Changing Roads Podcast
Changing Roads Podcast unveils the profound essence of travel, exploring not just the destinations, but the personal transformations within. We unravel the various themes, aspects and narratives of travel that define us, shape us, and lead us to the heart of our own stories.
Changing Roads Podcast
The Thru-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy: Life on Life’s Longer Trails
Pull on your absolutely destroyed hiking boots, because we're embarking on an expedition with Bruce Edmonds, better known in the trekking community as “Martian”! From the rugged beauty of the Appalachians to the high country of the Colorado Trail, we traverse the highs and lows of long-distance trekking. Martian's stories don't just capture the essence of the trails, but also the heartwarming instances of 'trail magic' and the profound bonds formed between strangers become family and the wilderness.
Though all trails eventually end, every step is, ultimately, a story waiting to be told.
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Welcome wanderers, dreamers and fellow seekers of the open road. This is Changing Roads, a sanctuary for explorers of the world and the self. John Muir once said of all the paths you take in life, make sure some of them are dirt solid advice. That said, there is no path in life more adventurous and cut from dirt than a single trail that extends for thousands of miles before oneself. Literally In the moment a pair of boots take those first committed steps forward on such a path. Leaving society behind, a person becomes immediately pulled back to their ancient roots, deeply connecting to the natural and organic purity of our planet, and they become fiercely alone. The through hiker accepts the storm before the calm, not the calm before the storm. They are on the true Buddhist journey, seeking not enlightenment but understanding. The price tag is blood and sweat, blisters and tears, fear and vulnerability, the sacrificing of security for the unknown. They close their eyes and take a trusting step of faith over rocky ledges. They trade stake for ramen. The payoff, however, is self discovery, unadulterated adventure, a shift from being alone to discovering lifelong friendships. Thunderstorms and lightning strikes become cleansing rains. Birth names are abandoned for nicknames which end up defining us in a more honest and accurate way. The through hiker is a warrior, a true nomad. They exemplify the definition and concept of the title of this podcast. They change their roads and allow their chosen roads to change them. Though their roads change in ways that are at times out of their control, they have learned, through passion and true grit, how to retake control of them and become who they always suspected they could become. They have truly paid for and have earned the mountain peaks they have conquered. I think John Muir would here agree Through hikers are true hikers.
Speaker 1:Hi, welcome to Changing Roads. I am your host, brad, joined by my co-host, ranger, my loyal travel companion, service dog and future through hiker. I have a really cool episode for you guys today. My guest is a through hiker that just got off the Colorado Trail a few months ago. If you don't know what a through hiker is, or the Colorado Trail, you are quickly about to find out. So I would like to introduce you guys to my guest, bruce Edmonds, aka Martian. How are you doing, bruce? I'm doing pretty well, cool. The last time I saw you was in Salida, colorado, and you were just getting off the trail. It's the halfway point, right? Yep, halfway to Durango. Cool, if you don't mind. You want to give us some background on yourself and what got you to the Colorado Trail and tell my listeners what the Colorado Trail even is for those that don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, the Colorado Trail is a 500 mile trail from Denver to Durango, colorado, and that traverses some of the highest mountains in Colorado. It goes through Mount Albert, mount Massive, the collegiates, the sand lawns, and lots of people through hike it every year, where they hike from either Denver to Durango or Durango to Denver, and it was always a very appealing trail to me just because of the beauty and the isolation out there in Colorado. That made me want to go hike that trail while I still had the freedom to do so and, yeah, it was my second through hike Cool.
Speaker 1:What other through hikes have you done?
Speaker 2:So I've done the entire Appalachian Trail oh.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that about you, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, you didn't know that you were asking me questions, like I thought you knew I'd done that. But yeah, I did the whole Appalachian Trail and after doing that I really took to that lifestyle and so I wanted to do another shorter through hike while I still could, so the Colorado Trail made sense. I've also done hikes on the mountains to sea parts of the Foothills Trail in South Carolina and I just completed the New Hampshire 48 last summer Colorado Trail is significantly shorter than Appalachian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely A good bit shorter and, believe it or not, easier, mile for mile.
Speaker 1:Colorado Trail. It's almost all above tree line, right? No, I wouldn't say all of it.
Speaker 2:There's probably a good third of it maybe above tree line, but you're basically on average at about 10,000 feet and the tree line is somewhere around 11 or 12, depending on where you're at. But you do get up above tree line a good bit. It's. The most dangerous part of the Colorado Trail is the thunderstorms above tree line. Fortunately the trail is very well maintained so it's a lot easier to actually hike the trail, whereas the Appalachian Trail they often take you straight up a rock face or something like that and you've just got to get on all fours and kind of crawl up it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard that and that it's not as well marked as the Colorado Trail. I was actually going to do the Appalachian Trail maybe five years ago, went through the whole planning process, all the preparation, and then last minute I had some health stuff come up and just wasn't able to pull it off. So it's still on my list too, for sure. So, yeah, I'd like to get out there. How long did it take you to do the Appalachian Four and a?
