Lauren Roerick: Thru Hiking The Hexatrek - France's 3000km Long Distance Backpacking Trail

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Exploring the Hexatrek with Lauren Roerick

In this episode of Adventure Diaries, I sit down with Lauren Roerick, an adventurer, thru-hiker, and content creator who completed the Hexatrek, a 3,034 km long-distance trail across France. As the first North American woman to complete the trek, Lauren shares her experience of navigating rugged mountain landscapes, immersing herself in French culture, and overcoming the mental and physical challenges of solo adventure.

🌍 In This Episode, We Cover:
✔️ Lauren’s unconventional path from music and film set design to adventure travel
✔️ The Hexatrek experience – diverse terrain, wild camping, and cultural encounters
✔️ Solo hiking lessons – navigating challenges, finding community, and unexpected kindness from strangers
✔️ Thru-hiking culture – how the Hexatrek compares to the PCT and other long-distance trails
✔️ Gear, food, and logistics for planning an extended European hiking adventure
✔️ How adventure builds confidence, self-sufficiency, and resilience

🏔️ Key Takeaways:
🔹 The Hexatrek offers a pioneering adventure with fewer crowds than traditional thru-hikes
🔹 Wild camping is permitted in most areas, but national park rules vary
🔹 France’s diverse landscapes – Vosges Mountains, the Alps, and the Pyrenees – offer unique challenges
🔹 Solo travel fosters independence but also invites unexpected generosity from locals
🔹 Adventure is accessible to everyone – no permission needed to tackle big challenges!

Transcript

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Chris Watson (00:00.675)
That's us live now. So, Lauren Rorick, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are

Lauren Roerick (00:06.286)
Excellent. Thanks for having me, Chris. Appreciate

Chris Watson (00:08.865)
No, it's a pleasure. Yeah, all the way from Vancouver and Canada, I believe today. So, excellent. So to frame up the kind of the topic of conversation today, Lauren, is really about your Hexatrec journey. I want to try and unpack a little bit of that, raise some awareness, gets people excited about it and hopefully get people on that Hexatrec.

Very keen to understand how your journey into adventuring came about. rolling back to some of formative experiences and then your work and life abroad. I think you've had some different careers and stuff, haven't you? So, but maybe, yeah. Maybe rolling right back then. So you are born and raised in Canada.

Lauren Roerick (00:52.204)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (00:59.905)
Yeah, yeah, I grew up in a little city called Lethbridge, Alberta, which is southern Alberta, maybe like an hour north of the US border. Yeah, it's not a very big city. It's kind of in the middle of the prairies. There's not that much going on, which I think fueled me to want to leave because it's a bit of a sleepy place. There's not that much going on.

Chris Watson (01:19.959)
Yeah, well you entered outdoors much growing up? Did you do much hiking and stuff?

Lauren Roerick (01:23.811)
But here and there, yeah, I think some of my best outdoor memories are like at summer girls camp or like, you know, we do an occasional camping trip with my family, like at a campground or, you know, so nothing really adventurous. My parents are not particularly outdoorsy. My siblings are not very outdoorsy. So it's mostly just me. But I always loved day hiking and, you know, I liked camping and loved being out in nature. Just didn't have like a ton of opportunities to do that growing

Chris Watson (01:52.847)
What did you want to be when you were younger and growing up? Did you have an idea?

Lauren Roerick (01:56.079)
I wanted to be a singer. Yeah, so I studied music for almost 20 years, I guess, all through elementary, junior high, high school. And then I went to college and I got a music degree and I studied vocal performance. then life happened and my parents were very much like, how are you going to feed yourself? And I was like, I don't know, I'll get a job, I guess.

Chris Watson (02:00.527)
Chris Watson (02:23.896)
So is there anywhere we can hear you singing? there any old rusty tapes? Rusty YouTube?

Lauren Roerick (02:28.376)
I don't think so. I've got a handful of CDs, but this is all thankfully pre -YouTube, so...yeah.

Chris Watson (02:35.791)
Fantastic. how, because I think if I remember seeing or hearing somewhere you went and studied, was it yoga? And then you've been around like Taiwan, Italy, Germany and stuff. So how does that trajectory take you to where you are today?

Lauren Roerick (02:51.768)
Yeah. So I, you know, as soon as I graduated high school, I was like, all right, now's the time, get me out of here. So I moved to kind of like the Los Angeles area in California. And that's where I studied music. And then from there ended up moving straight to Taiwan to teach English. And then ended up, it was supposed to just be a year. And then I ended up staying there for like three years and ended up doing a bachelor's of business program over there, because it was free, which was cool. So I didn't have student debt from going to school there.

yeah, I got, I got a full rides scholarship to go do my bachelor's in Taiwan, which was really cool. studied out there for a few years. I got to learn Chinese, which was great. And, just, you know, kind of learn about a different culture and be somewhere different. And that really, I think gave me the confidence to do a lot of other things, because once you can kind of navigate in such a different country than your own, everything else becomes a little simpler. You know, like I could.

I had a job, I went to school, I lived my life like in another language, in another culture. And that I think gave me a lot of confidence and courage to go take that and almost do whatever I felt like I wanted to do. So from Taiwan, I finished what I was doing there and then ended up moving straight to Berlin. And I lived there for a few years and worked in marketing, also taught yoga on the side because I got my teaching certificate while I was in

And I've always just done a million things at one time. think it's either the ADD or something. just, you know, can't, can't only ever do one thing at a time. So yeah, I've done quite a lot of traveling and, kind of root down for three or four years at a time and then kind of pick up and go somewhere else again.

Chris Watson (04:24.238)
Meh.

Chris Watson (04:32.321)
Yeah, well it is good to test lots of things to see what you're good at and what you're passionate about. yeah, I don't see that as a bad thing at all.

Lauren Roerick (04:36.206)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (04:41.617)
No, and the idea that you're supposed to be 18 and know what the rest of your life is supposed to look like and choose your major and choose your job for the rest of your life is, I think, so outdated and almost impossible now with how many options there are. The job that I'm doing now, I work in film. I didn't even know it existed when I was a teenager or in my early 20s. I had no idea that you could build and decorate movie sets and get paid to do that. I had no idea. And now that's what I do for a living. And so there's so many options out there.

Chris Watson (05:10.595)
Wow, tell us a bit more about that then. That sounds quite exciting then. What kind of TV and movie have you been working on? that we would recognise

Lauren Roerick (05:15.62)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (05:20.658)
I do a lot of Hallmark movies. So things that are kind of made for TV. I do a lot of Christmas movies, which are pretty fun to decorate just because, you know, you take like a whole cul -de -sac and you, our word is you barf Christmas all over it. But you know, more technically you decorate it with Christmas. And then right now I'm working on two movies. So one is a Hallmark trilogy that's a Christmas series. And then the other one is like a murder mystery based in 90s Texas. And they're both

filmed in Vancouver, so we're kind of cheating the sets to make one look like Texas and the other is in a studio. So yeah, it's quite a lot of fun. Everything is, every day is a little different and you're always kind of like on your toes thinking creatively, like solving a lot of problems, get to do a little bit of arts and crafts. Like I'm working today in this hair salon that we're turning into like a tarot card shop where, so we're turning it into like fortune telling and

for filling jars full of like, spells and potions. And anyway, it's quite a lot of fun.

