less than half of the

Several lessons鈥攂uying robust hiking shoes included鈥攅merged on the way to Maine. Where candy bars were once a fast-fuel staple of Jones’s diet, he realized they weren鈥檛 as cost-efficient as he鈥檇 assumed. He didn鈥檛 eat one on the entire trail. Instead, he made his own trail mix, combining cashews with coconut flakes and chocolate chips from the baking aisle, turning $10 into 100 miles of calories. For dinner, he stayed steady with two packets of Ramen noodles and a few spoons of peanut butter. This might, he says, have been his most nutritious thru-hike.

He would often camp on the edges of towns, too, so that he could get in and out with groceries while avoiding the temptation to sit down for an expensive restaurant meal, or to book a room. And in towns where he did stop, he looked to split a hotel room or hostel with other hikers, opting for a spot with a kitchen whenever possible so that they could cook big, cheap meals. And when a fast-food opportunity presented itself, Jones knew to look first for an app before ordering. His first restaurant meal came at a Tennessee McDonald鈥檚, several hundred miles into his trip. 鈥�2,000 calories for $3?鈥� he says, beaming as if reliving the experience in real time. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 amazing.鈥�

As Jones walked, he kept a , clocking the costs of his resupplies and stays. I鈥檓 struck by the restraint evident in those numbers. If you鈥檝e ever gone to a grocery store while hungry, you know well the temptation to throw everything into the cart. But he broke $80 only once, with many of his purchases landing around $35.

There are some higher-level takeaways, too, from Jones’ extreme budgeting. Jones is a longtime practitioner of Vipassana meditation, having done nearly ten silent retreats. He doesn鈥檛 maintain a formal practice on trail, because he鈥檇 fall asleep so fast, but it alters the way he handles hardships outside. 鈥淚 knew it wasn鈥檛 going to be hot forever. I knew I wasn鈥檛 going to have poison ivy forever,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 try to maintain an equanimity of my mind and an awareness of my body, so if it鈥檚 cold, I can stop myself from saying 鈥業 wish I wasn鈥檛 cold.鈥� It鈥檚 a constant process.鈥�

He also had his physical fitness to thank. If you鈥檝e seen a , you know Jones is something of a beast鈥攁 veteran who started a Crossfit gym and went on to fight wildland fires, , and capture one of the rarest feats in American hiking with the Calendar-Year Triple Crown. His legs appear sculpted in marble by Michelangelo. But the more you can do to start a trail strong rather than relying on the trail to condition you while you walk, the faster you can move and the more money you can save. 鈥淚f it took me twice as long to do it,鈥� he says, 鈥渕y cost might have doubled. Being in shape is a big one.鈥�

Jones acknowledges that hiking on such a minuscule budget raises some ethical concerns, particularly when it comes to his gear. He knows that the down in the jacket he eventually left in a hiker box wasn鈥檛 sustainably sourced, and he knows that all of the gear he ordered on AliExpress was so cheap because the wages are low. But these, he says, are issues beyond the bounds of a thru-hike, questions that somebody slipping into the woods for a few months cannot answer. 鈥淪omeone shouldn鈥檛 be kept out of the outdoors because they can鈥檛 afford the most 鈥榚thical鈥� gear,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f someone鈥檚 making good money, then, yes, buy all the cottage brands and support them. But there is no clear-cut answer here.鈥�

There is a possible alternative, though. Jones鈥� hiking partner, Pyro, didn鈥檛 try to stick to $1,000 as a theoretical exercise or a challenge to himself. When he headed east to join Jones, he estimates he had $1,500 available for the whole trip. In the two weeks between deciding to join Jones鈥� mission and leaving for it, Pyro mailed some old shoes to assorted points along the trail and made his own backpack.

For 2,200 miles, Pyro raided hiker boxes for the best snacks he could find, dumpster-dove to find chocolate milk (鈥淚t was hot, but it tasted fine.鈥�) and baby formula, and accepted the generosity of strangers, including a free pair of used shoes from a trail angel. He learned that a plastic bag full of spaghetti and eggs is a very cheap and delicious meal to pack out of town, and that shoes can be stitched together with mere dental floss. He barely bought new gear at all, and he spent $1,300.

I asked Pyro if he could have made it for $1,000, after all. 鈥淭hat was never my goal, but easy,鈥� he says, laughing. 鈥淎ll you have to do is go out to eat less.鈥�

The post He Tried to Hike the Appalachian Trail on a $1,000 Budget. Here鈥檚 What He Learned. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Almost every hiker box I have ever seen after 11,000 miles on American trails has the same litter problem: the thin plastic water bags that accompany the popular Sawyer Squeeze, the most efficient and reliable water filter I have ever used. In theory, these ubiquitous black-and-blue mylar bags are a hiker’s dream, able to hold nearly a liter of water in exchange for less than an ounce of weight.

But water filters get clogged, and gear gets dropped on jagged rocks, these thin bags rip in the middle during the second scenario and burst at the seams with the first. Weight savings and water filters are useless if you don鈥檛 actually have a way to hold your water.

Seven years ago, a product designer named Gilad Nachman began solving the problem caused by the flimsy bags when his fledgling company, Cnoc Outdoors, . A soft-sided and completely collapsible water bladder, the Vecto offered a simple but welcome upgrade: thicker walls and rugged seams that could withstand the pressure needed to force water through a dirty filter or the abrasive chaos of a long-distance hiker鈥檚 cluttered backpack. The Vecto’s real genius, though, is that one end screws neatly into a Sawyer Squeeze; the other end opens completely and easily, making it simple to scoop water from paltry sources, or dip the thing into a lake.

And so, as long-distance hikers have replaced their Sawyer water bags on trails with Cnoc bladders and bottles, they have gotten into the sensible habit of tossing the ones that come free with the Squeeze into our repositories of collective junk and gear, hiker boxes. The discarded bags wait for whatever unlucky walker next needs some emergency water-storage fix. I have donated at least a dozen during my adventures. Those bags are still sitting somewhere, I presume, awaiting oblivion or apocalypse.

Hopefully, this wasteful practice is over: In January, the two companies finally partnered, making the unofficial hydration fix of thru-hikers official by and selling them as complete units. Not only did they make this sensible pair a legitimate couple, but the combination costs less than buying the two products separately.

These units are sold through Sawyer’s distribution channels and on its website, and the Vectro bladders feature both brand logos on them. But make no mistake, the bladder is definitely made by Cnoc Outdoors. Sawyer鈥檚 own water bags should gradually become a little less common in trailside piles, making it easier to spot the free Knorr sides and Pop Tarts always lurking in hiker boxes.

The companies have considered this collaboration for years, since it made so much sense. If people were already doing it, after all, why not make it easier, cheaper, and less wasteful by slimming the packaging and shipping needed for two products into one? But Sawyer鈥攚hich also makes splints and sunscreen, bug repellants and sting kits鈥攚as in the process of trimming its individual products, or of simplifying the assorted SKUs it sold. 鈥淲e had hundreds, and it was so hard to manage,鈥� Amy Stead, an account manager at Sawyer, recently told me during a call alongside Cnoc鈥檚 Nachman. 鈥淲hen Gilad approached us, we were fighting against that.鈥�

Previous partnership talks proved preemptive for Nachman and Cnoc, too. From my own experience, I know he鈥檚 right when he says that the quality of the Vecto has improved in recent years. Today, the bladder’s seams are able to take much more pressure before they, too, succumb. (If you鈥檝e ever superglued a Cnoc together in a hotel room while on trail, you know true Sisyphean frustration.) And in recent years, Cnoc has introduced and then upgraded a water bottle called the ; it鈥檚 one of a few items that is with me on day hikes and thru-hikes alike, and Sawyer is now selling one of those with .

What鈥檚 more, Cnoc鈥檚 production capacity needed to expand to keep up with the potential demand of a company as large as Sawyer. Still a relatively fledgling business, Cnoc has now tapped into the more robust distribution network of Sawyer, a brand that has been making life outside easier for 41 years.