Speaker 2:half months it's about. Well, it depends on the year, but I think this year it's 2,198 miles. It fluctuates about up to five miles every year, just depending on reroutes Interesting.
Speaker 1:Did you go north to south or south to north?
Speaker 2:I started in Georgia and I went to Maine. Do you have any plans to do the PCT? Not at the moment, one day, yes, but I'd like to get in a position with my career and life where I can go hike and have a stable home to come back to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally Completely. Feel that, man. After my enranger journey to all the national parks, it's what I'm doing now is taking the time to have a more stable environment. Not completely, I didn't know. You did the Appalachian. You got all kinds of stuff to say about through hiking. Yeah, like I said, I've been through the preparation and the planning. Do you want to talk a bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure For the Appalachian trail, with it being my first through hike, I definitely planned a little more, but I realized it's not real easy to plan. You can have a kind of set of guidelines, but things are going to happen where something happens and you end up hiking a lot more and you get into town a day early. So it's a difficult trail to plan, around the weather especially. But I guess the main thing was just making sure I was comfortable being on my feet eight hours a day to help make sure I was ready to go once it started and once I was there, at that point I just went for it. You can't prepare for what the Appalachian trail is going to throw at you. So once you're comfortable walking for a long time and you've got your gear at least to a point where it's light enough and you're not going to die because you're missing something, once you've got that, it's easiest to just go do it. The best way to train for the Appalachian trail is just by doing it.
Speaker 1:Up on it. Yeah, yeah, were you doing package drops along the way for resupply.
Speaker 2:No, it's possible to do that and a lot of people did for me. Just, not knowing how long I would be between places, I decided that the best thing to do was honestly just hike into town. Most every town over here on the East Coast is going to have a dollar general, like even the smallest town. You can get the bare minimum there. You can get ramen noodles and pop tarts and granola bars. That's most of what I ate.
Speaker 1:Was it easy to get to those towns off the trail.
Speaker 2:Generally, yeah, the locals in the area most of the time knew what was up and they knew that they were crossing the Appalachian trail and they would just pick us up, hop in the back of a truck or something and ride on into town. Usually within five minutes we were in a car riding to town, because it would take 20, 30 minutes, but I don't think we ever had to wait more than an hour.
Speaker 1:It's not bad man. That's one of the things I've always been worried about doing the trail. I was trying to make my way to town. Even looking at the map when you were on the Colorado trail, the distance from the trail to Salido is that up by, like Monarch Pass where it crosses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Colorado trail was a little bit, typically further distances to town from the trail heads On the Appalachian trail. You could walk it if you had to. Most towns are like five to 10 miles off the trail, sometimes only two or three. In Colorado it was usually 20 minutes to an hour drive to get to a town. Yeah, you can get to Salido when you're at Monarch Pass if you're on Collegiate West, collegiate East. It's on the same road, just a little closer.
Speaker 1:I was actually going to ask that too. On the Colorado trail, did you go Collegiate West or Collegiate East? So the Colorado trail at some point for my listeners it splits in two and you can take a West route and then an East route and then it meets back together later on the trail. Each different way will take you into some pretty unique environments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did Collegiate West. If you've only got time to do West or East, I recommend West, from what I've heard from people who've done both of them. East is just as steep and it's tough, but a lot of the East, I believe, you're in tree cover, whereas the West you get up above tree line and you pretty much stay there.
Speaker 1:You were talking about weather too up above Treeline. I know that's a big thing in Colorado with the lightning storms and people get hit by lightning all the time up there. How did you prepare for that, man Colorado afternoon thunderstorms, those nasty ones that roll in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the lightning is a real danger out there. I was very fortunate to not have too many thunderstorms roll through while I was on trail. Actually, the reason I was in Salada for a week was because those few days there was just afternoon thunderstorms. I knew that the next section of trail I was going to be in was exposed at Monarch Pass. So yeah, I hung out in Salada for I think four days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought it was just because you liked us so much. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Y'all were all great. It really felt like home being there, really enjoyed everybody I met in the town. But no, the thunderstorms are a real danger and actually I thought I was in the clear the day I left Salada and I was hiking out from Monarch Pass and I noticed clouds were turning gray and I got to the other side of a ridge and it was like, oh, there's a bunch of gray clouds over there and they're all moving this way. I didn't see lightning. I knew that there's one shelter on the Colorado Trail one, and so I looked it to, that one shelter, knowing what's under storm for common, and it started raining, it started hailing, and the lightning got there and I was probably about 400 meters from a cloud to ground.