Chris Watson (06:19.356)
Wow, what is your official title for that role?

Lauren Roerick (06:23.129)
I'm a set dresser. So it's part of the art department. Yeah.

Chris Watson (06:25.453)
set the dresser. Yeah, well, that's it. Yeah, I suppose with a creative side that must be quite fulfilling then, quite interesting.

Lauren Roerick (06:34.352)
Yeah, it can be a lot of fun. Sometimes they're a bit of like a glorified mover, but on the other days you get to be doing arts and crafts all day. So it's a, it's a fun mix.

Chris Watson (06:42.839)
Yeah. Wow. How do you find juggling that then with all your adventure stuff? Because you're away at three, four, five months at a time, aren't you, doing some of these hikes?

Lauren Roerick (06:52.507)
Yeah, and that is largely why I do the made for TV movies or we call movie of the week. And it's because the contracts are really short. So you'll film for like two to four weeks and then that's the end of it. And then either you find another project or you go off and do something else. like, the money's pretty good. And there's a lot of flexibility. And if I come back from a trip and I kind of like send a text to someone on my team, like, Hey, have you got work for me? I can usually find something almost right away when I come back.

Chris Watson (07:18.435)
Huh? Wow.

Lauren Roerick (07:18.853)
It's a, yeah, it works for me. It's, it's a bit of a hustle and you got to kind of like keep in touch with people and you have to be good at your job because otherwise they're gonna be like, well, we don't actually want you back. So yeah, yeah, it works for

Chris Watson (07:21.966)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (07:30.063)
So as your home routes then, are you rooted in Vancouver whilst you daughter across the globe doing hikes and stuff? Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (07:42.681)
now. Yeah, I don't know if it's like a permanent thing. Nothing's ever that permanent, but I have been here for, I guess, four years now? Kind of on and off? Yeah.

Chris Watson (07:50.915)
Yeah? Wow. Where abouts, forgive my lack of insight in terms of, so you grew up where in Canada? it Alberta? Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (08:02.257)
Alberta. Yeah. So the British Columbia is the coastal province and then in one more is Alberta. So right north of Montana. I don't know if your American geography is any better. Okay.

Chris Watson (08:09.071)
Yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's even better when I'm looking at a map and I can point it out. But yeah. So switching lanes a little bit then. So when you picked up the bug for through hiking, what was that? 2019, 2020 or thereabouts. Yeah. Ideal time to get out and about when the world was deciding to to lockdown.

Lauren Roerick (08:28.325)
Yep. Yep.

Lauren Roerick (08:36.795)
You would think, yeah.

Chris Watson (08:40.154)
Yeah, so wait, mean in Scotland, I don't know what it was like elsewhere, but in Scotland we weren't allowed to go more than five kilometres from social distancing and stuff. So how do you get to a mass of almost 8 ,000 kilometres? But I know that's obviously over the years, but how did you pick up through hiking?

Lauren Roerick (09:00.628)
Well, yeah, so I started the PCT in 2020 and then like 10 days in or something, I had to leave the PCT because I started early, early March when like things hadn't, no one knew what was going on yet. The only thing I knew was that it was hard to find hand sanitizer. And then I left and started the PCT and then like 10 days in, I got to a town and I was waiting out a snowstorm. And so I stayed in a little motel and that's when I got the news that like, Hey, the world is a lot weirder than it was 10 days ago.

And like so much had changed since I'd left. then my mom, luckily was only about three hours drive away. She lives in Southern California. And so she was like, why didn't I come pick you up? And we can just kind of like figure out what's going on. I was like, yeah, that's probably a good idea. Otherwise I'm just like wasting my money in this motel room waiting for a snowstorm. Anyway, a snowstorm in March in the desert, I was not prepared for. So she picked me up and yeah, while I was like at her house, I got an email from the PCTA that was like, yeah, we're shutting this down. You guys got to go home.

you shouldn't be out here. It's not safe. Not because you're out in the wilderness. Like I would have thought that's the best place to be. I'm like, I'm like alone in my tent. I'm social distancing. But the problem was all of the small towns along the trail. They didn't want to like risk bringing something into a small town that doesn't have like medical care or like, you know, the resources to deal with an influx of dirty people who aren't washing their hands, you know, that's the reality of it. So I stopped and then took the year basically of, you know,

Chris Watson (10:11.567)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (10:28.722)
being jobless and whatever, and then try it again the next year.

Chris Watson (10:34.347)
Yeah, can rolling back a little bit for those that may not be familiar with the term through hiking? How would you describe that? Because I'm just conscious of some of my audience, maybe because I give you an example. There's not a lot of huge long trails in the UK and across. obviously, we'll come on to the Hexatreck and stuff. what is it? What would you how would you define a through hike versus just a weekend hike?

Lauren Roerick (10:42.629)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (11:04.2)
For example.

Lauren Roerick (11:04.244)
Yeah, I feel like there's such mixed opinions on like what qualifies as a quote unquote through hike. but it is a multi day backpacking trip where you go from one end of something to the other end of something. I think like somewhere it's gotta be like at least a couple hundred miles, I would say. you know, maybe a month long or something like that. So you're spending like pretty significant time on a trail and you're going from one end to the other, whether

of a country or a particular trail or something. But yeah, I feel like there's like a lot of differing opinions on what counts as a thru -hike and yeah, versus a multi -day backpacking trip. yeah, I think once you pass a couple of weeks, then you're pretty solid.

Chris Watson (11:45.603)
Yeah, what drew... Yeah, yeah, so it's more than a weekend trail hike, isn't it? So what drew you to that and how did you prepare for your first ever hike, through hike, if you hadn't done anything of that distance or duration?

Lauren Roerick (11:51.988)
Yeah, exactly.

Lauren Roerick (11:59.912)
Yeah

Lauren Roerick (12:03.794)
Yeah, I hadn't even done a backpacking trip before I decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I just had heard about it from a friend and just thought that idea of it just felt like absolute freedom to me. thought, wow, like, what a cool thing. You're just out in nature. Like no one's expecting you to be anywhere. You're not responsible for anything besides yourself and like your food and your water.

And you you want to walk 20 miles in a day or you want to walk five or you want to walk 30, like that's fully up to you. and the more I kind of dug into it, the more I got really interested in the culture as well. Like there's so many cool people that I've met on trail or like, you know, have hopes to meet and people who were really, had similar values to me, guess is a big part of what I was looking for was like finding community and people who valued like freedom and autonomy and love the outdoors and those kinds of things. And so

The community was a big draw for me as well as just, yeah, this feeling of like total freedom and just wanting to be better at being self -sufficient in the wilderness. It's a skillset that I didn't totally have, but it's something I'd always wanted to learn. And there is no better way to learn than that. guess it was really like a baptism by fire at that point. So yeah, before I started the PCT, I thought, you know, I should probably like test this out. So I took myself on like a 40 mile kind of out and back on the Appalachian trail.