鈥淥ur early bladders were just not as good, and there was a natural maturity curve for Cnoc,鈥� Nachman said. 鈥淎nd then we had to grow to a point where we could teach our factory to produce at this scale. And now is finally the time.鈥�

This is, admittedly, not some revolutionary shift. Sawyer and Cnoc have simply opted to sell a combination of their own products that lots of us have been pairing ourselves for years. But I appreciate the idea that their move makes this bit of semi-hidden thru-hiker wisdom accessible to anyone that doesn鈥檛 necessarily have long-distance dreams. Sure, you could have learned about this pair through Reddit, YouTube, or any number of hiking blogs, really. But now you can just walk into REI or so many of the outfitters that sell Sawyer products and ask for it. A Sawyer atop a Cnoc is the fastest route to reliably clean water on trail; now, it鈥檚 faster and easier to get in the first place.

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In early August, on the shoulder听of Colorado鈥檚 highest peak, 14,439-foot Mount Elbert, I suddenly found myself unable to do anything except apologize.

I had started up the mountain so early that morning you could still call it night, hiking the remote Black Cloud Trail that leads to Elbert鈥檚 southeast ridge. The trail was lit by so many stars I sometimes forewent my headlamp.

Delirious from a lack of sleep and the increasing altitude, I was barreling back down the mountain not long after dawn, visions of breakfast skillets back in Leadville dancing in my head. But my post-summit reverie was broken by a nightmare scenario: a trail-crew looking up from their work to judge me. They were silent, but their scowls might as well have been screams.

At a junction a few hundred vertical feet up from them, I鈥檇 instinctively taken what appeared to be the most direct route down, plunging across the slope. I thought the route seemed especially steep, not like the kind of steadily graded trail the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative typically builds and maintains. I hadn鈥檛 seen any obstacles blocking access to this part of the trail.

Alas, this wasn鈥檛 the trail at all, and I had inadvertently cut several switchbacks, realizing it only when I ran into the very crew that was managing them.

鈥淚鈥檓 so, so sorry,鈥� I repeatedly stammered to the Sunday morning gang, explaining that I was a strict switchback-cutting-is-for losers apostle and that I鈥檇 simply missed a turn.

鈥淎nd it doesn鈥檛 look like I鈥檓 the only one who made that mistake,鈥� I continued, pointing to the sizable rut I had followed. They sighed, less at me than their Sisyphean task: trying to maintain a mountainside in a world where most people simply want to get somewhere else as quickly as possible.

鈥淚t鈥檚 cheating,鈥� Lloyd Athearn, the executive director of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, told me with a laugh two weeks later, the 鈥渋t鈥� in question being cutting switchbacks while coming down a mountain. 鈥淲e just got done with the Olympics, and someone can鈥檛 just cut the turn on the track and still be in the race,” he added. “They鈥檙e disqualified. You鈥檙e not doing the trail any faster鈥攂ecause you鈥檙e not doing the trail.鈥�

Indeed, switchbacks鈥攁nd, namely, cutting them in an effort to save time鈥攈ad a big year. A month after my conversation with Athearn, on Labor Day, Idaho pro runner Michelino Sunseri appeared to set a new for getting up and down one of the country鈥檚 most totemic peaks, Grand Teton. Trouble was, he cut a switchback to avoid what he called the 鈥淐ongo line of hikers鈥� who weren鈥檛 paid athletes, since his record was apparently more important than their joy or the trail itself. His FKT was revoked, and the National Park Service issued a hefty citation, prompted in part by his very public flouting of the rules on鈥攚here else?鈥擲trava.

The outcry against Sunseri was swift and sustained; many in hiking and running communities rightfully resented someone who seemed to see himself as better or more important than the hoi polloi, 鈥渢he Congo line.鈥�

But Grand Teton National Park鈥攍ike most every mountainous public land I鈥檝e ever encountered in the United States鈥攊s often an endless spiderweb of unofficial trails created by cutting switchbacks, sometimes unintentionally built by individuals looking to save a little time. Collectively, though, these decisions lead to massive environmental degradation. It鈥檚 easy to scorn Sunseri, but we鈥檝e all done it. I make every effort to never cut switchbacks, but, just as I did on Elbert, I still make mistakes. Making less in the future is a nearly effortless way to preserve the trails we all share.

鈥淲hen trails switch back up a slope, it does two different things: It lessens the grade of the trail, as opposed to just going straight up that slope,鈥� explains Athearn. 鈥淎nd then it allows water to flow down the backslope, across the tread, and then the bottom part of the slope. That鈥檚 much less impactful to the trail鈥檚 tread.鈥�

That first reason is why people cut switchbacks at all. They see where the trail is eventually going and they trust they鈥檙e strong enough hikers or runners to get to the same place in a more direct albeit steep way. They shave off a few hundred feet and maybe a minute or so of movement; done enough times during a long day or even an FKT attempt, that adds up to getting to that breakfast skillet much faster. I understand the temptation entirely, and I鈥檝e certainly done it in the past.

But switchbacks aren鈥檛 just for us; they鈥檙e for the benefit of the landscapes we鈥檙e there to see and the trails we use to visit them. Water wants to get from a high point to a lower one as quickly and efficiently as possible, so when we help foster a steep rut by cutting a switchback, we give water a chance to rush downhill鈥攁nd bring precious soil with it. Athearn tells me that in high alpine environments, he expects only a foot of soil to linger above the rock, and it often takes a millennium to build just an inch of that soil. Cutting across a switchback can wipe it out immediately. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e looking at 10,000 years of evolutionary process just flowing down a hillside,鈥� Athearn says.

And then, of course, there is the human effort that goes into building and maintaining these trails. It is easy to look at a trail and not understand the effort they require, but these things are built and maintained by people who, more often than not, love a place as much as you do. When Athearn describes the process of constructing a trail, my brain breaks a little鈥攖he scouting and inspecting and permitting and staging and building and maintaining. The folks on their hands and knees, moving rocks and smoothing dirt on that Sunday morning, were part of a multi-year effort to help that particular route endure increased traffic and erosion. Cutting a switchback is, then, a wordless “screw you.”

Athearn and his crews have heard hikers talk of trail gnomes who emerge in the middle of the night or pure divine intervention as explanations for trails and their maintenance. He can only laugh. 鈥淣o, it鈥檚 just a bunch of us smelly workers out here for weeks at the time,鈥� he says. 鈥淕od didn鈥檛 place rocks there in a miraculous fashion. Mere mortals did.鈥�

For me, this conjures the war against litter, which, as a species, we are still losing. If you鈥檝e got trash in your car, the most expedient thing to do is toss it out, to make it someone else鈥檚 problem, to make it the environment鈥檚 issue. Why wait for a trash can when all the world鈥檚 available to be one? And why wait for a switchback when you can just head straight up hill? The same answer holds for both questions: because there鈥檚 more to the world than our immediate needs, and hoping to finish a trail a few minutes faster is not much of a need at all.

Grayson Haver Currin has written about long-distance hiking for 国产吃瓜黑料 since 2020. He completed the Triple Crown in 2023 and has logged more than 11,000 miles on the United States’ National Scenic Trails. He writes about music for The New York Times, GQ, Mojo, Pitchfork, and many more. He lives high in Colorado’s Front Range.

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The Green Bay Packers were suddenly not the most interesting entertainment option听in Mac鈥檚 Pub and Grub, a dim dive packed with people wearing Packers gear on a Sunday afternoon in October in the lakeside Wisconsin town of Merrimac. Unfortunately for me, I was.

Midway through the first quarter, I had slipped inside Mac鈥檚, found an unoccupied stool, and leaned against a wall with clear sightlines of the bar鈥檚 TV gallery, exhausted and half-frozen like a piece of melting ice. I鈥檇 left camp 11 hours earlier, at 4 A.M., hustling 31 miles through a Sunday squall in order to make Mac鈥檚, or to watch the Packers鈥� bout with the Detroit Lions among the locals. But I looked as if I鈥檇 emerged from the depths of Lake Wisconsin, as puddles of rainwater pooled beneath my feet and around my backpack. Every play or two, someone else glanced askance from the bar, as if Cheers had been invaded by some primordial beast from the bottom of Boston Harbor.