Speaker 2:Lightning strike hit a lower elevation on the ridge than where I was. It was really bad. It was one of those where you can taste it Everything your hair stands up, and not even a second between the lightning and the thunder was just so loud, and so that was probably the scariest moment on the Colorado Trail, and after that I took off renting to that shelter because I knew the shelter was from where I was at. It was like another mile or two, and so I just I just booked it.
Speaker 1:That's a good time to have that shelter in place right when that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, and I was with another hiker and then there was Sam and Kate. They were a little bit behind me as well as calamity and then also hype was right there and they were back a ways and they had that like huddle underneath. They want to make sure I'm not forgetting everybody.
Speaker 1:I want.
Speaker 2:I can't remember if there was one more person. I think that was it. I'll have to go look back at my videos. But Rumpel and myself, we were. What's your trail name, by the way?
Speaker 1:Martian Yep, you're in my phone. Is Martian actually Good?
Speaker 2:I'm probably in most people's funds is. Martian Rumpel was with me when the lightning hit and so we were pretty scared about that. The other four, they were up on the ridge and they did the like egg position where you get down squatted, you want your heels to be touching so that they make a circuit and if the lightning does go through the ground and then through your feet, it'll go back through the other foot and not up through your torso. They had to do that. They were all fine but definitely scary and they were getting the worst of the hail. I just got a little bit and kept walking, but they were like stationary. They pulled the tarp out and we're just underneath the tarp holding it and from their videos the hail was decent size, like the size of a dime, and just hitting them and the ground was covered in hail by the end of it and we were all very fortunate to not have any serious injuries.
Speaker 1:You just made the hair stand up on my arms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're right, people get hit all the time. One person, their trail name was Archey, which I don't know if that comes from this event or if it was before, but it's a very fitting trail name. We're so close to a lightning strike that actually knocked them unconscious and they flew back and hit the ground and I don't know if they got hit by it, but they were just so close to it. It like the sound waves knocked them out and they had to take a month off trail to recover. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, welcome to Colorado, man. Yeah, I thought it was bright and sunny out before that too. Yeah, it was a pretty nice day.
Speaker 2:It was a pretty nice day and then the wild thing was. So we're in this little shelter, which is very small, it's three walls and a tin roof, and the storm passes, it's just kind of drizzling a little bit and clearing up, and these mountain bikers roll up and you guys are about to see a wedding, and we're like okay, like seriously, is that a euphemism or something? Is this just some terminology that mountain bikers have? I don't know so. Well, behold, six more of them roll up and one of them is wearing all white rain gear covered in mud, and she's the bride. And then she and the groom go out to this field by the shelter and they have an actual what do you call it like a priest, like a person who's in their actual ceremony. Yeah, they had the actual ceremony and legally got married with the priest there, also on a mountain bike, and signed a wedding, marriage contract in the shelter there, and then they took off.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Like I said, welcome to Colorado.
Speaker 2:Definitely unexpected. I've seen some strange things on Appalachian Trail. You have shelters where, if it's pouring rain, you can go into a shelter, and they're about every eight to 10 miles. I think there's 300 of them over the course of the whole trail. And up in New Hampshire there is a spot near above tree line for good ways, same with Maine, believe it or not. There's a few spots in North Carolina where you're up above tree line. It's more of a grassy meadow than tree line, but they're called bulbs here and there's a few bulbs that you have to walk over. Those can definitely be dangerous.
Speaker 2:I had lightning strike in Virginia. I was camped out down low and it struck up on the ridge less than a mile, because it was less than one second or it was less than five seconds from the flash to the, from the flash to the sound. That day was wild. That's how I woke up, basically Woke up in a thunderstorm. The lightning, I could actually see it with my eyes closed. I was just trying to sit there with my eyes closed and wait for it to get a little lighter and I could see the whole bolt of lightning through my eyelids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's how I woke up and started hiking and it turned to mist, like a mist that's. The wind is driving from like one side, so one side of my body was soaking wet and the other side was like dry. Then it turned to a little light rain for a while as I was eating, eating a snack, and then got into town, damascus, virginia. It was a nice sunshiney day, like mostly sunny, and a few clouds not rain clouds and that was about noon when I got in town and had a good day walking around Town in the sunshine. And then, when I got to the hostel and was getting ready for bed, it was snowing. And then it snowed for two days so I hung out in the town and then I had to walk through a foot of snow on the way out of town.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I guess that kind of weather change is something that you probably only get to see a lot of times doing through hikes, huh, because you're just going in and out of these different environments, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely it changes. One side of the ridge can be a storm, the other side can be sunny. It'll change by elevation as well. There was one day I was fortunately hiking in the sunshine on the next mountain. But I looked back from Carter Dome in New Hampshire, which is one of the tall high peaks, and I looked back at Mount Washington Totally sunny, everything around it is sunny and you look at the top of Mount Washington and it's a cloud and talk to people who were up in it and they were like, yeah, it was not even 10 feet of visibility, like serious and cold and windy and just wet. They were in a pretty, pretty rough situation there because a few of the people I knew were a day behind me and it looked pretty miserable.
