9 Concrete Steps To Get Over Post-Trail Depression Faster

After months of immersion in the natural world, the abrupt shift from thru-hiking back to daily life can trigger what many call “post-trail depression.”

It’s no mystery why so many thru-hikers experience this phenomenon. One day you’re running around footloose and fancy-free and the next you’re sitting in a cubicle.

As the incomparable Anne Baker points out in her authoritative article on the subject, it might be more accurate to describe this experience as “post-trail grief” rather than post-trail depression. The sadness many of us feel at the end of a transformative journey isn’t the same as clinical depression. (Of course, a person could experience both simultaneously.)

Everyone’s post-trail experience will be unique, but these are a few of my favorite techniques to navigate this transition and ease the shift back to everyday life.

1. Pick Up Your Gosh Dang Phone

Be real, no one is going to relate to your experiences better than the people who were right there with you. Hang onto these people. Photo: Steph Strickland

Staying in touch with trail family post-hike can be hard, especially since you probably live in different places. Nurturing long-distance friendships is easy to talk about but hard to do. The phone weighs 1000 pounds, as they say.

But the people you hiked with are the only ones who can fully appreciate what you’re going through. They are the ones who can best help you get over your post-trail grief, and you can do the same for them. Prioritize them.

Call them for no reason. Remember their birthdays. Plan a meetup in the physical world, even if it’s in the distant future.

Regular contact with trail friends is crucial in the immediate aftermath of your hike. You bonded in the unique setting of a long trail, and now the hike is over and your relationship is experiencing this huge contextual shift. If you don’t set the precedent that you want the friendship to continue post-hike, it could easily fade away.

As you work through post-trail grief and settle into a routine, you’ll probably talk with trail friends less frequently. That’s OK. Strong bonds survive even long periods without contact, but you have to put in a lot of work up-front to build those resilient connections.

At the same time, don’t neglect your pre-hike friends or the potential to make new friends now that you’re back home. Balancing old friendships with new connections helps create a bridge between your trail experience and your everyday world.

Social connections and wellbeing are highly correlated, so one of the best ways you can work through post-trail grief is by getting out of your head and leaning into your relationships.

2. Jump Back into Regular Exercise

Backpack optional. Photo: Annik

After hiking every day for months on end, the temptation is strong to become a couch potato when you return home. However, resuming a regular exercise routine can help maintain the physical and mental benefits you’ve gained from hiking.

Whether it’s jogging, cycling, or hitting the gym, staying active can mitigate feelings of restlessness and sadness. Go get those endorphins, y’all.  

I’m not saying you have to immediately start training for a marathon. But after months of continuous walking, retaining some movement in your daily routine will build a sense of continuity from your trail self to your civilized self.

Vaguely relevant side note: Anecdotally, it also seems like people who go sedentary after finishing the trail have more lingering hiker hobble than those who get back into exercise immediately.

3. Schedule Some Nature Time

One of the biggest adjustments post-thru is the sudden absence of nature, especially for those living in urban environments. If you’ve grown used to awakening to the chirping of birds, and now you’re awakening to a symphony of traffic noises and everything is grey and terrible … well, yeah. It’s depressing.

To counteract this, block off time in your daily schedule for nature. This doesn’t have to be fancy. Weekend hikes are great, but Nature Time could also mean daily walks in a nearby park or spending some time at the community garden three evenings a week.

Even if you live in a city, seek little pockets of nature and spend as much time there as possible. Is this going to replicate the feeling of thru-hiking? Of course not. But it’s still good to remind yourself that all that green lichen-covered goodness is still out there and you can tap into it when you need to.

TOUCH GRASS, as the young people say.

Whether you’re dealing with post-trail grief or not, the mental health benefits of time spent in nature are well documented. Go get it.

4. Find a Creative Outlet To Help Process Your Hike

Heidi Nisbett (@sketchingsummits) was commissioned by the ATC to paint this mural in Damascus at 2023 Trail Days, but your own creative pursuits don’t have to be on this grand scale

Your hike was probably a profound experience. The struggle to articulate what it was like, especially to people who have never experienced something similar, can be frustrating. For me, the feeling that others could not truly understand the magnitude of what I’d just experienced was a big part of my post-trail grief. Maybe that’s narcissistic but there you go.

This is also why I leaned so hard into writing about the Appalachian Trail in the months after my thru-hike. Putting some of my thoughts and experiences on the page, struggling to find the perfect phrasing to evoke what I felt out there, reliving some of my favorite and least-favorite trail memories while planning out stories, all these things were incredibly cathartic and helped me to process the whole experience and my emotions in its aftermath.

Writing is my passion. Find a creative outlet that resonates with you — whether it’s public speaking, art, tattoos, scrapbooking, Instagram reels, or something else.