鈥淎re you hungry?鈥� a broad-chested man in a Packers jersey, belly to the bar and bottle in hand, finally asked. When I nodded, he grinned and pointed. 鈥淭here鈥檚 food over there. Help yourself.鈥� For the next three hours, my wife, Tina, and I gorged ourselves on what surely must have been the most delicious potluck ever鈥攆inger-thick slabs of candied bacon, brie wheels topped with baked salmon, tortilla chip smothered in cheese-laden chili. As we slowly warmed back to life after the windy November downpour, the regulars steadily realized we were hiking across their state, endeavoring to finish the 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail before the infamous Wisconsin winter arrived. Some of them, at least, became fans.

Mac had first said I looked like a wet rat; now, he spun our laundry in the bar鈥檚 dryer, then offered to let us camp beside the bar. A couple, Paul and Deb, peppered us with questions about the adventure, then feted us with their own wilderness stories鈥攁nd several shots. Sue, a retiree who would soon head south for the winter, offered up a bathtub and bedroom, which we accepted after needlessly worrying we were being soft. 鈥淵ou kids be safe,鈥� Mac said, smiling like a proud father as we followed Sue to her car, 鈥渁nd let us know when you finish.鈥�

So goes my overall experience on the Ice Age Trail, a 40-day slog through pleasant but repetitive woods and along often-busy highways, alleviated by bouts of unexpected support and kindness from Wisconsin natives. Strangers handed us candy bars from open car windows. Fathers running errands made U-turns to scoop us from seemingly ubiquitous rainstorms, while trailside bar owners treated us like Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay before offering to deliver us breakfast the next morning. A fleet of Ice Age Trail volunteers was seemingly always on call, too, ready to drive us from hotel to听trail or offer camping intel during extended road walks.

Though it is one of , alongside the more familiar and acclaimed Appalachian and Pacific Crest, the Ice Age Trail is decidedly not a premier thru-hike, best done in one continuous push. I do not recommend it as a thru-hike. But after 11,000 miles on such trails, I can say it is the friendliest long-distance experience I鈥檝e ever had, both in terms of the people on or around it and the way its stewards have shaped and maintained it. Really, it is more of a linear community center that happens to stretch between the Minnesota and Michigan borders than a wilderness experience. The Ice Age Trail is, in every positive sense, Midwest Nice鈥攑leasant to look at, if a tad boring, but as accommodating and kind as can be.

鈥淓verybody takes pride in it in our own special way, whether it鈥檚 the person serving you breakfast in a trail town or the guy who walks the same five-mile segment every day,鈥� Jared Wildenradt, who has now hiked the entire Ice Age Trail eight times, told me two weeks after I finished my walk.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a definite community here that people don鈥檛 expect when it comes to hiking in the Midwest,鈥� he continued. 鈥淭he people that power through here get to experience that, just like you did in 40 days.鈥�

What is the Ice Age Trail?

More than many of its National Scenic Trail counterparts, the Ice Age Trail remains a work in progress. First envisioned in the fifties by a Milwaukee-born outdoors enthusiast named Ray Zillmer, it was only established by Congress during 1980. The trail roughly follows the terminal edge of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, as it about 10,000 years ago. Kettles, moraines, eskers, drumlins, wetlands, hanging valleys, outwash plains: Across, down, and up Wisconsin, you crisscross these glacial vestiges, repeated in random bursts like a particularly chaotic and tremendous .

Still, after more than four decades of route-finding, trail-building, and parcel-buying, only 700 miles of the 1,200-route is contiguous, winding across forests, around fields and farms, or through tiny towns. Nearly 500 miles still depend upon what the Ice Age Trail Alliance calls 鈥渃onnecting routes,鈥� a euphemism for rural roads and busy highways. The imperative, then, is closing those gaps, pulling hikers off those connecting routes by securing land for actual footpaths.

Wildenradt has helped find six such parcels; he talks about the first one鈥攁 glacier-carved patch of property that interrupts a 25-mile road walk via a 0.7-mile roller coaster through the woods鈥攍ike a father might extol a firstborn. When we spoke, he sat plucking seeds from pine cones that he intended to plant on that plot soon. 鈥淚 went away and hacked at the dirt, started clearing away for trail. I was beat up from head to toe,鈥� he said, laughing about the spot鈥檚 temporary nickname, Prickler鈥檚 Property. 鈥淚 had close to 300 volunteer hours when it was done. I could easily drop 100 more.鈥�

All that, mind you, for less than a mile. When the current executive director, Luke Kloberdanz, thru-hiked it in 2003, he was the eleventh person ever to do so. Only two decades ago, the mileage ratio was reversed, with nearly 700 miles of road walks to 500 on trail. He now believes the path will be finished within his children鈥檚 lifetimes, meaning his grandkids could walk from Minnesota to Michigan and touch very little asphalt.

鈥淚 always thought that completion was a long way off, that I was never going to be part of that,鈥� Kloberdanz told me. 鈥淲e may not reach the end of the tunnel in my lifetime, but we鈥檙e at least starting to see the light. I鈥檝e never felt that way in my 20 years here.鈥�

That aspirational pride animates the Ice Age Trail, end to end. I鈥檝e never hiked a better-blazed path. Hikers can spot听its bright yellow stripes by headlamp as by sunlight. (When you fill out a thru-hiking certification upon completing the trail, the Ice Age Trail Alliance even asks how many times you get lost, so they can fix the problems.) And I鈥檝e never encountered a volunteer network so robust and eager to help hikers; wherever you are in the state, you are almost always a phone call away from a free ride, meal, or bed. These volunteers raved about the contributions they and their friends had made to the trail, as if thanking me for using them, for making good on their hard work.

The trail is also dotted with benches, sometimes more than one per mile, and often dedicated to a late hiker who loved the place. They鈥檙e meant, of course, to make the trail more accommodating, to give people who aren鈥檛 aiming to finish 30 miles in a day a chance to rest. You won鈥檛 see that on any other National Scenic Trail. The friendliness is by both circumstance and design, pervading everything.

In 2020, to celebrate its 40th official year, the Ice Age Trail Alliance launched the Mammoth Hike Challenge鈥攅ssentially, a reward for anyone who hikes 40 miles during the month of October, when the foliage of the Wisconsin fall is at its apex. The trail鈥檚 mascot is a . It鈥檚 so cute I now have one on my desk, dutifully carried for the last 400 miles. They鈥檝e added one mile to that requirement each subsequent year.

On weekends, we鈥檇 meet couples and crews of friends in pursuit of their 44-mile quota. They were eager not only to share the best things they鈥檇 seen but also to hear ours. More than once, my answer was you, the people who love this trail so much.

Did I Like the Ice Age Trail?

On a cold Saturday morning at a Kwik Trip, a particularly bountiful chain of convenience stores launched in Wisconsin in the sixties, I was waiting in line at an automated espresso machine. 鈥淎re you hiking the Ice Age Trail?鈥� said the woman ahead of me, her smile as bright as her pastel tie-dye. When I answered yes, her grin somehow grew wider. She introduced herself as Tarra. 鈥淚 want to do that someday, too.鈥� Several hours later, Tarra sent us an Instagram message with her phone number and an offer of help should we need it as we neared her home a few hundred miles east.

Turns out, we did. Due to a few work deadlines, we鈥檇 pushed our pace on the Ice Age, hiking at least 30 miles every day with zero rest days. As we neared the 1,000-mile mark, my body鈥攕pecifically, my left IT Band, suddenly as intractable as a massive team of mules鈥攖ightening to the point that each step felt as if a knife was being jammed into my joint. At night, crawling into the tent, my knee looked like a balloon. I knew it was time to stop. The next morning, I hobbled two miles to a gas station and texted Tarra, asking if she knew where I might rent a car nearby. The sun wasn鈥檛 up yet, but she told me she was on her way.