Speaker 1:On the other end of the spectrum from danger. That's pretty cool that you're doing this with other people. Actually wanted to bring that up because it becomes a community on the trail.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely yeah, the Appalachian Trail, I think, is probably the best community. I don't know that, I haven't hiked all the trails, but just in terms of how established it is, although I have heard some good things about the CDT community really coming up With Appalachian Trail, it's 100, what? 102 years old now. I believe maybe 103. It was like around 1920, 1921 when it was completed. So all these hostels, all these towns, all of these trail angels have had a lifetime to really establish a network there and it really becomes like one big community all the way from Georgia to Maine. People up in Maine they know the hostel owners down in Georgia and everybody in between. They let people know about potential dangers this year or problem hikers or just little useful bits of information to make the hike easier for everybody.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. And that community extended throughout the trail like that. I didn't know the hostel owners and businesses communicated. That's pretty insane oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:They let each other know what's up.
Speaker 1:You brought up trail angels a second ago and I actually wanted you to go into that a little bit. I have my own Trail magic story.
Speaker 2:Yes, trail angel is generally just a person who Does a good deed for a hiker. Often times when a hiker is in need, but not necessarily. Sometimes it can just be like giving somebody a ride to town. Trail magic if somebody needs something, if they need a band-aid, or if they set up and give hand out like food. There was a number of times, especially early on in the south, where Georgia, tennessee, north Carolina People would set up and essentially have a tailgate going. They'd have chili, hot dogs, grilled cheese, tomato soup, beers, soda, donuts, cookies, these lawn chairs and they just camped out right by the trail in some parking area and Handing that stuff out to hikers. Awesome, it's super cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you want to go to the Appalachian now and Set up a tailgate.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, if you do, I'm about three hours away.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Hey, you're in South Carolina, right? Yeah, I am. Well, when I hit the Appalachian, I'm definitely hitting you up.
Speaker 2:You're sure? Yeah, I can come meet you pretty easily.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, I was actually a crater lake national park when I was doing my national park thing with ranger and just out of the blue we got this really cold, crappy day and it started snowing, like you said, just out of the blue and a bunch of these hikers off the PCT came into the national park.
Speaker 1:They have a little lodge with the restaurant and a little cafe and stuff in there and they're just sitting in the corn soaking wet, and that was about eight of them, and I just went to the counter and I ordered 10 cookies, like 10 brownies, and brought them over. I was like you guys look cold, wet and hungry and in need of Some trail magic. So that's, that's my trail magic story, and they were so appreciative. Something just as as little as the Some cookies and a brownie goes a long way, shows a lot of love, and I think that's part of what doing this trail is about. Right is connecting with not just the trail and nature, but connecting with other people and other communities.
Speaker 2:Definitely yeah. Personally, I thought my main reason for hiking was to go out there and experience isolation and wilderness and nature. And one thing I really learned about myself on the Appalachian trail was how much I appreciated the social aspects of a trail Just being able to walk into a camp and I know three or four people camped out over there. We can cook dinner together, talk and Happen almost like a little party every night, a little party in a and basically a inroof shack in the woods.
Speaker 1:Awesome. You have people on the trail behind you at some point, people ahead of you and it's cool that your little community oh, your hiking buddies just cross over back and forth, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, we usually call it leapfrogging. You never know who you're gonna run into, because people get off trail for various reasons. Some people will hike ahead and you didn't even. You didn't even know they were ahead of you. They must have passed you when you were in the last town. Then you can come up on somebody who you haven't seen in Two months and let them hold. They've been like a day ahead of you the whole time and you just didn't know it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the we're all in this together kind of thing. Huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's another aspect of it. That's pretty nice and makes it honestly a lot easier To do a trail like this nowadays, just having others and knowing if you're having a bad day and everybody's gonna have their share of Bad days, just like the real world you might fall down, cut your knee, you might just have some emotional stuff going on, whether it's something from on trail or something happening back home, everybody's gonna have a bad day. And when you have a group, when you have a community, you find a group of people who are gonna be there for you, listen to you, and if you need like a band-aid or something or or just anything just to talk, there's gonna be people there who are willing to help you.
