6 Months to the Day: Half A Year of Living in the Woods

“The last one to Katahdin wins!”

It’s a phrase we hear often on trail. Moreso now that we’re over halfway through September and just entering Maine, in the thick of summit season and with an expected October 8-10 summit date.

It’s a phrase that means to take your time. To truly enjoy it. The idea is that whoever is the last one to Baxter Peak has spent their hike really taking in all that life on the trail has to offer. From zeros to zeeks, from hostels to stealth sites, from 20+ mile slackpacks to barely moving at all.

If you had asked me six months ago if I thought I’d still be on trail today, I’d have said “Absolutely not.”

There are two reasons for this.

One: I thought I’d be faster. Of course, there’s absolutely no backing for why I thought this. I had never backpacked before, never spent days walking up and down mountains carrying 25lbs+ on my back. But I thought I’d be less social, take fewer zeroes, spend less money and time on off-trail activities. You start walking this trail alone with this idea in your mind of the epic solo journey you’re about to undertake, thinking you’re going to find yourself in the solitude of the woods and the mountains. Then you get out here and, especially in the bubble, find out that hundreds of people had the same idea. At the exact same time. And so you take your first note on the path of growth: Change your expectations and roll with the punches — even (and especially) if it makes you live in the woods a little bit longer.

Two: I thought my body would give up before the 100 mile marker. Then I thought it would give up in the Smokies. Then I thought it would give up trying to keep up with Achilles in Virginia. I spent so much time in my pre-trail life ill or burnt out or flared up because my body just doesn’t always seem to be able to do what others can. Part of me was so sure that I wouldn’t make it, but I quickly realized how much stronger my body felt when I was using it every day. How much happier I was breathing fresh air and feeling the sun on my face, after having spent so many years working jobs and living in places that kept me from sunlight. How much healthier I felt making sure I was fuelling my body with what it needed to keep going, especially water — as I am the classically dehydrated friend most of the time.

I started this trail so sure of who I was and what I wanted out of it.

But things change.

I started this trail trying to keep myself secluded, and that barely lasted a day. One of my goals was to get better at asking for help when I need it and night one I had to ask Shivers, who was just more than a stranger at the time, if she could sit with me and help me calm down from panicking. I was terrified that first night in the woods. Scared of every noise, careful to eat and sleep and hang our food in a triangle of different spaces, paranoid about the wind and the cold. I was scared to ask for help, thinking it made me weird and weak and overbearing. But I’ve learned since then that the ways in which we lean on each other as fellow hikers is one of the most beautiful parts of the trail. I still remember (and often bring up) the time in the Smokies when Moss, Cheese, and Stache split the weight of my pack because my ankle was injured and I was struggling to carry everything, and how Moss turned to me while I was silently trying not to cry on trail behind him and said, unprompted, “You are not a burden.” This trail is a 2,200 mile long, 2 foot wide small town and none of us could do it without the support we provide each other — even if that support is just an ear to lend when needed, and especially if that support is getting you to the campsite without breaking you.

I started out trying to figure myself out in solitude and isolation, and quickly learned that I found myself better while connecting with friends that have become family. In sharing things about ourselves that some people back home never get to hear. Our hopes, dreams, fears. And the things you want when you’re in “normal life” change so quickly when your only goal is to keep yourself healthy, upright, and alive for two thousand miles. I never would have expected to want to move to New Hampshire of all places. Never would have expected to get comfortable in dirt. Never would have expected to love freeze-dried beef stroganoff so damn much.

I thought I had a plan already set for when I finished, but six months later and that plan sounds too static. I thought I’d do the PCT next year, but I find now that I’d rather do a shorter thru-hike like the AZT or the Long Trail. I didn’t expect, either, to be planning on doing part of the El Camino in 2026 with my partner, who I didn’t expect to connect with the way we did on trail.

I guess what I’m saying is that radical rejection is just as strong as ever, but more now with expectations than gear.

Letting go of what you think will happen has been a constant lesson on this trail. Letting go of the solitude plan, letting go of the fear of hiking alone, letting go of the plan to hike with Achilles the whole way (as well as the rest of the tramily, as we moved forward), letting go of purism, letting go of the expectations others had of me, letting go of friends, letting go of whatever I need to in order to make space for what is happening now.

Letting go of the expectations of others is easy. Letting go of the expectations you set for yourself is harder. I let go of the purism because I wanted to enjoy myself rather than suffer for what I thought was the right way. I let go of not skipping miles because I wanted to be kind to my body and mind, and not worry about making it to Katahdin on time. I let go of needing to hike with Achilles because neither of us was feeling fulfilled in how we were hiking. I let go of the fear of hiking alone because I wanted to do things differently than my group had been. At each turn, I was scared I’d be letting myself down. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worried that summiting Katahdin won’t be as climactic because I’ve done this differently than I planned. Then I see pictures of my friends standing on that sign and I get choked up, I get excited about my turn to do the same, and I remember that it really is so much more about the journey than it is the destination and I feel content with my journey. I feel happy with it.

I feel proud of myself.

Six months ago I was desperate for change.

Desperate for a doorway to a new life. Desperate to figure out my path without the constant pressures I’d been facing at home. Without all of the traumas of the past hanging over my head every day, crushing me and making me feel small.

It is such an immense privilege to be able to have taken this out. To have escaped all that I needed to run from in order to heal and grow in a space that wasn’t trying to squeeze all that I have out of me. To leave behind my friends and family and figure out who I am on my own, keeping myself alive and moving forward without the help of what used to make me comfortable. To find new comfort in the security I can provide myself, in the knowledge that contradicts everything I thought until now.

I spent my whole life thinking that I would fail at surviving if I needed to. That, evolutionarily, I was meant to die and was only alive by the graces of the modern world. That I was a weakest link and that I would not survive against the fittest. The past 184 days have proven so very much otherwise. I’ve never so deeply believed in my ability to live and thrive all on my own, and that gift is the best that the trail has given me so far.

297.4 miles left.

To find out who I’m becoming on this journey. To soak in every peak, every tree, every flat piece of land as well as every rock scramble. To bask in the sun and get drenched by the rain. To laugh with the people I love, who have been on this journey with me while simultaneously on a journey of their own. To cry tears of pain and stress on hard days, and to cry tears of joy and pride every time I see one of my friends has summited and ended their quest.

You truly cannot understand what it is like unless you’re doing it, and I so deeply wish I could explain it. But I can’t. The trail is one of those things you have to experience for yourself to see the beauty of. Just like every picture I take out here, nothing can capture the horrors and the beauties other than seeing them for yourself.

For now, I implore you to start planning your own thru-hike. But I have to leave you here.

For the mountains are calling, and I must go.