As I lamented my knee an hour later, she texted a friend who happened to be her physical therapist. How soon could she see me? For two hours that afternoon, Jeanie Crawford鈥攁 , a blessed sorceress per my experience鈥攑ulled, tugged, straightened, bent, jabbed, and corrected seemingly every bone in my body. I had almost crawled into her office, but I somehow walked out with a mostly normal stride. She charged me half of her hourly rate, ostensibly听excited enough by the effort to cross her state that she practically gave away her day.

For the next week, I returned to more than 30 miles every day, moving at my normal pace because a stranger had been willing to leave her home long before her workday began and find me help. The Ice Age Trail didn鈥檛 dazzle me with scenery or variety, and it didn鈥檛 prompt me to learn any new backpacking techniques. Most days, truth be told, I didn鈥檛 even like it. I contemplated quitting more often than I鈥檝e ever considered such for anything in my life.

But it did remind me of something obvious, something that can be easy to forget high in the mountains or deep in the woods: Hiking trails are for all people, and those interactions can take a dozen different forms, from the married couple hustling from one end of a state to another to the bartender who keeps asking for more of their stories, from the gaggle of retirees out for a slow Sunday stroll high on an esker to the trail runner bombing down a rock face in the rain. The Ice Age Trail is a gift from Wisconsin鈥檚 past to Wisconsin鈥檚 present and future. I鈥檓 grateful its people share it so generously.

Grayson Haver Currin has written about long-distance hiking for 国产吃瓜黑料 since 2020. He completed the Triple Crown in 2023 and has logged more than 11,000 miles on the United States’ National Scenic Trails. He writes about music for The New York Times, GQ, Mojo, Pitchfork, and many more. He lives high in Colorado’s Front Range.

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French outdoor apparel brand Satisfy has perfected running shorts. Founded a decade ago by , the Paris-based company has performed a paradoxical miracle with distance running鈥檚 necessity. Their best shorts, the , feel as if you鈥檙e wearing absolutely nothing while actually being sturdy enough to store fuel (and even car keys) and prevent skin from rubbing against skin.

Since hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in a leopard-print pair in 2021, I have logged more than 10,000 miles in assorted versions of the Rippy with such devotion that, when it鈥檚 laundry day and I must wear something else outside, I will briefly consider not running or hiking at all. And despite the high price tag ($260), I鈥檝e been stockpiling them for years, like a squirrel hoarding nuts, just in case Satisfy someday discontinues them.

Earlier this year, Satisfy announced it was upgrading the Rippy in an experiment, replacing the nylon ripstop shell for which it is named with a layer of Dyneema. Three decades ago, what would become known as Dyneema helped the American听sailing team overcome the heavily favored Italians in the America鈥檚 Cup. As resilient as it was lightweight, the seemingly miraculous fabric鈥攑olyethylene sandwiched between polyester鈥攈as spread into cut-proof gloves, body armor, shoes, and both the waterproof backpacks and tents I have used for years. .

Still, the idea seemed silly, maybe even horrible, from the start: How would Dyneema, which repels water like a tin roof, respond to my excessive sweat? Where would it go? And how would material that can feel coarse and even stiff glide against my bare legs at high speeds and over long distances? Also, would they be hot? (鈥淗ard boiled eggs,鈥� one Reddit user said of his testicles when he imagined wearing them.)

Oh, and what about that price? Sure, the stateside shipping was free, but I wondered how many people could afford a $420 pair of shorts鈥攁nd why did they cost that much, anyway? (In the sake of transparency, my pair was a sample sent to me by the company.) Aside from Satisfy鈥檚 limited-edition collaboration with eyewear brand Oakley, the Rippy Dyneema Trail Shorts are鈥攁s best as I or any of the multiple running aficionados I asked could remember鈥攖he most expensive pair of running or hiking shorts ever made. A Satisfy stan, I assumed they must be worth it.

I was absolutely wrong. All summer long, from the highest peaks in Colorado to long-distance lakeside runs in Chicago, I wore Satisfy鈥檚 Dyneema Rippy shorts, hoping to find a function that justified the indulgence. They have been hiking, running, swimming, and soaking in baking saunas, glacial lakes, slot canyons, and radiant deserts. And mostly what I鈥檝e gained is a season of chafing so ghastly and intense that I鈥檝e wondered more than once if I needed to see a dermatologist. Satisfy has perfected running shorts; by adding Dyneema, they have proven just how delicate perfection can be. Turns out, Satisfy agrees.

鈥淚f I had to do a Version 2 of these shorts, I would probably not go for Dyneema,鈥� Partouche told me on a recent weekday, laughing from his office. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a failure, because we tried to be over-technical. People overpaid for a technicality they didn鈥檛 have a chance to fully explore. It鈥檚 good to accept that some products are better than others.鈥�

The idea to substitute nylon for Dyneema has a sensible-enough origin story. Satisfy wanted to build an ultra-durable pair of shorts that could withstand ultramarathons听through听desert brambles and snags听or forests dense with deadfall. What鈥檚 more, they wanted a fabric so strong it could hold heavy loads for runners moving long distances between aid stations. And, of course, it needed to be light. Dyneema fits those criteria.

These parameters, Partouche admitted, are very particular, and Satisfy never spelled them out clearly. They never specified how limited their functionality might be. It鈥檚 the kind of small-run experiment, he said, that big companies ship to athletes to try in challenging conditions. 鈥淔or us, that would be way more expensive,鈥� he said. 鈥淎t Satisfy, what we give to athletes in terms of technology and what we offer the final consumer is exactly the same.鈥�

All my apprehensions about the shorts were right. Satisfy鈥檚 regular Rippy shorts work so well because of the way they hold sweat. As the traditional nylon cover becomes saturated, it begins to cling to a base layer of 鈥渢echnical silk鈥� Satisfy has dubbed 鈥淛ustice鈥濃�攂asically, the most comfortable pair of biking tights you鈥檝e ever worn. They stick together and move in tandem, meaning you mostly avoid the friction that leads to chafing over long distances.

This doesn鈥檛 happen with Dyneema. The top layer instead bunches up, so the silk beneath it rides upward as it absorbs water. You see where this is going, right? A discomfort so intense you want to bail on whatever miles you have left, then jump into a vat of Gold Bond.

Fall is coming quickly to the mountains of Colorado, where I now live. That means that my summer experiment with Dyneema鈥攊n which I tried but failed to test the second-most expensive running shorts ever until I fell in love with them鈥攊s almost over. Last Sunday, though, I slipped them on one more time for a long run followed by a long hike.

All season, I鈥檇 been stuffing gel packets and drink mixes into the three pockets that line the rear waistband. I finally remembered to try the two pockets that Satisfy added to the silk layer beneath the Dyneema, a first-time feature for the company. I loved them, slipping gels out of the pockets on the front of my legs without breaking stride, even as I made haste down a canyon. When I asked Partouche about those pockets a few days later, another Satisfy employee, Tommy Hubert, told me they would soon make several more appearances in their 2025 lineup. That is, I could have the pockets without the chafing.

At last, I realized that鈥檚 what makes Satisfy stand out鈥攁 willingness to try, fail, learn the lessons, and then succeed. They attempt outlandish things all the time, from that are a real joy to wear on a hot day to a with modular Primaloft padding that remains the single most confusing piece of clothing I own. Some work. Some don鈥檛. All of it helped lead to the shorts I covet, and maybe, next year, will听get even better. Partouche often talks about Satisfy in terms of punk rock, which can be hard to square with a pair of shorts that costs as much as a听car payment. Part of the ethos, at least, translates.

鈥淲e dare to try. We dare to change the status quo, to polarize. Big companies can鈥檛 polarize, but Satisfy can,鈥� he told me. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 care if people love us or hate us, which puts Satisfy in a very unique position where people say, 鈥榃hat the heck?鈥欌��

That鈥檚 when I learned to love the shorts I thought I hated, even if I don鈥檛 think I鈥檒l ever wear them for long distances again.

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Snacking is the secret pleasure of backpacking, but it can also feel like the biggest chore. During a day of long miles and steep climbs, calories are as important as the right shoes, the fuel that makes it all possible. But how many Clif Bars, Snickers, Haribos, and peanuts can one human stand? After 10,000 miles, I鈥檝e lost the ability to stomach those hiker standards very often. I forever crave something novel.