Speaker 1:Cool, yeah, that's awesome, man. I love that connection that trail brings and I hope we offered you that too when you came through salida. I know you guys had the hostel booked to sleep at right and you just crashed in in the art studio the whole time and didn't shoot with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I. So I had Heard that the bunk room at the hostel was really warm. Like I've stayed there before. It is warm, yeah, and that's fine. Some people really like that. They like sleeping hot, but I'm I'm already set to warm person and in there I would have just burnt up all night long and wouldn't have slept. So I was just walking around town and I think you and Dustin were Just hanging out drinking a beer and burritos and I just happened to pun y'all and said, hey, what's up? And I think I, I think what I had done is I asked about camping on the other side of the river and you know, like I'll know about that, you couldn't crash on the floor of the art studio yeah, we see people that we connect with.
Speaker 1:We're like, yeah, that guy, we want to hang out with him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate that, because just having a safe place to stay In town out of the rain, that was huge.
Speaker 1:You were there four days, halfway point, and here you and I still are your. Your name is in my phone, is martin, and we're sitting here doing a podcast episode together. So it's cool, even in that short amount of time you can make such a a quick connection with somebody that lasts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's the other thing about trail. It's like a catalyst for friendship. You're out there in a pretty vulnerable position. All you got is the stuff on your back and you know when you meet good people, it accelerates how quickly you get to know them. That's something that I really like about trail. There's people who I only knew for a few days and they're already some of my great friends love that, that's.
Speaker 1:But the thing that I love most about travel is those connections and that network of friends. Mind spreads across the world now and it's just taking the time to chat with people, get to know them and Are your friends for life sometimes. So that's really cool. Was your trail name on the Appalachian Martian as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I got it on the Appalachian trail. I'll tell you a little bit about how I I didn't have a trail name to start the trail. My name is Bruce and I have Friends back home. They call me spruce and we're like, oh, you should just go by that. I was like, no, I think I want a trail name. That like happens On the trail.
Speaker 2:So I'm about a hundred miles in, I'm in Franklin, north Carolina, at a hostel, good or grove, and this was a real bad ice and then windstorm. So it was like negative nine degree wind, chill out on trail and I knew about it. So I knew that was coming a couple days in advance. I was like, all right, I'm gonna get in the town. And so I looked a hostel, went to town and the hostel was absolutely packed because Everybody needed a safe place to stay. So then the the former owner there, rest in peace. Then had people on the couches, people in recliners. He was like I don't care, you don't have to pay, you just got to not be out in negative nine degree weather because, like most people's through, hiking gear is not, it's not meant for like that kind of weather. Most people have a 20 degree bag at at minimum.
Speaker 2:So there's a bunch of people in this hostel and I'm talking with this one guy, buddha. There's another real good friend. We ended up hiking together 500 miles or so. We'd met a couple times but we were just hanging out in this hostel talking, and I'm a plant nerd, I know a lot about botany, studied it a little bit in school, and Buddha was just real, real curious fellow. He asked all sorts of intelligent questions about the local flora of the southern Appalachians, which happened to be what I know most about being that's where I'm from. So we're just talking and then this one guy, his name's Turtle. He overhears us and he's listening to the conversation. He's like man, you don't have a trail name yet. I'm like, no, I don't. And he's like you should go by Wattly or the Martian, like in that movie, the Martian, where he's a botanist and he goes to Mars and grows potatoes and I was like you know what? That's a pretty good one. I really liked that. So I took on the name and that was that?
Speaker 1:That is awesome. I never would have guessed that that is where you got the Martian. Yeah, Funny enough, my daughter. She's 11. She's actually reading the Martian right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, no way, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Heck, yeah, cool Martian botany. Who would have guessed that's so cool man, yeah, but what would my? Well, I was going to ask what my trail name would be, but I haven't done a trail yet. What would my podcast name be? How about that? Well, I thought you were.
Speaker 2:I thought you were Super Tramp yeah.
Speaker 1:Be Radical. Super Tramp, yup. Yeah, I don't want to steal it from Chris McCann, yeah that's true.
Speaker 2:Some trail names definitely have to be retired after they've been used. I don't know, it's usually something silly. Sometimes it'll be a thing that you do, or here's a good one. This guy named Thunderdome was his trail name. He's a cool fellow. He's from Connecticut.