Chris Watson (13:13.793)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (13:26.753)
Cause I was living in North Carolina at the time and I'd rented all of my gear. Like you can go into REI there and just rent everything. So I had a rented backpack, a rented stove, a rented like sleeping bag. I didn't have any of my own gear. because obviously it's expensive to get into something like this. You know, you've to buy everything from scratch and I didn't have anything already. So I thought, okay, I'll, we'll just double check and make sure this isn't the worst thing ever. went out, had a great time, terrifying to sleep outside by myself, like in the deep woods by myself.

for the first time. But once you do it once, you realize like, okay, it's not that scary and probably nothing will happen to me, you know, so.

Chris Watson (14:03.883)
Yeah, it's certainly a bit unsettling and unnerving when you do that for the first time, kind of sleeping in the wild. And over in Scotland, we don't have the threat of snakes or well, we have snakes, but they're very few and far between and not as bitey or as poisonous as the ones over there. And we don't have bears roaming about, thankfully. Yeah. Amazing. What did you do any sort of training on like wildlife?

Lauren Roerick (14:08.872)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (14:18.559)
Yes!

Yeah, and bears, yeah.

Chris Watson (14:31.795)
or navigational skills or survival or anything like

Lauren Roerick (14:36.8)
Yeah, I took a wilderness first aid course, which is like a weekend long course, where you learn, you know, like, basic first aid, but in a wilderness setting, right? So they're like, okay, here are the things you'll likely have in your backpack. And here's how you can use them to like, make a splint or like treat a wound or like make a sling or you know, how can we make a stretcher out of your trekking poles and all of your extra clothes and like carry someone out and like what to do in a lightning storm and these kinds of things that like, I felt I would

more comfortable out there if I took some kind of lesson. So I did take one of those Knowles weekend long wilderness first aid courses and that felt good for

Chris Watson (15:15.813)
Yeah, fantastic. It's a level of comfort, it, I suppose? At least you've got scratching the surface a little bit. Excellent. Yeah. See the community side of it. Did you engage with the community before you set off on the trail or did you just pick up kind of friends and people like along the way?

Lauren Roerick (15:19.307)
Yes!

Exactly.

Lauren Roerick (15:34.169)
Yeah, as far as sort of the friends I met on trail. Yeah, everyone I hiked with I kind of met along the way, but I also did kind of connect with people on Instagram beforehand, which was cool. Instagram was such a big part of like finding and connecting with other true hikers, especially in 2020 because we were all like kind of commiserating. So I have friends that, you know, were PCT hikers or were AT hikers and we actually never met on trail, but we were just sort of commiserating on Instagram and have ended up like meeting a

Chris Watson (15:54.287)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (16:03.895)
later on doing a backpacking trip together or like, you you just bump into people. so Instagram actually became a big part of my trail community and definitely helped kind of get into that once I was actually on trail.

Chris Watson (16:18.489)
And you all get nicknames don't you? think I read, what was yours? Long way? What's the story behind that?

Lauren Roerick (16:21.27)
Yeah. Long way. Yeah.

you know, it's a way of life really. But also just kind of connected to the idea of how long it took me to actually get going on the PCT because of like COVID and then because of there were fires when I tried to go southbound and I had to like try and tag the border like two separate times. it just like became kind of a nightmare to actually start making positive miles on the PCT. And it just became kind of a running joke. And my friend Piglet on the trail was like, I'm just going to call you long

Chris Watson (16:30.431)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (16:57.763)
was like, yeah, that sounds about right.

Chris Watson (17:00.271)
Yeah, wonderful. Did you complete the PCT entirely or what? Because that's 4 ,000? Yeah. Yeah, still got bits to do. Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (17:06.202)
No, still, yeah, it's like 4 ,500 kilometers. Yeah. So there's still some stuff that, you know, has yet to be ticked off, but it was on fire while I was there. So I couldn't do it. Yeah. There are huge fires. And then I think it was a combination of it being like COVID and wildfire season. just sort of, all of California shut down their national forests or their whatever.

state forests or whatever it was. All the forests were closed, which means that you can't really walk through them. They were like, if you walk through these forests, we'll send you to jail. I was like, okay, that's not really on my list of things to do this year.

Chris Watson (17:37.827)
Yeah, I know.

Chris Watson (17:42.255)
So, just thinking timelines then, so if we switch over to the Hexatrek, I think that was only, if I read rightly, was only, was that only created in 2022 or thereabouts? I don't think it's that yet, it's not that long ago, and Kevin, is it Ginninske, terrible pronouncing names that created that. How did you find out about that? Because I only found out about that through you, actually.

Lauren Roerick (17:48.621)
Mm -hmm.

Lauren Roerick (18:02.967)
Yeah. Yup.

Lauren Roerick (18:09.099)
okay. Actually, that seems to be like a really common thing. I keep blabbing about it. And then I have a friend who's on the Hexadtrek right now and she was saying like, everybody knows your name. And I was like, that's so weird. I mean, like, very cool. But like, yeah, it's so funny that people I don't know are talking about me. But yeah, I found it on Instagram. There's an account that just posts like new and upcoming trails. And I was looking for another trail to do.

Chris Watson (18:11.722)
Which

Lauren Roerick (18:39.033)
And I was a little bit, I don't know, like the Triple Crown Trails are awesome, but they felt a little overdone to me. Like I'd seen so much about them online already that I wanted something that was a bit more almost fresh, I guess, that was unspoiled in my mind that I hadn't seen so much of already. And, you know, I lived in Germany and I loved living over there and France is attached, you know? So there's some similarities, obviously they're not the same country, but you know, they've.

There's some similarities and that trail starts at the German border. So was like a little bit familiar. yeah, I didn't know something about it just really called to me. And I liked, I liked the idea that I could be one of the first people to do it. I think that was a big draw. Like, you know, it's nice to be a pioneer every once in a

Chris Watson (19:21.295)
Yeah and I think yeah I was going to say that you are a bit of a pioneer because you are the first female North American or the first female to complete the trek yeah yeah fantastic and yeah and for those that don't know I mean the Hexatrek it's in six stages obviously Hexagon that takes what is it 3034 kilometers across France

Lauren Roerick (19:30.754)
yeah. yeah. yeah.

Chris Watson (19:49.039)
I'm going to butcher this pronunciation as well. The Vosges mountains to the Pyrenees. I mean, that must have been fantastic. The mountain national parks that you must have gone through, the cultural immersions and stuff. What was it like?

Lauren Roerick (19:56.527)
Yes.

Lauren Roerick (20:06.188)
I mean, I'm obsessed with it. I had so much fun and I had no idea the diversity of mountains that France has. Like they've got some really like top notch mountains. It's gorgeous. I mean, obviously the Alps are world famous. but the Pyrenees, I loved the Pyrenees. I had so much fun out there. And, yeah, I dunno. I was blown away by how beautiful it was. I really had no idea what to expect and it defied all expectations.

Chris Watson (20:36.045)
Yeah, how long did you take to complete that? Because I think it's advertised as about four or five months or so. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah.