So in trail town grocery stores, or when thinking about before a long hike, I鈥檓 always on the hunt for a new snack, a new texture or taste that entertains me as I literally move through my day. These additions are mutable, of course, though some have stuck with me, little treats I tell fellow travelers about around the night鈥檚 cookpot or when we鈥檙e in the aisles together, trying to decide what food we鈥檙e putting in our packs for the next several hundred miles.

Below are the five best hiking snacks that I鈥檝e discovered recently, listed chronologically for how I consume them during the day. These are all small businesses to one degree or another, so don鈥檛 expect them in a trailside convenience store. You may need to order them online in advance of your hike, or, if you鈥檙e lucky enough to have someone mail you supplies from home, have them add it to your tab. Food is a joy of long-distance treks and day hikes alike; here鈥檚 what鈥檚 providing so much of it for me lately.

no normal鈥檚 Coffee Paste

Gummies, powders, gels, bars, and, of course, coffee: If there is a way to transport caffeine on trail, I鈥檝e tried it. Or at least so I thought until a friend sent me a link to coffee, a Zurich startup squeezing ultra-concentrated coffee paste and a touch of beet sugar into a big black metal tube. The strategy, founders Philippe Greinacher and Alexander H盲berlin told , stems from Switzerland鈥檚 postwar prepper strategy, where innovations with shelf-stable foods were safeguards for potential invasion.

On trail in the Swiss Alps and on the beach in Africa, the pair longed for coffee that tasted better than flakes of the acrid instant stuff and didn鈥檛 need much water. They got it right. Though the paste works well dissolved in hot or cold water, I find myself taking tiny sips straight from the tube before an arduous climb or a long haul, the stinging bitterness soon dissolving into a subtle sweetness. It works as a spread, too. , it鈥檚 pricier than Folgers Instant but cheaper than the new wave of niche instant brands. And the satisfaction of swilling coffee from a tube in front of strangers? Priceless.

Best Buckin鈥� Jerky

During my first thru-hike, I had been a vegetarian for a decade. But nearly every account of on-trail nutrition I read referenced the supremacy of jerky as a lightweight vehicle for protein and flavor. So my wife, Tina, and I bought boxes and boxes of vegan jerky, devouring it along the length of the Appalachian Trail with near-religious devotion. It tasted, I must admit now, like salty cardboard, but twice as tough. There have since been remarkable advances in meatless jerky, from to 鈥檚 textured soy protein. But I have recently been on a meat jerky tear, trying to find a brand that has the strongest flavors without filling me with preservatives or the dregs of the butcher-shop鈥檚 wastebin.

I finally found it in , the rightfully named company of San Antonio meat-curing fiend Joli Phillips. A former spa manager in Santa Fe and catering company owner in Austin, Phillips is on a few parallel missions. First, she wants to buck the notion that jerky is a manly domain. Though her husband, Adam, is a professional chef, he is only her taste-tester.

鈥淭his gal doesn鈥檛 sit side-saddle,鈥� as her website proclaims. (, too, an organization linking girls with STEM educations.) Second, using specifically chosen and especially lean cuts of beef, she aims to create thin and tender strips of jerky with piquant flavors. Inspired by Ruth鈥檚 Chris steakhouse, her Cowgirl flavor melts in your mouth like carpaccio. And loaded with bird鈥檚 eye chilis, Phillips鈥� Khaw Keirl version kicks harder than any jerky I鈥檝e yet to find in a grocery store. I鈥檒l be ordering a box before my thru-hikes this fall, and it will certainly taste better than the cardboard in which it arrives.

蝉丑腻谤鈥檚 鈥淥riginal鈥� Trail Mix

Spend long enough on trail, and the G in 鈥攖hat is, good ol鈥� raisins and peanuts鈥攕ublimates into 鈥済ross.鈥� As the name implies, that two-ingredient blend is a standby and the basis for with most anything you can imagine, from M&Ms and almonds to peanut butter cups and Beer Nuts. Browsing the grocery store鈥檚 trail mix zone, I sometimes get the sense that manufacturers suss out their surpluses and simply dump whatever鈥檚 there into bags. I do not get this sense from Peter Rushford, a former pro skier turned gear guru who has spent the past decade trying to find his perfect trail mix, one that balanced salt and sweetness, crunch and chew, nutrition and taste. The quest led to , his Austin-based company that, simply put, makes the best trail mix I鈥檝e ever eaten. And there are no peanuts or raisins.

Instead, his 鈥渙riginal鈥� nine-ingredient blend pairs four whole nuts with coconut slivers and three fruits dried just to the point of chewiness鈥攂lueberries, cranberries, and incredible . Oh, and there鈥檚 chocolate from a 160-year-old San Francisco chocolatier. Rushford was so careful in his quest to create the perfect trail mix that each ingredient sports a , and all the packaging forgoes plastic. As a small company with big ambitions, 蝉丑腻谤 isn鈥檛 cheap, but the stuff is potent; I downed a small bag midway during a recent six-summit day, and I had energy to finish the hike without more food.

Honey Mama鈥檚 Cocoa Truffle Bars

I have a possibly unhealthy ritual on long trails: Every night, whether tucked into a tent or spread out under the stars, I take a few puffs from a joint, massage my tired legs as deeply as possible, and eat an entire candy bar. The problem, of course, isn鈥檛 the puffs; it鈥檚 the fact that and are rafts of corn syrup, sugar, and palm or sunflower oil. Maybe that鈥檚 not the best for a body that鈥檚 walked 30 miles鈥攚ith plans to repeat it in the morning. I was relieved, then, to stumble upon three years ago on the Pacific Crest Trail. I began lining my food bag with enough of the paper-wrapped wonders to make it to the next town. My ritual feels a bit more reasonable now.

In a previous life, Portland, Oregon, native Christy Goldsby ran a traditional bakery with her family. While helping a friend negotiate a health struggle, though, she began searching for a dessert that didn鈥檛 skimp on the indulgence of a cake or brownie but offered up better nutrition. Her truffle bars became a Pacific Northwest hit that have since hit refrigerated shelves nationwide. Always starting with honey and coconut oil, Goldsby makes rich treats with surprising or comforting flavor profiles鈥攖ahini and tangerine, for instance, or coconut, pecan, and cocoa. My favorites? Lemon Blueberry and Peanut Butter Cup. Though cooled in the store, they stay soft and safe for several days on trail, giving you the uncanny sense that you鈥檙e somehow downing brownie batter in the tent. That鈥檚 not just the indica talking, bro.

LMNT鈥檚 Chocolate Caramel Hydration Mix, Served Hot

If I stay somewhere swanky on trail, I tend to leave with a half-dozen tea bags, pilfered from the hotel lobby or the breakfast spread. When the weather turns toward winter, I turn into the tent-bound version of the Sleepytime Tea bear, its living room and red stocking cap swapped for my Dyneema confines and a blaze-orange beanie. You can guess the tea鈥檚 upshot: I inevitably crawl out of my cozy lair at least once per night, losing whatever warmth I鈥檇 gained. The new play, though, is a packet of LMNT鈥檚 , especially formulated to be enjoyed hot. Simply drop it in eight ounces of warm water and swirl. That鈥檚 not enough water to send me outside past hiker midnight, and it serves a crucial purpose: replacing some of the day鈥檚 electrolytes without giving me a late-night sugar buzz.

LMNT is passionate, above all, about salt. 鈥淪tay Salty,鈥� reads one company slogan. Another? 鈥淪alty AF.鈥� Cofounder Robb Wolf has even regarding sodium, writing that the link between sodium and blood pressure rests on 鈥渃onjecture.鈥� LMNT uses three ingredients鈥攕alt, potassium citrate from Aspergillus niger, and magnesium malate鈥攖o deliver electrolytes in several flavors with less than 10 calories. (If you favor their science but not LMNT鈥檚 cost, they offer , too.) The ones meant to be taken hot work as my new nightcap. Drinking salty water with a touch of cocoa powder from a titanium pot? Surprisingly delicious.