Speaker 2:I hiked with him a few times so we shared campsites throughout the trail and we were going about the same pace for most of the middle part of the trail. So we hung out, we got to talking and I was like how'd you get Thunderdome? And he's, well, I was in a shelter. I think it was in the Smokies, and the way the shelters in the Smokies are is there's two levels and he is always on the top level and he would wake up and he would bump his head on the roof, did it over and over again and somebody thought it was a thunderstorm because he hit his head so hard. It sounded like thunder and so he got the name Thunderdome, love it.
Speaker 2:Other ones I mean like Buddha Buddha, got his because he was meditating by stream. One day One guy named Flamingo was walking around in flip flops which actually had flamingos on him, but he got a flip flop stuck in the mud and so he hopped around on one leg like a flamingo, and so he got that. Generally, it's just little things like that and someone will give it to you.
Speaker 1:And you rolled into Salida. You came in with Burrito. How did Burrito get his name? I always wondered that.
Speaker 2:So probably day four of the Colorado Trail, he didn't have a trail name and basically his thing was whenever he got to town he was like man, I want to go get a Burrito, and that kind of became our goal for getting to the next town. I think he had eaten a Burrito every single day of the trail up to that point and so you're like all right, your name's Burrito, I love it.
Speaker 1:Something so simple like last a lifetime right. Yeah, yeah, it is Trail names. So awesome. I can't wait to get my trail name. Ranger is going to hit one of these trails with me too at some point, so we'll have to get Ranger Dog his own trail name.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, the dogs get trail names too.
Speaker 1:Actually, how often do you see dogs on the trails? You see him, a good bit.
Speaker 2:It's challenging, from what I understand, to get the dogs paws calloused enough to be able to handle 15, 20 miles a day. That's the big challenge. But I saw people through hike with dogs. There was one guy who was just called Dog man and his dog was trail named was Potato. You'll see dogs a good bit. But on the Appalachian Trail you can't go to Katahdin with a dog and you can't go through the Smokies with a dog and honestly I don't know. I don't think Katahdin would even be possible for a dog unless you sling it over your shoulder and carry it, because there's points where you're basically climbing up a crack and a boulder to get to.
Speaker 1:Katahdin, katahdin's the finish line. Are you climbing it fast or slow? Do you want to be over? Do you want to savor those last few minutes?
Speaker 2:The day I did it, it was a really hot day, at least down low. So I was like drenched in sweat climbing all that and that slowed me down a little bit. But to be honest, I think I was going pretty fast. There were a lot of other people there climbing Katahdin that weren't on the Appalachian Trail and at that point, like me being at that point, I was like a really fast, really strong hiker.
Speaker 2:And then you have people who were just going slow and it just and I don't know if they understood really what some of us were doing. So we got a lot of weird looks from people. I think Some people knew and some people they'd see us pass them and they'd be like whoa, wait, that person's. They knew that person had hiked from Georgia and it was like wow, great job. But some people I don't think had any idea that Katahdin's the terminus and they were like I don't want to say getting in the way, because it's public space for everyone to share, but there would be a point where they're like hanging on to the edge of a boulder trying to get up and I'm just like I could just run up that rock face right now and be through it in two seconds.
Speaker 1:How did the very infield, once you got to that terminus on Katahdin?
Speaker 2:I don't know it still feel weird about it because, like I had already done Katahdin, I'd already climbed it in 2017, just on a road trip to do state high points, which is another thing I'm working on and honestly, I thought I would feel a little bit more like a little bit more accomplishment, and it was a good feeling. It was like a great feeling of wow, I'm done, I did this, I did the whole thing. But some people were crying, some people were just, I guess I don't know like almost like they'd seen a ghost, like it was like whoa me. I mean, I was happy and I did feel accomplished, but I guess I thought maybe I would have felt a little bit more from it and I didn't really. I guess, like I didn't, I might have teared up, like I teared up a little bit, but I didn't. I wanted to cry, but I didn't. I couldn't cry really and yeah, I don't know, just having been out there for so long, it didn't really feel any different than any other mountain I had climbed on the way there.
Speaker 2:It was like it hit me a lot later, Like the. I guess grief would be a good. That's probably a good emotion to say people feel after a trail like that, because you have this community of people and you have this common goal and you're exercising every day and you're going through struggles and you're overcoming struggles and you're having great feelings and like emotional highs. And so then a little while after that, once we all went home, then it really hit me oh wow, it's never going to be like that again. That part hit me. But, like on the summit of Katahdin, I didn't really feel as much as I thought I would. Like some people were like, as soon as they touched the sign we're like full tears just breaking down and I expected that to be me, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Did you get the same feeling at the end of the Colorado Trail in Durango?