Lauren Roerick (20:43.419)
Yeah. Yeah, I did the, finished 121 days. So four months basically right on the

Chris Watson (20:48.823)
Yeah. Yeah. What seasons did you go through that Lauren? Was it April last year that you started? Or springtime? June. Yeah. Wow. So what was, in terms of like your preparation for that and how that compares to the likes of the North American trails, you know, did that set you in good stead? Did you have to think about different equipment or how did you prepare for

Lauren Roerick (20:56.985)
Yeah, I started, it was June and then I finished September

Lauren Roerick (21:19.301)
Yeah, it was really easy because I'd already done the PCT. So I had all of the gear already. I didn't change really anything. I got a new backpack just because the one I had on the PCT didn't fit very well. I think that was my only piece of gear that I actually changed out. Basically everything else was the same, which makes it really affordable to do. know, like if you have all of the gear already, that's kind of the biggest upfront cost. So was like, all right, I'm just going to pack my backpack again and show

And there wasn't so much to research because there wasn't that much available. So I really kind of wanted to go in a bit blind just so I, yeah, I just didn't spoil any of it. Yeah, so I didn't really plan ahead on how many miles I thought it would take or how many days I thought it would take or any of that. just thought, you know, it'll show up and I'll figure it out. I don't speak French, but I will figure it out. And yeah, it worked out, it worked

Chris Watson (22:13.165)
Did you get a map of the hexa trek, the trail points and stuff, or was it easy to follow on that? For those that may be considering, we'll come onto your book shortly, but in terms of, a first timer approaching that, how easy was it to navigate?

Lauren Roerick (22:22.225)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (22:30.778)
Yeah, they've done, they created an app that's specifically for the Hexa Trek and they've done a really good job with it. So it has all six stages. You can download them all together or you can download them and like, can buy them individually or as a package. and it has lists of like, yeah, water sources, mostly the only thing it doesn't have is like crowdsourced information, like far out. but it's got your water sources and your main points of interest and your grocery stores and those kinds of things on the map and it's downloadable offline.

And it also shows you where you can and cannot camp, which is helpful because the laws are different and then, you know, it's nice to have kind of a guide of like where it's okay and where it's not. But the app is probably your best bet for navigation because it uses an existing trail network. It's mostly the GR trails with a handful of other kind of like provincial trails and things like that. So it does switch from path to path here and there. So if you were just following say like the GR5.

You know, you would get to the end of something, but it wouldn't be the end of the hexatrack. You'd end up somewhere else.

Chris Watson (23:31.639)
Yeah, okay. You touched on there about camping, because I know there's certain, there's a lot of restrictions I think in parts of France, as there are in other parts of Europe. How did you navigate that? Did you have to book into lot of campsites, guest houses, or did you rough it anyway

Lauren Roerick (23:36.092)
Mm -hmm.

Lauren Roerick (23:48.828)
Mm -mm.

No, they, they allow wild camping nearly everywhere. they've got kind of the right to bivouac, I guess. So as long as you're like one person in a small tent and you like set up around sunset and you're up by sunrise, like you can almost be anywhere. except for national parks, they often have different rules. but most of their national parks have refuges and you can just, put your tent up beside a refuge and then that's okay. or they'll have.

signs and they'll tell you how far away from the trail you need to be to wild camp. But wild camping was very easy through nearly all of the trail, which was really, really cool. It makes it very predisposed to the idea of through hiking as we know it, like in North America.

Chris Watson (24:33.837)
Yeah. Yeah. How busy was the trek when you were camping and stuff? Was it, were there a lot of people on there? On, no.

Lauren Roerick (24:42.302)
No. Yeah. I never had to fight for campsites. I think I only ran into like a dozen other hexa trekkers. There were maybe 200 people who attempted at the year that I did it. I think this year it's maybe tripled, which is pretty cool. So there's lots more people out there this year. And then obviously there are other people doing the other long trails that it overlaps with. You you run into a handful of like G5 hikers or like GR10 hikers or those kinds of things.

But I didn't find it crowded at all, even in the summer. think the most crowded section was when it overlaps with the Tour de Mont Blanc, because that's like one of the most popular long hikes in the world. It's so gorgeous. And it overlaps for about 70 kilometers, I think, which felt a little overwhelming because all of a sudden, yeah, you're like in a conga line of people and you're like, my God, I haven't seen people in a week. Like what's going on? But you pass through pretty quickly. So I never, yeah, I never felt like it was crowded or I was...

trying to fight for campsites or anything.

Chris Watson (25:39.565)
Yeah, what, see each of the six stages, how much does the landscape change and what kind of terrain do you have to contend with throughout

Lauren Roerick (25:49.99)
Yeah. It changes really wildly. So the first stage, yeah, it goes through the Vosges and those are kind of low lying, very green mountains with not a ton of elevation. And then it starts to ramp up a little bit. It hooks into Switzerland for I think a hundred kilometers or so. And then you go along a river and then you start into what the Northern Alps, which all of a sudden your elevation like doubles very quickly. And you're like,

It's nice that I had 600 kilometers to basically train for the Alps because they will kick your butt. They're very steep and it's a lot of climbing and long days. But it's also some of the most beautiful hiking I've ever seen. So it's very worth it. And then you do the Alps and then stage three goes in and does most of the Tour des Ecrans, which is very a lot of climbing. That's when you get into your 2 ,000 meter days.

kind of back to back to back to back. That's when I got really grumpy. was like, I am so damn tired. my goodness. I got really skinny and I was like, okay, I need to eat way more food. And I like, I don't know, need to take a chill pill because I'm so grumpy. And then stage three levels out and you kind of end up in this, it's a bit of an in -between section to get from the Alps to the Pyrenees. So

Chris Watson (26:48.943)
Please.

Chris Watson (27:03.023)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (27:13.15)
follow a lot of like water, but it's very, very hot because you usually hit that kind of mid summer. So I was there in August and so it's your lower elevation and everything very dry and very hot. And there was a heat wave. So it was like 40 plus degrees every day and it was very hot. and then from there, yeah, stage five, six, take me through the Pyrenees and you end in like Basque country all the way to the Atlantic ocean.

like the Pyrenees are so cool because they're like really rocky and remote and like just majestic. It's totally different from like the very green Alps with like marmots and mountain goats. And then the Pyrenees are very like, you feel like you're on another planet. It's very cool.

Chris Watson (27:45.698)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (27:52.984)
Did the route ever get technical? Scrambling or the need for any sort of technical gear?

Lauren Roerick (27:59.152)
Yeah, no technical gear. mean, I guess there was definitely a section where I could have used some micro spikes if I were being smart, but I didn't really realize it until I was a bit too far in. Then I was like, this is a bit dangerous. I probably would have liked to have had some micro spikes, but I just took it really, really slow and like kicked in my steps. There was just a lot more snow and an alternate that I took over a high pass and I ended up in a bit of a sticky

stickier situation than I like to be in, but made it up and over and it was okay. But just, it was slow going and a bit like, you you feel your, feel your nerves a little. And then in the Pyrenees, there are a couple of more technical passes where you do need a little bit of scrambling. There's some hand over hand stuff, but they're all labeled quite, quite aggressively in pink on the, on the app. And so it gives you like a, here's, here's what to expect kind of a thing. And there's also like an alternate to go

if you wanted to. So that's kind of the nice thing. So if you are, you know, a less experienced backpacker, you could find yourself on an alternate route that would take you around and not make you do the technical passes, which is nice.