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My wife Tina never got tired of waiting at the bottom of some long descent鈥攐r at least she never showed it.

For the first several years we spent hiking together鈥攂ack when a 鈥渢hru-hike鈥� was little more to us than some inexplicable abbreviation鈥擨 would motor uphill, only to lag badly on the way back down. I loved ascending from the start (see those tips here), because I was good at it. But I cursed the other direction for the opposite reason. Whatever faint sense of machismo I had made me wonder if women鈥檚 physiology was better suited for descending trails, or if my then-girlfriend was simply showing off. My final verdict? I was just really bad at hiking downhill.

But this not-so-radical act of self-acceptance coincided with a burgeoning ambition to climb bigger mountains鈥攁nd so, to come down them, too. If I were going to do that, especially safely, I knew I鈥檇 need to get better at the seemingly easier part of hiking that, at least, for some of us, is torturous on the knees and nerves. Where getting better at going up, though, seemed intuitive and even obvious, improving my technique and pace at downhill hiking was a mystery. How do you get better at what is essentially controlled falling?

Well, turns out, by falling, getting up, figuring out why you fell, and doing something about it the next time. During 10,000 miles of thru-hiking, I鈥檝e tumbled so many times (mostly while going down) that I鈥檓 lucky to remain in one piece. I鈥檝e considered and internalized my errors and gotten much faster and more confident in my strides down both modest trail and steep mountain.

But I’ve still wondered about the techniques and tricks out there that make a hiker great on descents. So a few weeks ago, I called , a Washington State-based physical therapist and avid adventurer who has worked on bodies in Antarctica, helped launch the , and long been a part of the U.S. Ski Team鈥檚 medical pool. 鈥淲hen I鈥檓 on trail, I can feel the increased forces going downhill versus uphill,鈥� explains Majerus. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 because there is an increased tensile force going downhill, because that鈥檚 an , not concentric. That puts more demand on the muscle. We have to make sure we train that way.鈥�

I wanted to know if the changes I鈥檇 made to help train myself might help others descend, too. Turns out鈥攁nd I鈥檓 sorry for this joke鈥攂ut maybe I鈥檓 on a roll?

Pay Attention to the Terrain

Unless you鈥檙e on an exposed ridge, there鈥檚 typically only so far you can fall while hiking upward. You stumble, maybe you skin your knee, and you get back up and press on. Falling while hiking down is, of course, an entirely different proposal, since the same gravitational forces that ostensibly make going down easier can also send you end over end or headlong into a tree. And for my money, there鈥檚 no easier way to hate an activity than to get badly injured while doing it. So watch out for roots that will trip you, rocks that may give way, or sand, water, and snow that may make the next surface more slippery than the last. I often compare hiking downhill to clambering through a new-to-me boulder field, when I am acutely aware that each rock may shift and cause me to wipe out. The mental calculus of this awareness eventually becomes automatic. And when you do slip, you鈥檒l know enough about the terrain around you to respond.

In fact, hikers not paying attention are one reason Majerus still has a job. She can 鈥減rehab鈥� athletes all she wants in order to prevent overuse injuries, but mindless accidents will always happen. 鈥淧eople say 鈥楢ren鈥檛 you putting yourself out of business by giving us advice before we鈥檙e hurt?鈥欌�� she explains, laughing. 鈥淏ut people lose attention for a moment, and things happen that are beyond their control. They can still come to us.鈥�

Keep a Loose Body Posture

Majerus wants you to visualize a basketball player catching a pass and immediately shifting into the famous . Their feet are shoulder-width apart, with their knees slightly bent, chest out, and their head up. They can survey the court before them, then shoot, pass, or dribble from that position as the situation demands. They are in a versatile position, body loose and ready to react.

No, Majerus doesn鈥檛 want you to drop into an actual triple-threat stance on trail, but the mechanics aren鈥檛 so different: Maintain a slight bend in the knees, but mostly remember to avoid tensing up throughout your body, as if you鈥檙e trying to preempt a spill by resisting gravity. Indeed, for years, this was my foible. I鈥檇 stiffen while descending, locking my back and butt and knees with oaken obstinance, hoping to fend off the inevitable. And then, of course, I would fall, anyway; my muscles would ache, too, from the exertion of my tetanus-like rigidity. When we鈥檙e loose, we already have an advantage when something bad does happen, because we鈥檙e ready to respond like that basketball player. Our bodies know how to move downhill; we just need to give them space to do so.

Plant Your Heels

If you鈥檝e ever walked down a steep snow field, you鈥檝e probably used the . That is, you sit back in your stride with a slightly wide stance and plant one heel in the snow; you settle in and then repeat with the opposite foot, your heel again cutting into the snow first. Walking down a steep hill sans snow? Do a less hyperbolic version of the same motion, bending your knees and leaning into your butt ever so slightly while leading with your heel. Follow through your arch and, just as you start to rise on your toes, repeat with the other foot. You鈥檒l modulate momentum this way by counteracting gravity from your very position. Too, you鈥檙e using a more stable part of your foot.

If you鈥檙e a fast runner, this may feel counterintuitive, since running swiftly downhill often entails landing on your toes or maybe your midfoot, with your heel barely touching the ground if at all. Coming off a glacier and onto scree one time, Majerus remembers a friend telling her to just run to the bottom already. 鈥淭hose were the biggest splits I鈥檝e ever done, with a huge pack on,鈥� she says, grimacing. 鈥淚 destroyed my adductor muscles where the groin is. Why did I do that? I had been in walk mode, back on my heels a little bit. When I started running, I had nothing beneath me.鈥�

Keep Your Weight Off of Your Hiking Poles

We鈥檝e all seen and possibly even done it (I’m guilty): someone leaning so far forward over their hiking poles that they look like some kind of quadruped robot from a sci-fi series or a tech-school鈥檚 cutting-edge lab. It feels instinctive, of course, not only to give yourself more points of contact with the ground but also to feel like you鈥檙e parallel with the slope. But best-case scenario, your back is going to ache when you reach the bottom; worse-scenario case, you hurtle onto your face should your foot catch anything or the poles slide out from loose terrain. Don鈥檛 do it, then. Remember your bent knees and planted heels, and keep your poles to your side or barely out front. Think of them a little bit like a backhoe鈥檚 stabilizers, appendages that keep the machine from tipping as it works.

Pole length and size, however, comes down to personal preference, and one of the only wrong scenarios with them is what I describe above. Majerus suggests poles be high enough to render a 90-degree angle at the elbow; if I鈥檓 going down something especially steep, I might make them slightly longer in order to catch myself better during a big missed step. What鈥檚 more, if I鈥檓 using poles at all, I use only one, Warren Doyle-style, because it keeps me more aware and reactive. But that鈥檚 just me. 鈥淧oles create a little lateral stability, though ultimately, we want our glutes and core to create that lateral stability,鈥� says Majerus. 鈥淏ut I鈥檝e seen people who want to keep charging up and down mountains as they get older, and maybe they lose a little eyesight. Think of a pole as a proprioceptive feedback tool.鈥�

Practice and Prepare

If you鈥檝e ever been on a long downhill run or hike, you understand the strain it puts on your quads after you wake up the next morning and shuffle through your house, wondering if your legs will ever again feel whole. Remember, after all, what Majerus said about the force that the legs are enduring and about downhill exercise being eccentric exercise鈥攖hat is, the muscle is extending. To prepare the quads, Majerus recommends . But it鈥檚 not only your quads that need help; your hamstrings should be sharing slightly less of the load, at an approximate ratio of three to two. Make sure to stretch and load those, too. And given the relative gravitational perils of going downhill (that is, taking a big spill), remember to work on stability beyond toting trekking poles: core strength, glute exercises, single leg deadlifts, basic balance drills.

Last tip? Find ways to actually practice going downhill, whether that means having someone drop you at the top of progressively higher roads or simply as part of a long weekend hike. Several months ago, I moved to the top of a canyon in Colorado鈥檚 Front Range, and I run 20 miles down its paved switchbacks almost every Sunday, getting faster and more confident each time. I can already feel that accreted strength back on trail. Please don鈥檛 suddenly go from flat city greenways to hill repeats on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, but go practice going down, and your hiking will get stronger and more enjoyable. You don鈥檛 want to make someone wait, right?