5. Get Actual Therapy

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

Thru-hiking can do wonders for the old mental health, but many people return home to find that their underlying traumas, challenges, and conditions didn’t just poof and disappear while they were on the trail.

For some of us, part of post-trail grief can be the realization that our internal and external problems persist when we get home, when we had so hoped that by hiking we could leave them behind forever.

If your feelings of sadness or nostalgia feel overwhelming and persistent, seeking professional help might be beneficial. A therapist can offer strategies and support to navigate the emotional complexities of returning to everyday life.

Heck, even if you’re not feeling overwhelmed, you might still benefit from a few sessions with a professional. A good therapist could help you work through post-trail grief more quickly or even lead you to useful insights into how you’ve grown and changed over the course of your hike.

6. Embrace Mindfulness Practices

Photo: Anne Marie Athey

Mindfulness practices such as breathwork, meditation, and yoga can be powerful tools for managing post-trail emotions. I know this might sound a bit woo-woo to the uninitiated, but consider that even the most talkative thru-hiker probably spent large swaths of time zoning out on-trail. Thru-hiking is often like a walking meditation, whether intentional or not. It makes sense that meditating back home can help evoke a similar mindset.

You can find tons of guided meditation and breathwork videos on YouTube; try it a few times and see how you like it. Thank me later.

Mindfulness practices help center your thoughts, reduce anxiety, and promote a sense of peace. Incorporating mindfulness into your daily routine can ease the transition from the trail, helping you stay grounded and present in the moment.

7. Reengage with Non-Hiking Hobbies

Did you miss some of your daily activities while you were on-trail or even find ways to integrate them into your hike? Embrace the freedom to lean into those hobbies more fully now that you’re done. Photo: Linnea Delucchi

You are a thru-hiker, so hiking is presumably one of your passions — and you just got to spend half a year relentlessly pursuing that passion all day, every day. Go you!

The trail has consumed most of your time and energy for the last half-year or so, and now your life is abruptly and jarringly not just about walking in the woods anymore. What are you supposed to do with yourself now?

I humbly suggest that you try to remember all the other interests and hobbies that make you who you are. Embracing a well-rounded life helps you transition back to everyday routines and maintain a sense of balance.

You were a whole, multifaceted person before you thru-hiked, and you’ll be a whole, multifaceted person after.

If you actually don’t have any hobbies that aren’t hiking, now would be an awesome time to find some. Join a club, teach yourself to knit, whatever. Putting your energy and ingenuity into a new passion is a productive way to channel post-trail grief.

8. Allow Yourself Time To Heal

Grieving the end of your hike is a natural part of the process. Don’t rush to suppress or ignore your feelings. Instead, give yourself permission to sit with these emotions, reflect on your journey, and acknowledge the profound impact it had on you.

This period of emotional processing is crucial for healing and integrating your experiences into your life. No one likes uncomfortable feelings, but as with many things in life, the only way out is through.

9. Stay Connected with the Hiking Community

Photo: Gray Barrett

The hiking community is vibrant and supportive, and finding ways to remain involved can ease the transition back to everyday life.

Consider volunteering as a trail angel, participating in trail maintenance, or joining local hiking groups. If you live in a city, chances are there are some other thru-hikers around; seek them out.

Doing trail magic and chilling with the next generation of thru-hikers is an amazing way to stay connected. It’s a reminder that the hiking community is always out there when you need it. Some people jobs at REI post-trail just to hang out with outdoorsy types more often.

I mentioned earlier that writing about the AT helped me process the experience. It also gave me an excuse to interact with people who were as passionate about the trail as I was. And I felt like my work could help future hikers on their journeys, which gave me a renewed sense of purpose.

Staying engaged with the community helps maintain the connections and drive you felt on the trail, providing a sense of continuity and belonging.

Remember: Once a Thru-Hiker, Always a Thru-Hiker

Photo: Sweet Monkey

You might notice that most of the suggestions on this list aren’t really thru-hiker-specific. Pretty much anyone could benefit from regular exercise, mindfulness practices, therapy, and social connections, whether they’re a thru-hiker or not — but that’s sort of the point.

You’re a thru-hiker, but that’s just one facet of your personhood. Recognizing that you’re a whole person and that your life will go on post-thru, reconciling your trail self with the other aspects of yourself, is crucial to healing from post-trail grief.

You’re a thru-hiker now, and nothing will ever take that away from you. Going back to life in the plastic world is going to be jarring, yes, but you’ve got this. Give yourself some time to stabilize and rediscover the parts of the plastic world you actually like. And remember that your newfound identity as a thru-hiker is as enduring as the trail itself. You don’t need to be actively hiking to know who you are.

Featured image: Graphic design by Zack Goldmann.