Chris Watson (29:08.739)
Yeah, you touched on being grumpy in the foods, when I hear people say that, I always think back to situations when I experienced that as well, so I get it. What was your food and nutrition like? How well did you plan for that? And did you have stops along the way to stock up again?

Lauren Roerick (29:31.164)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, so the food carries were typically, I'd say, between like two and five days. I think my longest food carry was through the Alps and it was six days. So nice, there are regular stops along the way and the trail will typically like walk you into a village, which is nice. So it's easy to resupply. I didn't have to do very much hitchhiking, just a little bit here and there. But yeah, I didn't totally know what to expect for French backpacking food. In the States, it's so easy because like convenience food is really like their forte, honestly.

So it's really easy to get backpacking food there, but France, know, I mean, they're not known for their convenience food. It's not their thing, right?

Chris Watson (30:09.613)
I going to, that's the reason I was going to ask it. Was it all baguettes and sausages and cheese or what was it like?

Lauren Roerick (30:15.2)
Yeah, pretty much. I ate a lot of baguettes and a lot of cheese and a lot of saucisson and a lot of, yeah, I still was able to find ramen noodles and like tuna. I ate a lot of pasta. You can get tomato sauce or like in like tin tubes, which is nice. You can't get that in Canada. You'd have to carry like a jar or something around, but that made it pretty portable. Yeah, granola bars, they don't have any calories in

Chris Watson (30:21.752)
Yeah, sausage.

Chris Watson (30:33.581)
Yeah,

Lauren Roerick (30:45.014)
French food, if you're buying packaged French food, they're really into low calorie and it's exactly the opposite of what you want as a backpacker. So I'm always trying to find the fattiest things and just not finding them. I just would pack more cheese because that's got the most calories in

Chris Watson (31:00.589)
Yeah, yeah, wow. Did you go through many townships, villages and places like that on the way there? What was that like? Because I imagine you must have came across some quite historical sites, some medieval type sites, castles and things like that as well.

Lauren Roerick (31:16.354)
Yeah. Yeah. think the first week of my trip, camped at a castle like almost every night. So that was really cool. There's these like, yeah, 600 year old like ruins or castles and you just like prop your tent beside them. And it's just, it's quite magical. there are a lot of, yeah, old historic things that you hike right into and little villages that, you know, I bought cheese from, I think she was like 89 years old and she's been selling cheese out of this little

Chris Watson (31:24.238)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (31:45.12)
shop in the front of her house for I don't know how many decades and like to the point where her arms aren't strong enough to cut the cheese so she just handed me the knife so I could cut it myself and then she weighs it and she was like doing the math on a chalkboard to like come to my total. I was like wow this is pretty cool. So yeah lots of like local every region has its own kind of like cheese and their own kind of sausage and their own kind of wine and you know there's lots of things to test and explore and

quite a lot of fun. Even the language differences and the accent differences, know, Basque country has a totally different accent and even language than like the rest of France. And like Alsace in the beginning is so close to Germany that you get a lot of German influence. And so it's really cool to just see all the kind of cultural changes as you make your way through the country.

Chris Watson (32:17.399)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (32:31.843)
Yeah, how did you find the language barrier? Was it a struggle or not? And how were the people, were they welcoming along the way?

Lauren Roerick (32:44.579)
Yeah, I, at this point in my life, I'm pretty good at finding ways to be understood, even if I don't speak the language. You know, that is a skill I've acquired through many years of traveling. Before I left, I spent a couple of months listening to like audio tapes of French lessons to try and like pick up at least so I could have the ear for it and like recognize some words.

So I had a bit of French, you know, as a Canadian, you would have thought that I would have learned French in school, but I didn't. And so I would just try my best. And I found that if I led with as much French as I could get out, then everyone was like quite happy to help me. There wasn't a lot of English in a lot of places, but everyone I found was very friendly and helpful. Like there was one night where I camped outside of like a guest house and the caretaker there

It didn't speak any English. And at that point it was, you know, I was two weeks in and I didn't speak any French and he brought out like a book of flashcards and we ended up cooking dinner together with the flashcards and just like having a conversation through flashcards. And we ended up like chatting for like a couple of hours. We barbecued some chicken together and had a really, really lovely evening without either of us really speaking each other's language. So there's always ways to get around that. you're

and you you humble yourself a little and you don't mind saying things wrong and use your hands to talk. I'm a hand talker if you haven't noticed.

Chris Watson (34:10.261)
Yeah, that's wonderful, Lauren. think, yeah, it just goes to show it doesn't matter where you are in the world or what language you speak humans, you know, there's a lot of good humans out there and that honest connection is wonderful. No doubt that it's things like that that probably make the journey, isn't it? You you're trekking for days on end.

Lauren Roerick (34:30.111)
Absolutely. Yeah, I had so many people help me out and, you know, welcome me into their homes even make me coffee, let me sit in their backyard. I had a family reach out on TikTok and they were like, Hey, we've been following you. live very close to the trail. Like you're welcome to come stay with us. So yeah, they live like a kilometer off the trail in stage five or something. And I walked straight up to their house. They're like, it's the one with the blue shutters. Just come in. I'm like, okay. I like knock on the door.

I'd never met any of them before. But yeah, it was like a mom and a dad and their daughter and they welcomed me in. They gave me their spare bedroom. They did all my laundry, which was like amazing because I was so smelly. You know, fed me dinner and then like I usually leave really early in the morning so they weren't up yet but they'd like spread the table with all of the breakfast foods that they could pull from their house and they

packed me a lunch and I was like, this is amazing. I never met these people, they're complete strangers and I'm a complete stranger and they opened their home to me and were just so welcoming and lovely. And I had the good fortune to be hosted by a number of French people which really made such a big difference. Yeah.

Chris Watson (35:30.029)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (35:35.944)
That's wonderful. Yeah, especially considering you're doing that as a solo hiker as well, aren't you? So I imagine you must have been some tough, tough days and stuff along the way, you know, grinding, grinding out and into to get that must have been really wonderful.

Lauren Roerick (35:41.786)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (35:51.29)
Yeah, it's just so nice. And I think something about being a solo traveler, I think lends itself more to people reaching out and like helping you because they see that you're alone. And especially being a solo woman, I think there's something, I'm a curiosity for sure. People are like, what are you doing? And why are you by yourself? And like, can I help you with something? You know what? Yeah, why not? Like what, what do want to help me with? Sure. So I like, I like.

being open to opportunities on these kinds of trips and like not being too tied to a plan so that these kind of serendipitous things can happen and I can, you know, find myself in all kinds of situations that I never would have thought would have even happened.

Chris Watson (36:35.025)
On that point, a Canadian girl with pink hair cutting about with what looks like North American hiking gear on and the depths of France. Did anyone ever think you were lost?

