Who Are You, And Why Do I Care?

Who are you, and why do I care?

I suppose I should introduce myself. Get the obvious questions out of the way.

My name is Jess and I am an extremely spontaneous person. (Duh, I’m living out of a backpack for six months—no rational 30-year-old mother and wife does this). When I am not doing completely illogical and emotion-fueled spontaneous adventures, I am an entrepreneur, working on client projects, getting tattooed, boxing, writing, photographing, rescuing dogs, or creating.

In a nutshell, this is the “who I am” part out of the way. Welcome to the crazy train that is Jessica! I don’t just ride that mother f’er, I’m driving it.

Ah, The Infamous “Why?”

Why the hell would you want to leave your kid, husband, dog, and comfy life to live out of a backpack for six months? Get eaten alive by mosquitoes, sleep in a tent, and poop in the woods. For the record, I don’t poop. Ever. Just wanted to clear that up.

Honestly, I don’t have a clue why exactly I am doing this thru-hike. I mean, I have a general idea.

For starters, I was lucky enough to land an incredible opportunity to be a part of the “2015 Thru Hike Syndicate.”

On top of that, I will also be representing the following companies as a sponsored athlete.

Hoo-Rag: “The Better Bandana”

You know you want to scare the hell out of people on the trail at night with this bad boy. Haha!

GoMacro: Best protein bar you will ever eat.

Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine: “Go Outside And Play”

Aside from the sponsorships, I adore the Appalachian Trail and backpacking in general. The photos in this post are all from the A.T. We spent this past summer section hiking the southern end of the trail, and it was one of the best summers of my life. Although, I did say to my husband after we met lots of thru-hikers: “No way I could ever thru-hike for six months. These gals/guys are such bad asses.” And yet, here I am. Ah, life is a crazy thing!

And last but not least, I am able to write for this website, where Zach has gifted me a home for all my thoughts.

How rad is it that I get to represent some of my favorite outdoor brands while doing what I love most: Traveling and being crazy and spontaneous in some of the oldest and most beautiful mountain ranges on the east coast.

Note: I would never endorse anything that I don’t personally love. Prior to all the mentioned brands sponsoring me, I have rocked those products long before they chose to sponsor me.

I will go into more about all my sponsors in upcoming posts here. Including why I chose the gear I did, and what I am eating as a vegetarian on the trail (no stockpiles of beef jerky for me).

But my whole entire reason for “why” I am thru-hiking, is to let the hike answer that question for me. This is going to be one of the biggest and most epic journeys of my life so far.

Yeah, I have traveled all over.

I have swam with sharks in the Dominican Republic.

I pack up the Subaru and backpack the mountains as much as I can.

I have swam with Manatees.

I have over come major obstacles and challenges in my life.

But I have never left my family behind and backpacked 2,100 miles as a solo female backpacker before this. This journey is going to be filled with highs and lows, irrational emotions and crying, lots of f-bombs and “I quits.”

I am positive that by the time I summit Katahdin I am going to be a totally different women than who I am at this exact moment. And you know what, I can’t fu$@&*g wait to see who that women is!

Happy Adventuring,

Jess

P.S. Be sure to follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/jessicageorgia Once I am on the trail you can expect to see everything from epic blister popping to incredible mountain summit photos utilizing #ThruHikeSyndicate