Speaker 2:No, the end of the trail in Durango. So it's like the Appalachian Trail is so much longer and it's so much more challenging and only about 25% of people who even attempt it finish, at least in that year. So the Colorado Trail I was like, well, as long as I'm still having fun and I still want to do this, I'm going to finish. It wasn't really a huge question in my mind of can I do this? I actually slowed down intentionally because I didn't want to finish as soon. I had to hold myself back because if I was just on my own hiking from sun up to sundown, I would have finished that trail in three weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did in four, six. I wanted to take you.
Speaker 2:So it took me exactly 35 days. Now I took, let's see, I took four days in Salida, three nights in Silverton, probably took at least 10 zeros, maybe more. I took a day off in Gunnison, colorado. I took two or three days in Lake City. Wow, it was literally just because I just knew people in town and I was like, oh, these people are hanging out, I'll hang out with them for a little bit, that'll be fun, Not really necessary.
Speaker 2:I could have done the whole trail without. I probably would have taken one zero the whole trail if I'd just been going at my pace when I was on the Appalachian Trail and I was just like, go, got to get the Katahdin. So I didn't really feel anything, it was happy. I was more happy for other people because I finished with gosh, like 10 other people, and I got them. There's a big photo I've got of everybody altogether. And I was more happy for all of them because some of them had never done a through hike before. So for them to finish like that I was awesome. I'm glad to have known these people and been a part of their journey, but I didn't really have any of the. I didn't have the same grief, I didn't have the same frustration and, to be honest, I don't think I ever will feel the same way finishing a trail, unless it was like finishing my triple crown. I might be a little emotional, but Triple crown is Appalachian.
Speaker 1:Is it Colorado? Or continental divide, continental divide and then PCT.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the triple crown. If I were to finish that I would probably feel something, but I'm trying to not think about at the moment just because it's I don't know. I don't want to get my heart set on something like that when right now I'm really trying to work, trying to build up a resume, build up savings, have stability.
Speaker 1:A PCT is always going to be there. Man, you got the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Maybe with the wildfires and the drought it might not, but that's so far down the road, I just try not to think about it. Yeah, if $10,000 just fell out of the sky and they were like, hey, here go hike the PCT, I know for a fact, 99.9% sure, I would make it the whole way on the PCT, barring any sort of wildfire or something which when that happens they still count it. If you do the PCT but you couldn't go a certain place because of wildfire, then it still counts towards completing the trail because you just physically couldn't do that portion of trail that year.
Speaker 1:That seems fair to me for sure. Yeah, I do the wildfires.
Speaker 2:Some people will do that and they'll do crazy stuff. They'll hike like 50, 60, 70 miles in a day just to be like, oh well, the wildfire is going to burn all this two days from now, so I better get it done. But if you twist an ankle out there and you're 35 miles from a road, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1:I used to do wildland fire, so did you, out of place, that I'd want to be with the twisted ankle?
Speaker 2:No, definitely not, Definitely not, but really accomplished through hikers that I've met through the years. They say that it's never the same as your first hike and every other hike. You're spending it chasing that dragon, so to speak, and it just never is quite as sweet because the mystery of the through hike is no longer there and the questions of oh well, can I do this? And you've learned, like you learn really quickly. And my first 500 miles on the AT, I learned so much, so fast. But on the Colorado Trail I guess I learned a few things, but it wasn't the same as on the Appalachian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can totally understand that it's never going to be the same. That first one is where it's at. Yeah, if Ranger and I did all 63 national parks again, it wouldn't be the same feeling, right For sure. Well, hell, yeah, man, we're coming to the end of this episode. Do you have anything you'd want to say or any advice that you'd want to give anybody that's considering doing a through hike, like the Appalachian or the Colorado PCT? Got anything to say to them? Because I know that you probably do? Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Number one spend the money on going ultralight. Yeah, you may be able to get this piece of gear for 100 bucks online secondhand, but the whole reason that it is secondhand is because it's too heavy and so you'll be able to go further. You'll be able to go faster about $300 sleeping quilt after the Appalachian Trail for all of these hikes, instead of my cheaper one. Spending the money on that quilt that is egg and a last longer. It's a pretty warm quilt and it being lighter, that could be the difference in me making it a little further one night and not having to spend as much money in town and not having to buy a hostel and something like that.