Lauren Roerick (36:43.204)
Yes.

Lauren Roerick (36:48.711)
I had, yeah, not lost necessarily, but maybe I think I was confused. had mostly men who would look at my, you know, trail runners, which are not very common in France. Look at my short shorts and my hot pink hoodie and be like, I don't think you're going to make it. And I was like, don't worry. I've already hiked 2000 kilometers to get to you. So I think I'll be okay. And they're like, huh? No, not 2000. I'm like, yes, this isn't a mistranslation. I mean, 2000.

Chris Watson (37:10.199)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (37:18.611)
so yeah, it was always kind of funny to just, I don't know, disprove misconceptions or, you know, those kinds of things. I get a bit of a kick out of it. Like, yep, no, I'm going to carry on into that snow. Bye.

Chris Watson (37:23.255)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, fantastic. What did you did you meet any other friends along the way or any other interactions with hikers on it?

Lauren Roerick (37:37.275)
I, yeah, yeah. I ended up, like trail families themselves were just much smaller. I ended up hiking with a guy from the Czech Republic for about a month, which was super fun. And then another guy from France for about a month. And there were not a lot of women out there. I met maybe two. So most of my hiking friends are, are guys, mostly local from Europe.

but yeah, I had a really good time. Most everyone I met was really, really lovely. so I ended up hiking with like either one or two other hikers at a time. And then the rest of it, I'd say it was maybe half with people and half without. So you'd go for a few weeks by yourself and then you'd run into someone hike for a few weeks together. And then, you know, eventually your paces will change or someone's got to go do something or whatever. such as the nature of through hiking. but yeah, was, it was a nice mix. I didn't feel like I had too much time alone or like too much time with people. felt like it was a good balance.

Chris Watson (38:08.367)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (38:26.03)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (38:33.409)
Excellent, yeah that's good to hear. I was going to say if there were any challenges like struggling with the isolation but it seemed like it was kind of broken up quite nicely and worked in your favour. Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (38:42.918)
Yeah. Yeah. And I also went into this one kind of wanting a solo adventure and just wanting to be able to, I don't know, just tap into my intuition more and just really get in touch with, you know, what I wanted and where I wanted to go and learn how to make those decisions all on my own. You know, the safety decisions and the mileage decisions and the food decisions and really be able to say like, yes, I can navigate the back country by myself.

I think I really came away with a lot more confidence in that after doing this hike or after doing the

Chris Watson (39:11.074)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (39:15.415)
Yeah, no doubt a lot of time for introspection as well. Did that give you time to kind of think about, you know, the future, you know, what you wanted to do in terms of, you know, future adventures or your own kind of path? Did that give you time to think that?

Lauren Roerick (39:20.103)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (39:30.376)
Yeah, I'm not sure if it made it too much clearer, but it made it clearer, I guess, what I value and what's important to me. I think those are the things that really shake out of a thru -hike is, you know, what you don't want to do and then what you want more of in your life. So not necessarily like a clear path for, you know, the next five years or anything, but definitely more clear on what I want and who I am and what's important to me and what's not important to me. And I think that's very, very valuable.

Chris Watson (39:56.076)
Is it giving you the bug to do more of this or were there ever any points where you're like, ugh, I can't do this anymore, it's too long and too difficult?

Lauren Roerick (40:07.049)
No, they were definitely points where I was like, man, I'm super tired and I would love to take a nap. But there was never any point where I wanted to like quit it wholesale. I was, it felt like it came to a very natural conclusion at the end where I was ready for it to be done. But not in a way that I was like, my God, I can't wait for this to be over. It just sort of felt like, okay, it's kind of wrapping up. Even the terrain, starts to like slowly work its way lower and lower towards the ocean, which is quite cool. So it feels very.

appropriate, just kind of makes its way to the ocean and you get there and you physically can't walk any further and it just, feels very right. but it definitely made me want to spend more time in nature and do more hard things and challenge myself further because I was like, okay. Like I am pretty capable and I can do these things by myself and I bet there's more things I can do by myself and now I need another at them. So

Chris Watson (40:44.835)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (40:58.649)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Nobody needs permission to do this stuff and we're all more than capable of doing hard things. Sometimes it's the world and social media that tends to tell us otherwise. yeah. What was it like coming to the end of that then? What was the finishing point like? Where did it finish up? Was it the Pyrenees end that it finished or started? I can't quite remember. It ends at the period.

Lauren Roerick (41:08.329)
Absolutely.

Lauren Roerick (41:14.261)
Totally. Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (41:27.388)
It ends with the Pyrenees. Yeah, so it ends right kind of on the Spanish border in a town called Anday, starts with an H, but you don't say it because it's Near, I think it's Bilbao that's right on the other side of the Spanish border. So it ends right at the ocean. There's no monument or anything, so it feels like almost a little bit anticlimactic. You're kind of like, I guess we're just done. But luckily there were a couple of other hikers.

Chris Watson (41:37.625)
Thank you.

Chris Watson (41:48.068)
No.

Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (41:55.966)
For some reason, like we'd all kind of converged over the last like week. So it was like a reunion. I kept seeing people that I'd seen like months ago. And for whatever reason, we all finished within a few days of each other. So I got to kind of meet up with some other hikers that I hadn't seen for a while. And, know, we got to pop some champagne at the end and I got there like right at sunset. So it felt really like, I don't know, it felt good. And I was ready for it to be done. And it, yeah, it felt very full circle.

Chris Watson (42:12.597)
yes. Yeah.

Chris Watson (42:18.825)
lovely.

Chris Watson (42:24.061)
Amazing. Did you spend much time in France after that or did you just head home? What was it like?

Lauren Roerick (42:29.286)
I spent a couple of days in, there's a town near there that's a little bigger and had a hostel. I hopped up there and spent a couple of days just kind of decompressing. And then I actually flew to Berlin and visited some old friends and spent a bit of time in Germany before making my way back over to Canada.

Chris Watson (42:49.847)
Yeah, wonderful. It's just fascinating, say. I only found out about the Hexachic from your Instagram page, which had been following for a little while. And you've got some fantastic videos as well, which I recommend on YouTube. But you've got a book as well, haven't you? A guide. you want, what could, you know, there's a lot, a lot to this that you could, I mean, you could talk about this for hours, quite frankly, but what some of

Lauren Roerick (43:02.202)
cool.

Lauren Roerick (43:10.123)
I'm shooting.

Chris Watson (43:19.087)
highlights and the practical sides of things. What could people look out for if they picked up your guide to the hexa trick?