The post Want to Hike Downhill Pain-Free? Here Are Five Tips. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The critics were correct鈥攐f course we should have had a Garmin inReach.

Early last October, after nearly 10,000 miles of hiking together without major incident, my wife, Tina, and I became separated on the Continental Divide Trail. A snowstorm had swept through the San Juan range of southern Colorado, and we鈥檇 unknowingly taken different routes on that choose-your-own-adventure trek. For 36 hours, walking back and forth while postholing in fresh snow, we couldn鈥檛 find one another. There was no cell service, and since we’re accustomed to moving together in relative lockstep, neither of us carried a Garmin inReach鈥攖he rugged orange rectangles dangling from the front of backpacks that allow adventurers in the backcountry to communicate with one another.

Instead, I used the relatively rudimentary satellite function of my iPhone to text an SOS message to an emergency responder. After some back and forth, the responder told me that Tina had made it to town, and I was able to tell the operator that I was mostly safe and on my way, too. It was the most embarrassing and unsettling instant in two years living outdoors. As 国产吃瓜黑料 readers , I really should have had a Garmin, bro.

But only nine months later, Apple might be upending that quip. On June 10, amid a flurry of announcements at its , the company revealed that its forthcoming iPhone operating system, , will indeed allow users linked to satellite to send text messages to others, not just to emergency services. While the iPhone鈥檚 current capabilities managed to tell me which way to go and find me a ride from a high mountain pass, that all would have been unnecessary had I simply been able to ask Tina where she was (or vice versa), much as I could have done with a Garmin.

With iOS 18 or a Garmin inReach, there would have been no tentless night in the Colorado cold, no search-and-rescue duo dispatched, no exhausted day off in a Silverton hostel. Instead, Tina and I could have texted one another with a simple link to a satellite, saving ourselves 36 cold and anguished hours and a lot of emotional anguish. We would have simply rendezvoused and continued south.

Exact details about Apple鈥檚 new service remain scarce, but a source close to the company did confirm a few key components to 国产吃瓜黑料: When iOS 18 is released, likely this fall, those with an iPhone 14 or newer will be able to send satellite-based iMessages and SMS messages, complete with emojis and in-line replies. Two phones connected only to satellite, as in my hypothetical, will be able to text one another. There will be no quota, meaning you can send five or 500 such messages. And at least until late 2025 for current iPhone 14, 15, or 16 users (or two years after the purchase of a 14 or later, if you鈥檙e now in the market), the functionality is free. No future price plan has been announced. Apple believes it has the satellite capacity to handle this new volume, though the service will not support RCS messages, calls, or data.

The announcement sets up a sort of satellite race with Android, too, as it began to last month that they too were eligible for satellite messages. The real competition here, though, is not between Apple and Android, as it seems clear both will offer two-way satellite messaging within the next several months, anyway. Instead, the question is what happens to Garmin, , and the bevy of similar devices that have long enabled such satellite communication from the backcountry without the same mainstream cultural cachet as Apple.

Are these outdoor gizmos doomed to become dodos, fated for extinction as their particular niche disappears? In the long run, barring innovations of their own, perhaps. (Garmin recently declined to comment on Apple鈥檚 iOS 18 announcement.) Still, after our incident in October, Tina and I did indeed buy a fleet of Garmins. We鈥檝e since toted them on backcountry ski or snowshoe adventures in avalanche country and canyoneering escapades down in the Colorado Plateau. They鈥檙e going with us on thru-hikes later this year.

Indeed, I鈥檓 not getting rid of them as soon as iOS 18 arrives. Remember, inReach and other SOS devices are made for heady outdoor travel, whereas an iPhone and Android are not. We鈥檝e bricked supposedly waterproof phones in rain jackets and broken multiple screens amid alpine boulder fields. In the desert, heat has temporarily deactivated my phone, just as cold has done on the mountain. Batteries fail.

The Garmin inReach and its ilk are little rubber-bound bricks, readymade to be dropped or rained on and abused. Their batteries last a long time (you鈥檒l need a lot of backups to charge an iPhone for 14 days, ) and, perhaps more important, are separate from that of your phone. As last lines of defense go, they are made to be resilient, perhaps even to outlast you. And though Apple鈥檚 new operating system will add hiking trails only in national parks to its fleet of maps, many of these satellite-based devices include native maps, route tracking, and weather, however frustrating and non-Apple-intuitive their proprietary platforms can be. That is to say, they are made for people who are trying to disappear from cell phone service, not for those who happen to disappear from it. That鈥檚 why they鈥檙e bound to stick around, if only for a little while.

Our smartphones have become the Swiss Army Knives of digital existence, in the woods as in the city. They are our map and our camera, our newspaper and our entertainment, our calculator and our compass. But when Karl Elsener in 1897, he enabled Swiss soldiers to do lots of things reasonably well鈥攑op corked bottles, open canned rations, punch holes in leather, cut through fabric. The Swiss Army Knife wasn鈥檛 the best at most anything it could do; it could and can still simply do lots of things with some measure of inefficiency. The tradeoff is that you have it all in one compact form.

At this early stage, that鈥檚 how I think of Apple鈥檚 attempt at comprehensive satellite coverage in the backcountry, too: most likely good enough for most circumstances, but perhaps a little flimsy and unproven when I know the situation could get extreme. The market will likely never be big enough for some near-unbreakable endurance version of an iPhone or Android, something you can take deep in the woods or down a river without worrying about its ability to withstand the elements. For that reason, at least for now, I guess I really should have that Garmin, bro.

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If the cab fare to the southern end of the Pacific Crest Trail cost $1,000, so be it: I was not going to spend an hour crowded into a van grousing about the world with a hiker named Honest Abe.

Abe and I had met on the Appalachian Trail in 2019, and it did not take much conversation for us to intuit that we were opposites鈥攏ot friends, perhaps even nemeses. I am a middle-class Southern nerd who went to college, then got paid to stroke his beard while tapping thoughts about music into a machine. Abe, meanwhile, had grown up in rural Missouri and joined the Marines before becoming an electric lineworker whose work powered my machine.

Our politics followed predictably: I was the liberal activist who believed Donald Trump was coming for my vulnerable friends back home. Abe, meanwhile, was the Trump advocate who I assumed had at least one Gadsden flag bumper sticker on his pickup. Marching alongside a Virginia creek bed one humid afternoon, we had a brief but pointed exchange about our opposing views. We both walked away scowling.

Whenever we鈥檇 spot one another during the next 1,800 miles, we鈥檇 silently glare and maybe nod, sworn enemies simply acknowledging one another鈥檚 existence.

But here we were, in the spring of 2021, slated for the same shuttle to Campo, the California border town where the PCT begins. A mutual friend we鈥檇 both met on the Appalachian Trail had volunteered to ferry us and a few others to the start in a van that was also her home; assuming everyone was a reasonable adult, she hadn鈥檛 bothered to warn anyone about who else was coming. I was already apprehensive about this 2,600-mile walk, so I didn鈥檛 want to begin it by arguing about Covid lockdowns and Capitol rioters with someone I despised. Were it not for the wisdom of Tina, my wife and hiking partner, I would have called that cab to Campo.

And then, something unexpected happened: Abe and I grew to like another. For the PCT鈥檚 first 400 miles, or until he sped ahead to meet a deadline, we walked and talked and debated and laughed鈥攕o much that my other pals wondered if I鈥檇 had some MAGA epiphany. No, neither my nor Abe鈥檚 politics had changed much, but our old perspectives on ourselves鈥攖hat we each had to be right, that our worldviews were so valid they did not warrant explanation or defense鈥攎agically softened. We talked about privilege and welfare, transgender rights and reproductive access, and our chats rarely rose into arguments.

American rancor had reached new heights since we first met in 2019. Somehow, though, he was less bitter, and I was less vitriolic.