Speaker 2:So spending the money upfront on lighter gear pays dividends in the long run and I think it'll actually end up saving you money, like the amount of times I've spent money basically just on a hostel just so that I could charge my battery bank. I mean, now I've got a fast charging battery bank and it's lightweight and it holds a good charge little things like that. It just pays to spend more money upfront and it'll save you money in the long run. That's probably number one. Just spend the money. Go ultra light. Get your base weight down to 10 to 12 pounds. You can go less if you want. I sit at about 11 pounds. I think I was like at 11 for the Colorado Trail and that's good.
Speaker 2:Those people that are nuts they get down to six but they're sleeping on basically a yoga mat and they may not have a puffy jacket and they don't have a stove to cook. That's a little extreme. I'd like a little bit of comfort, but I'm still pretty light and I can still cover 30, 40 miles in a day comfortably. So spending the money on ultra light is a great way to do it, I guess just be in the moment, out there, enjoy the time while you're out there, enjoy the time looking at views and talking to people, and just live in the moment. Don't be worried about oh, we've got 33 miles to the next town and then after that it'll be 64 miles. To just try to be present in the moment as much as you can. That'll make the hike a lot more enjoyable and a lot more memorable. Great advice, yeah. Yeah, I wish I'd done that a little bit better. There were definitely times where I was just looking forward to the next town and not so much enjoying the moment. By the time I got to New England, I was really about enjoying the moment because we've got a finite amount of miles. We know that it's 500 miles to Katahdin. We know we'll be there in less than a month, so maybe we can slow down, enjoy this moment, let ourselves breathe, let ourselves enjoy the view. That's really important, I guess the biggest thing that I struggled with personally after the Appalachian Trail and, to some extent, after the Colorado Trail, although I'm in a pretty good spot now. It just took a while. Have a plan of what you're going to do after the trail For me personally.
Speaker 2:I had my first job out of college and it sucked, so I quit and hiked to the trail with no. All I knew is I didn't want to work in pharmaceuticals anymore. That's what I was doing. I don't know what else there is, but I don't want to do this. So when I got back, I had a thousand bucks left and was looking for jobs, readjusting and that kind of dwindled I think I got down to. Maybe I got down to less than $100 left in my bank account and took just an odd job. That was. It was okay, but it wasn't very much. It wasn't a long term kind of job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that whole not having a plan, not really knowing where to go, I was just bouncing around. I didn't really have a place where I was going to stay. My stuff was all over, some of it at my parents, some of it at different friends houses. Just, I just gave all my stuff to different people to take care of while I knew I was going to be gone with no plan of what to do after. So just have a plan, have enough money to give yourself a little runway. I got a good three months of expenses and, yeah, doing that works better for people.
Speaker 2:It's still really difficult to come off the trail and try to readjust to society, but to not have to worry so much about oh gosh, now what am I going to do that having a plan in place is important, and stay in touch with the people you meet if you can, even if it's just liking their Instagram posts or being friends on Facebook or something. Try to stay in touch, and this is something that I think I've done a really good job of. In the last two years, I've seen most of my Tramily since the trail almost all of them I've seen, except for two or three. So I'm going back to see a lot of the people that I was really close to and some people don't, and the ones who don't, I think they're a little bit sad that fallen apart from people that they were once so close to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like losing your family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, your Tramily really does become literally like brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1:So spend the money to go ultra light, live in the moment, have a plan For when you finish, for when you finish, and keep in touch with your Tramily. Yeah, that's good advice right there. Well, Bruce AKA Martian, thank you so much for being on. This is a real treat and it's really nice to see your face again. Yeah likewise. And you come back to Salida. Man hit us up. You always got a tribe. Here too, a whole tribe.
Speaker 2:My hope is I'd like to get out west and climb some of the 14ers, so I don't know how that'll work with my job. I'm not quite sure if I'll have enough vacation time saved up by like August, but if I do I'd really like to spend maybe a week out in Colorado and I'd like to bag some 14ers. Come down to Salida, hit the bar, get up early, go climb another mountain.
Speaker 1:Hit us up, hit me up, man. I'll climb a 14er with you whenever you want, for sure, yeah, hey, you said that you just started a YouTube channel, right yeah?
Speaker 2:So my YouTube channel is Martian Hikes. I've got five videos up there right now and I've got all of the Colorado Trail to edit and identify plants and put them up there so that I can have those videos complete and documented and up on YouTube for years to come. Yep, martian Hikes, it's two words. You'll see a picture of me up there on some mountain with snow in my hair. Perfect.
Speaker 1:Thanks again, bruce. I'll catch you out west soon. Thanks again for being here. Can't wait to see you guys again. Thank you, my listeners, for tuning in. I hope you found this episode as awesome as I did. You can find us at wwwchangingroadscom, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, amazon Music, and feel free to hit me up anytime and we'll talk to you guys next time.