Lauren Roerick (43:25.931)
Yeah. Yeah. So if you were thinking about hiking the Hexatrek and you wanted, I mean, something that's more or less all encompassing of what you would need to know and how to prepare for it, that would be my book. It's about a hundred pages long. It's got a full resupply guide everywhere that I resupplied, which, you know, if you followed it precisely, you know, you'd end up doing it in 120 days and it's got the food stops and what you should pick

Chris Watson (43:38.251)
it

Lauren Roerick (43:52.651)
It's also got every campsite that I stayed at or like everywhere I put my tent. I wrote all the mileage down and marked the campsites. So can look at that and you can theoretically follow in my footsteps, but you should do your own version. It's also got some of the like mental preparation and how to deal with hard things and you know, what to expect. Cause your brain does weird things when you spend that much time in nature and especially that much time alone and you know, some advice and things that I've learned along the way. It's also got a few.

a few stories of people that I met and things that I did. It's got a breakdown of each stage and what to expect. So I hope, you know, in my opinion, it's a pretty good overview of what to expect and how to plan and prepare. It's got a gear list. It's got everything that I took. It's got, you know, your basic backpacking stuff as well, kind of your leave no trace principles and those things as

Chris Watson (44:43.151)
Yeah, fantastic. And for anyone just thinking a lot objection handling so a lot of people don't have the time to take 121 days out of their careers or family life and stuff. I assume you could pick this up in stages and the guide would still be as a practical as well. Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (44:54.326)
True.

Lauren Roerick (45:00.606)
Absolutely. Yep. Yep. It breaks it down into stages. So if you had two weeks and you wanted to hike stage three, you totally could do that. Or if you've got a month and you want to do stage one, go for it. And you'd still have an excellent time.

Chris Watson (45:17.279)
Excellent, Any highlights, memorable moments that come to mind over that journey, anything that stands

Lauren Roerick (45:24.733)
Hmm. Yeah, they're so many.

The cows, I don't know. The cows and the alps are so funny because they all have bells on them. So like the soundtrack of the alps is just cows with bells, cows with bells. And it's just like ringing in your ears the whole time you're out there, which is quite fun. And then I think maybe one of my, yeah, one of my favorite memories I think was in the Pyrenees. So I'd been hiking for like three months at that point.

Chris Watson (45:34.801)
It goes.

Lauren Roerick (45:58.166)
and got caught in a really bad rainstorm and it was freezing cold. was like just, just above freezing. It was maybe like three or four degrees out and it's pouring rain and I'm like soaking wet. And in my map, it says that there's a couple of different refuges. And I was like, screw it. I'm just going to stay at a refuge. I'm going to stay indoors. I'll spend the money. Cause I had not been spending money on this trip. was trying to keep it really, really low budget. So I was like, tenting basically every single night. But I get to the first one it's under construction. So it's closed.

Cool, great. Well, it's five kilometers in the range of the next one. Okay, I go to the next one. Also closed. I'm like, wow. Okay, okay. So now I'm like soaked through and freezing and it's like, you know, it's getting late in the day. I'm like, okay. so the next thing on my map was a hunter's cabin. And I was like, okay, well, maybe, I don't know, I'll go find it. And I get there and it's like, like a tin shed, basically, like a pretty big tin shed, but it's, made of corrugated tin. It's like nothing special. I was like, all right, this is going to work. And I opened the door and it is

packed full of hunters. Yeah, and I was like, okay, and they're not expecting me and I'm not expecting them. I haven't seen anyone in a long time. And yeah, there's like 12 of them and they're all from like Basque country. And so their accents are not what I'm used to. And I'm not understanding anything they're saying. And they're not understanding anything that I'm saying. But they were so friendly. They like cleared out a space for me to lay down my mat. And like, they had just been hunting all day and they had some kind of roast that they had

Chris Watson (47:12.674)
Jeez.

Lauren Roerick (47:25.283)
that they were cooking up and they had, you know, little bits of like homemade alcohol and they had pudding and like they had the whole spread. They were in there for the weekend and they welcomed me in and I sat at their table and they fed me all their food and they, you know, just totally took care of me. And then like, yeah, they were also went to sleep at like nine o 'clock, which was awesome. And then we were all up and out of there in the morning, but it was so nice to be out of the rain.

and have a hot cooked meal of real food and not something that I've been carrying in my backpack for a week. So that was really, I don't know, special. was very cool.

Chris Watson (48:02.187)
Yeah, it must have been really great to receive, especially being soaked through in the cold and wet. Fantastic. Wonderful. Yeah, you've got me excited about it and hopefully everyone that's watching and listening gets excited about it as well and checks out your guide and your playlist as well on YouTube. You've got quite a collection of videos which are worth a watch, I would say, as well.

Lauren Roerick (48:06.131)
Yeah, it was so cold. Yeah, yeah, very grateful.

Lauren Roerick (48:21.688)
Woohoo!

Lauren Roerick (48:26.831)
Thanks, yeah, I vlogged the whole thing, so I think it's 31 episodes and they're all somewhere between 12 minutes and half an hour. It's a lot of footage. If you want something to binge watch, you can spend a lot of time on my YouTube channel.

Chris Watson (48:32.157)
S

Yep.

Chris Watson (48:40.641)
Yeah, excellent. How is that side of things going, Lauren? Like your socials and your YouTube channel and stuff, how is that progressing?

Lauren Roerick (48:48.321)
It's good. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I mean, it's it's sort of a passion project. But I, I have grown an audience of people, you know, that are really stoked on that kind of hiking, which is really fun. And being able to interact with the people that, you know, want to watch me do things outside is pretty awesome. And everyone's like super kind for what for whatever reason, I've lucked out and I'm in the corner of the internet where like people don't want to be mean to me.

Chris Watson (49:17.43)
Yeah,

Lauren Roerick (49:17.804)
I think, you know, I think that's really lucky. so, so far everyone's been really supportive and I get loads of like nice messages from people, you know, who've taken their first backpacking trip because they saw me do it or, you know, like done a through hike, especially the hexa trek, you know, there's loads of people who've done that because they watch my videos and I, I just think that's so cool. And that's, that's why I continue to do it. Cause I, I love it. Cause I can look back and be like, yeah, look at this thing I did. And every once in a while I like watch my own vlogs. It sounds so vain.

Chris Watson (49:44.783)
Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (49:47.253)
a beautiful section, like how cool is that? But yeah, it's nice for me to have as like a video diary and then also fun to just be able to share that with other people and you know make their journey a little easier.

Chris Watson (49:56.983)
Amazing, Yep, amazing. I think there is certainly something about the adventure community that is much more inclusive. I mean, there's certainly still challenges and problems with it. I'm not trying to kind of wash it, it is very, myself, mean, me doing this show, there's a bit of selfishness in it, because I'm doing this for myself, because I like having these wonderful conversations with people that are as passionate about doing this. And it records it and allows me to kind

Lauren Roerick (50:15.833)
Mm -hmm.

Lauren Roerick (50:19.961)
Totally.

Chris Watson (50:24.451)
look back on it as well and it gets me and my family excited about doing stuff and hopefully others come along and do that as well. So yeah, I get it, it's wonderful. Do you have any other big adventure plans or any unrealised adventures or treks that you would love to do next?

Lauren Roerick (50:28.931)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (50:34.873)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (50:46.263)
You know, it's funny, I was looking into a trail in Scotland. It is the National Scottish Trail.

Chris Watson (50:50.005)
West Island Way? the National Scottish Tour.