So what had changed inside of me and Abe in those two years? Turns out, we鈥檇 both walked enough鈥攐ften in silent solitude, where our own roiling thoughts could mellow into a simmer, and sometimes with others who didn鈥檛 always see the world the same way鈥攖o be able to listen. Walking had warped our brains, and we were happier for it.

Both my job and my hobby have perennially demanded a kind of unapologetic certitude. A music critic since I was 18, I have had to wield my opinions as something of a sword, brandishing them upon arrival for two decades of bylines. And then, in my early thirties, this conviction translated into absurdist political activism, where humor was weaponized to lampoon those who I felt were wrong. (Well, they were wrong and still are, but whatever.) In a campaign that soon spread to other continents, Tina and I mocked abortion clinic protestors with handmade signs. We followed a few hundred friends every week to blow airhorns at North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory to protest his assaults on transgender rights; that campaign eventually and debatably altered North Carolina鈥檚 2016 gubernatorial. Very little of my life and what might be regarded as success involved listening.

That was, more or less, my mindset when I headed north from Springer Mountain on the Appalachian Trail in 2019鈥攂e right, never waver. But today, after walking 10,000 miles through Southwestern deserts and New England forests, over Rocky Mountain heights and across Florida swamps, I know that my mind has changed, and that virtues like patience, humility, and empathy have steadily swollen to crowd out the ego, arrogance, and anxiety that once dominated my mindset. I first noticed this soon after the AT, when my longtime instinct to critique something yielded to the desire to hear someone鈥檚 story and help tell it. The encounter with Abe, where two peas from very different pods started to fashion our own trail bubble, felt like absolute proof: Thru-hiking had absolutely altered my brain for the better. I notice it even now, in my daily relationships and interactions off trail, and I hope it never fades.

鈥淲alking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord,鈥� Rebecca Solnit wrote early in her great . 鈥淲alking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them.鈥�

Solnit wrote that back in 2000, years before social media demanded that everyone have and share an automatic opinion about everything. It has only become more salient as we have become more reactionary, piling takes atop takes until we have built a pile of trash with no foundation. But crisscrossing the isolated Continental Divide in Montana or pushing through the canyon of the Gila River in New Mexico, this isn鈥檛 an option, simply because you don鈥檛 enough have cell service to be in or contribute to the proverbial know. Even when you do, the root that could trip you and cost you your hike matters more than what some stranger thinks of another stranger on a screen. You have time, then, to be still with your thoughts, to examine them from every angle, because you simply have less access to and stamina for an incessant opinion factory. Your mind is less busy with the world, racing less to keep up with a pace none of us can match, anyway.

This begets a new sort of patience, too, or at least it did for me. When you accept that you need not have a readymade take on everything, you instead become comfortable with interrogating an idea more deliberately, with letting a thought tumble around in your brain until it is as smooth as some river rock. This process also mirrors your daily existence on trail鈥攎ethodical, consistent, slow. Rushing anything means enjoying it less; rushing too much risks an injury from overloading the system. Walking is an invitation to settle into that system, to indulge in the steadiness of the long haul, both mentally and physically.

And then there is the question of the people you meet out there, strangers you get to know simply because there is no one else around. In the woods, I鈥檝e heard so many ideas and perspectives I鈥檇 never before considered, just because I chose to hear what someone had to offer rather than walk in silence. In turn, I鈥檝e listened to their reactions to what I鈥檝e had to say. This is the bilateral breakdown of the clique, or of the circles of ideological reinforcement that we build around ourselves for validation, both online and in physical communities. By the time Abe and I reconnected on the PCT, we were far enough away from our own cliques鈥攁nd lonely enough, maybe?鈥攖o listen for real and, in turn, be heard.

Almost 100 years ago, guidebook editor Harold Allen the Appalachian Trail was 鈥渞emote for detachment, narrow for chosen company, winding for leisure, [and] lonely for contemplation.鈥� His words transcend the AT and fit any space where you can put any foot in front of the other for a long time. These are places to let your mind indulge in all the things that our ever-busying world frequently denies it: room to roam, freedom to change, an opportunity to open again.

I am, unfortunately, not na茂ve enough to think that incredibly long walks are some workable political solution, that they are either practical or applicable for the average American. We live in an era of almost unconscionably high stakes, when our societal embrace of brinksmanship could push us over a half-dozen abyssal brinks. One of the most well-armed countries in the world has killed 34,000 of its neighbors since October. We lack the political, economic, and personal will to change our systems enough so that we don鈥檛 destroy our own planet. Women鈥檚 rights, trans rights, voting rights鈥攕omehow, a quarter-century into the 21st, these seem as contentious now as they have ever been.

No, long walks in the woods aren鈥檛 going to fix that, even if I could change the mind of someone who didn鈥檛 buy all this global warming hullabaloo with every new on-trail debate. Aggressive activism remains essential and urgent. I don鈥檛 want to suggest that we literally walk away from it or that getting along with someone in the woods is in any way a substitute for substantive changes in ideology or policy.

But these treks have gifted me a new kind of wherewithal, a burgeoning understanding that none of these fixes will be instant and that none of them will be implemented by continual yelling into the void. I spent so much of my life judging, speaking, and preaching, all impulsive acts rooted in convenience and quickness. It is much harder to slow down鈥攖o listen, think, and talk, to try and find a way forward that is more than an assertion of your own arrogant will. I have walked that fever off, at least for now, and I feel better about my ability to move in and relate to the world even if I feel worse about the actual state of the world. That is, it feels a little better to be alive, to be in my own head.

I am still honest with Abe and tell him when I think he鈥檚 wrong, which remains pretty often. But after our own walks in the woods, I can actually hear where he鈥檚 coming from before I try to change his mind, too.

How a Short Hike Can Change Your Brain

At this point, I have altered my entire life to make way for long-distance hikes, setting aside a chunk of every year to do just that. In this regard, I am incredibly lucky and privileged, and I know that many Americans don鈥檛 have the resources or luxury to disappear into the woods for six uninterrupted hours, let alone six months.

The good news? You don鈥檛 have to. You can use the fundamental takeaways that have helped to change my brain as I have walked across the United States, whether you鈥檙e walking in a state park or simply strolling the sidewalk or rail trail with your dog near your neighborhood. Here鈥檚 how I think of it.

Put your phone away
Some folks may tell you that you should just leave your phone at home, that the purpose of hiking is to disconnect and that鈥檚 the simplest route. Bollocks. Maps, a camera, an emergency escape鈥攜our phone has it all. But put the thing away. Try not to see your stroll as a chance to catch up on scrolling, so that you can be incensed by the news on Twitter or envious of friends on Instagram. Step away from the feed and just let your mind unpack itself. I鈥檝e got a treadmill with a TV attached, and the impact of walking while watching Netflix or reading the news is never the same as it is outdoors, free of screened input. 鈥淸Walking] leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts,鈥� Rebecca Solnit writes. Revel in that gift.

Hike often
How often are you riled up by news, distracted by your phone, or simply taken away from your thoughts by the world at large? All the time, yeah? You鈥檙e not going to be able to match that number blow for blow with walks, but do your best. My mind didn鈥檛 change after my first day on the Appalachian Trail or even my first 100; this is an accretive process, so give yourself as many chances to be in motion and still with your thoughts as possible.

Talk to people on the trail
I know I鈥檝e said a lot about walking in silence, but one of the most salutary parts of hiking for me has been hearing other people鈥檚 perspectives and trying to understand the way they see the world. I鈥檓 not a naturally empathetic person, but as walking has worn down my own arrogance, listening to strangers in the woods has enhanced that part of my head. Strike up a conversation, and see what you learn.

Remind yourself of a hike is its own miracle
Sorry to end on a New Age note here, but I guess hiking is to blame? Seriously, remember that this is all pretty incredible鈥攜ou have the ability, space, and time to go for a walk, the culmination of millions of years of evolution and geologic deep time, all far beyond your control. Want to feel less arrogant and convinced of your correctness? Remember how you鈥檙e just lucky to be here, and keep on walking.

The post Hiking Rewired My Brain. It Can Do the Same to Yours. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.