The Origin — Iowa to Alaska to Trail

The Broken Leg Origin Story

The Frostbite Hut Trip

Roadblock's Grizzly Encounter

Your Time Is Limited

Trail Wisdom — You Either Keep Moving or You Die

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The Route Makers, Episode 1: "The Map Moment" — Andrew Skurka, Rue McKenrick, Kevin Koski, and Donovan Rice on the birth of a long-distance route.

Every trail feels permanent. The Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest, the Continental Divide — they seem as fixed as the mountains they cross. But every one of them began as a line in a single person's imagination. Somebody drew it. Somebody walked it first. And somebody gave up years of their life to make it real for everyone who came after.

In the premiere of our new five-part documentary series, we meet the people still doing that today — and we start where every route starts: the map moment. The instant a maker looks at empty space and sees a line that isn't there.

For Kevin "The Animal" Koski, a Navy nuclear engineer, it happened in his cubicle, staring at a green circle of high country in the western United States. For Rue McKenrick, it struck at the bottom of a ski hill in a snowstorm — a vision of a trail wrapping the entire perimeter of the country. For Andrew Skurka — Nat Geo Adventurer of the Year and a founding figure of modern route-making — it began at an Alaska roadside, and with a single question that closed a seven-thousand-mile loop: "why don't you just close the bottom?"

Along the way we hear from Liz "Snorkel" Thomas on why trails are made over decades, not overnight; from Renee "She-Ra" Patrick, longtime Oregon Desert Trail coordinator, on the difference between a trail and a route — and why land managers struggle to manage "something that doesn't exist"; and from Donovan "Iceman" Rice, days before setting out to prove his own Great Colorado Route, on nerves, love letters, and why almost everything left to create is really just "stitching together things that other people have done."

This episode is about the vision. What these makers see, why they see it, and the moment they decide it's their job to fill the empty space. What it costs them comes next.

As this episode releases, Donovan Rice is more than fifty days into the Great Colorado Route and, by all reports, having the time of his life. We'll catch up with him before the series ends.

Featured routes: Great Western Loop · American Perimeter Trail · Four Corners Loop · Great Colorado Route · Oregon Desert Trail · Sierra High Route Featured makers: Andrew Skurka · Rue McKenrick · Kevin "The Animal" Koski · Donovan "Iceman" Rice · Liz "Snorkel" Thomas · Renee "She-Ra" Patrick

Next time on The Route Makers — Episode 2: "The Proving Ground." A route isn't real until someone walks the whole thing and comes back. What the line costs, in bodies, in years, and in the people waiting at home.

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The Opening Essay — 48 Hours

Ultras and Heartbreak — The Through-Line

The Rae Lakes Run — Standing Up Alone

Sam Wasn't My Person, But He Was My People

Backcountry Skiing — The Winter Version

The Full Range — What It Is and What She Wants Readers to Take Away

The Mental Game

Hiking Hack — Two Pieces

Off the Beaten Path — Two Recommendations

Honeymoon Note

Pay It Forward — Protect Our Winters

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Trailblazer's Toolkit — Katadyn BeFree Filtered Soft Flask

The Hiking Poll — Score: 68

The TRT Solo — Summer 2020

The NOLS Lesson — You Don't Always Have the Answer

The Seventh-Grade Student-Led Trip

The Move to Alaska

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On January 8th, 2026, Chris Carroll was on a hotel balcony in St. Croix when the beach got loud. He heard someone yell for a lifeguard. He knew there were no lifeguards. He swam out.

Chris is an emergency nurse, a former firefighter, and a waterman who has spent his entire life preparing to be useful when the moment came. It came on a Caribbean beach. He got to a drowning woman, assessed her injuries, and towed her back to shore through water that had turned bright crimson red.

The whole thing took nine minutes. She didn’t survive. And what came after [the survivor guilt, the viral TikTok, the phone call from Arlene’s family, the monthly workout he calls Arlene] is what this episode is really about.

In this episode:

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Brandon Weis is from Ottawa, Ohio — farm country, flat, not a hiking family. He grew up playing football and basketball. His first experience in the mountains was a 2018 university group trip to the High Sierra, where he earned a trail name by carrying sixty to seventy pounds of group gear because he was the biggest one there. They called him Horsepower.

Three years later — one pandemic canceled PCT permit later, hundreds of hours of research later, one Jeff Garmire book later — he stepped onto the Appalachian Trail in Georgia on January 13th, 2021. His stated reason: Garmire's account of completing the CYTC in nine months at age 20 didn't sound easy, but it didn't sound impossible. His parents, when told, sat quietly for a half-minute and then said: okay, well, good luck.

This bonus episode of The Big Year follows what happened over the next nine-plus months. Day 17 frostbite in a North Carolina shelter that left him unconscious and woke him with the sun shining on him — and no particular desire to quit. A May Sierra snowstorm in summer gear with icicles growing off his face and a microspike saving him from a pile of rocks at Glenn Pass. A campfire in a Wyoming blizzard with eight other people trying to dry their socks as if that was going to do anything. A 600-foot vertical drop in the Wind River Range, a rock he couldn't reach, an action-movie maneuver back to the top, a 400-foot slide down a mountain face, and the Rage Against the Machine playlist that got him through the rest of the day.

He finished October 25th, 2021. The 13th completer in history. A year later, he watched the 2022 class — the largest in CYTC history — attempt the same thing he had.

He's not that fast, he says. He just walks for a long time, and he's really stubborn, and he doesn't take breaks.

Bonus episode — Hiker Trash Radio / BLEAV Network The Big Year: A Calendar Year Triple Crown Documentary Series

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Height and Ultrarunning

145 Marathons and Ultramarathons

Running as Identity

Running Toward or Away From Something

Most Common Coaching Mistake — Doing Too Much

Pain Science — The 100-Miler vs. the Marathon

Badwater Preparation — The Three Factors

Hallucinations — Dolly Parton at the Cruel Jewel

The Finish She's Proudest Of

The Limit Question

Hiking Hack — Clip-On Amazon Running Lights

Off the Beaten Path — Meru

Pay It Forward — Challenged Athletes Foundation

What's Next — Not 200 Miles

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The Hiking Poll — Score: 41

Training for 100-Milers

Badwater 135 — Last Wave Logistics

The Amazon Prime Documentary

Origin Story — Houston, the Lake, the Refrigerator

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CDT Trail Correspondent Jared "Fisherman" Lampal checks in from Montana as he closes in on the northern terminus of the CDT. Settle in and buckle up as Fisherman gives us the updates on Colorado and Wyoming, and what he anticipates from the final state.

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