Lauren Roerick (50:55.858)
Yeah. So it's a thru -hug that kind of goes end to end. It's like 800 kilometers or something. I think it's not, it's not particularly well known. I think it overlaps with the Highland way. Yeah. So I think, I think it includes that. but I was looking at that cause I hear such good things about Scotland and anytime I see pictures that looks so beautiful and I'm like, man, I got to check that out. And you guys also have the freedom camping, which is pretty accessible, I think. And, know, I think it checks a lot of boxes.

Chris Watson (50:59.265)
okay all

Chris Watson (51:05.441)
West Highland, West Highland, yeah. fantastic. it's... yeah.

Yeah,

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. the midges. Yeah. Well, it is, I mean, what time is it? It's nine o 'clock, 9pm here, and it is, it's been great all day. We were out at the weekend and it was glorious sunshine. And since Sunday, it is just pouring rain, like literally just nonstop. It's like, it's horrendous.

Lauren Roerick (51:23.791)
The only thing is the midges and the rain.

Lauren Roerick (51:44.643)
Yeah, that's my only concern. But also after like hiking in New Zealand, I'm pretty used to being wet all the time. So was like, you know what, I think I can handle Scotland. I think it'll be okay. I just get a better raincoat and then just deal with it. Yeah, because it looks gorgeous.

Chris Watson (51:52.867)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You should do it. It's phenomenal and you don't have the... The midges are not to be underestimated, quite frankly. They are little bastards like swearing, but yeah. Yeah. But it is fantastic.

Lauren Roerick (52:07.759)
Yeah. I've seen the videos, it looks, ugh, looks awful. Yeah. What season did they end? Do they go away in like August or September? Like, could I hike in September, theoretically?

Chris Watson (52:18.895)
Probably September. Well, it's difficult because it depends on how warm the weather is and you know, sometimes our summer can last for a day and other times it can last for like three, four weeks or a couple of months. But try and avoid the summer months like June and July and August, I would say probably September going into October would be. Yeah, but yeah, I've done the West Isle away twice and it is really

Lauren Roerick (52:22.843)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (52:26.885)
Bye.

Lauren Roerick (52:33.519)
Yup.

Lauren Roerick (52:40.017)
Okay. September is a good month for it.

Lauren Roerick (52:47.407)
How nice.

Chris Watson (52:48.495)
both of them, I mean it's only 125 kilometres really but yeah it's nothing in the scale that you have done but it is a beautiful beautiful stretch of the country. is very very very wonderful. Excellent yeah so yeah if you do come to Scotland let us know and I'll give you some tips and stuff. Yeah awesome this has been fantastic Lauren I

Lauren Roerick (53:09.563)
Absolutely.

Chris Watson (53:17.175)
conscious of time I would like to move into the two closing traditions I've got on the show one of which is a paid forward suggestion for a worthy cause or a project and then finally a call to adventure so to start with a paid forward suggestion for a worthy cause project or charity have you got a recommendation or a suggestion?

Lauren Roerick (53:39.142)
so as far as like causes close to my heart, I, I usually choose women's health. it's historically underrepresented and understudied and underfunded. so I donate to, I personally donate every month to the BC women's health foundation and the Canadian women's health foundation. but I have also helped with projects that bring, like menstrual products to, like communities in poverty.

I think that's really important. I'm missing the word for it, but there's a word for it where like you don't have access to menstrual products and then it like stops you from getting to, yeah, that's the one. And it like stops you from getting to school and like really, really affects your life. So those are the causes that are really close to me. Cause period poverty, you know, can also affect your ability to adventure, you know, like there's, you know, education and those kinds of things, but also your ability to go to school and go to work and you

Chris Watson (54:16.725)
Yeah, period poverty. Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (54:38.087)
sanitation and all those kinds of things. if you have causes like those, know, that's what's close to my heart. I usually try to help out women because I am one.

Chris Watson (54:45.347)
Yeah, excellent. Yeah, no, it's wonderful. mean, you know, I'm in a family full of women. My little daughter does most of my adventures with me. And coincidentally, we were climbing today indoors. And the reason that came to mind is in the bathroom, there was a box for free sanitary products and stuff and it had period poverty on the front of it. So excellent. I fully support that. Fantastic.

Lauren Roerick (55:05.255)
Yep. Cool.

Chris Watson (55:13.479)
And so finally a call to adventure, so an opportunity to raise a suggestion or an adventure activity place or whatever to get someone a way out into nature. What would you say?

Lauren Roerick (55:22.195)
A who?

Lauren Roerick (55:26.023)
Yeah. So I haven't gone anywhere this summer, which has actually been quite fun. haven't spent a lot. don't spend a lot of time in Vancouver, especially adventuring. So it's been nice to be able to explore my own backyard. think, especially as Canadians, because the country is so big and like kind of hard to get around a lot of the times we often like go abroad to do our traveling and adventuring. so being able to kind of look around at what's around me close by like Vancouver.

is in a really fortunate place in the world. It's beautiful. There are tons of mountains. British Columbia is gorgeous. So I just went over to the island maybe three weeks ago now to Vancouver Island, which is just a ferry ride away. only takes a couple hours to get there. But I took one of my good friends on her very first backpacking trip. So it's a trail called the Juan de Fuca. We did it in four days and three nights. So I got to teach her about all the gear and like she carried all her own stuff. She was totally self -sufficient.

Chris Watson (56:19.919)
Yeah.

Lauren Roerick (56:22.356)
I nearly killed her, but we had a great time. It was just harder than she anticipated and harder than I remembered. Cause it's like, I did this trail before I did it in two days. If we do it in four, it'll be no problem. And it was like definitely pushing her up her limit, but like we had a really good time. And I think, you know, she got to learn about backpacking and all of that kind of stuff. And I got to like, I don't know, get to pass on what I've learned. And I think that's cool. so just being able to share.

adventure and love of the outdoors and doing something local and that was a really fun trip. We had a good

Chris Watson (56:56.661)
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, so yeah, to summarize, you'll get get bring bring a friend or colleague or a family member along and get them into nature. That's yeah. Excellent. Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Excellent. Thank you. That has been I've really enjoyed this. Thank you, Lauren. Yeah. Yeah. So where can people follow along for Lauren and all your adventures?

Lauren Roerick (57:03.604)
Yeah, like share what you've learned, pass it forward, you know?

Lauren Roerick (57:16.286)
Thank you, absolutely.

Lauren Roerick (57:23.51)
Instagram, I'm at Lauren Rorick on YouTube. I'm also at Lauren Rorick. Rorick is R -O -E -R -I -C -K. It was kind of a weird last name. TikTok is Lauren Explorers and that'll pretty much cover all of my content that's out there. You can get my book on my website, which is laurenrorick .com. So if you look for me on the internet, it's all Lauren Rorick and you'll find it

Chris Watson (57:46.561)
Yeah, and if you just Google Hexatrek, Lauren, you'll get a load of content as well, so excellent. We'll get all that summarized in listed enemy to make sure people can just click to view all of that stuff. So this has been wonderful. Thank you very much, Lauren.

Lauren Roerick (57:50.761)
That's true, my face does come up.

You will.

Lauren Roerick (58:04.499)
Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate

Chris Watson (58:09.121)
Yeah, and I'll bring it to a close and I'll