Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis

Buddy Wier is something of a late bloomer. He became interested in hiking after his retirement, accumulating gear though not immediately getting out to hike. He had always been a traveler and soon combined his love of travel with the various opportunities that arose to hike.

Having traveled extensively and hiking when and where he could, Buddy was inspired to hike the AT when he heard the inspirational Jennifer Pharr Davis speak about her FKT record.

So, over the next couple of years, Buddy took on this monumental task at the age of 69, finally reaching Katahdin at the age of 71. Buddy would be happy to field any questions that you may have and he can be reached at [email protected].

Instead of If I Did It Again this week, I have a couple of parents, Kathi and Bob Bucklin, who endured, and enjoyed, their daughter's hike back in 2014. I thought their clear-eyed perspective would be reassuring to many of you who are faced with similar announcements from your nearest and dearest.

We hope that you take the opportunity to support our sponsor, Trailtopia, when you consider your next backpacking trip. Go to https://www.trailtopia.com/ to check out their wide variety of meals.

Linnea Van Manen struggled with Lyme Disease as a young girl and felt the effects through her teens. Lyme manifested itself by intense bouts of bursitis in her knees, so much so that a year before heading out to the Appalachian Trail for a solo thru-hike, Linnea was confined to a wheelchair for some of the time.

She was a flip-flopper (or OBOer) and spread her hike over an eleven month period with seven months of hiking, much of it utterly alone. Despite all manner of incidents and occasional problems, Linnea reached her goal of a thru-hike at the unremarkable spot of Buena Vista. However, Linnea celebrated that finish as much as one would on the top of Katahdin.

She kept a blog about her journey at 2200miles.blog and has an Instagram account at lvanm01 if you'd like to reach out to her.

Tim McGann, one of my 2014 classmates, only really wanted to change his name. He.....well, let him tell you.

We hope that you take the opportunity to support our sponsor, Trailtopia, when you consider your next backpacking trip. Go to https://www.trailtopia.com/ to check out their wide variety of meals.

Kayla McCarthy, her father, and her mother set out to hike the Appalachian Trail in 2014. Only Kayla and her mother reached Katahdin as her father injured himself and had to leave the trail. As Kayla told her story I was struck by how much the dynamic of their hike had to change, with Kayla stepping up into a partnership with her mother, as opposed to being the daughter of a couple. The trail throws interesting conundrums at you as you hike and any observer of Kayla and Molly could see the partnership working well between these two strong women.

Many people keep a journal on the trail and Kayla wrote every day, sharing her journey with listeners here. Go to http://www.trailjournals.com/journal/entry/446790 to read her story and, like me, you'll be amused to learn that her father's trail name was Wrong Way Jalapeno. Even funnier was the fact that she refers to him also as WWJ. That just tickled me.

If you'ds like to see a selection of her pictures on the trail, she has those in a short video on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u22OIgC7DPs

David "Digger" DiGrigorio returns in If I Did It Again, surprising me with the change that he would make if he were to hit the AT again. Considering that he's been hiking almost non-stop since we met on the AT in 2014, a return for him seems likely.

We hope that you take the opportunity to support our sponsor, Trailtopia, when you consider your next backpacking trip. Go to https://www.trailtopia.com/ to check out their wide variety of meals.

This week's guest, Tom Healy, is somebody who I hiked around for a while in 2014. He seemed so comfortable out in the woods that I assumed that he had been a lifetime hiker. It turns out that, like me, this was his first long-distance hike. Since he completed the Appalachian Trail, Tom has spent more and more of his life hiking longer trails and regards it as his lifestyle.

As we spoke in this interview I found a few more similarities in our journey, but it was in the post-hike worlds that hiking became his new normal while I was pretty sure that I was one and done. That turned out not to be the case for me, but for Tom, it really accelerated to the extent that he expects to complete his Triple Crown this summer.

He loves to photograph his surroundings and I urge you all to check out his Instagram account, where you can find him at thealy416. If you'd like to follow his journey even closer, why not read his Trail Journals from the PCT and the CDT?

Tom would love to reconnect with old friends so look him up, not only on Instagram but also on Facebook at tom.healy.79677. He even shared his phone number if anybody wants to chat directly. Call him on 843-425-3033 but please call at a reasonable time!!

Bethany Varner came on for a brief chat about one or two things that she might change about her hike were she ever to go again.

We started our new book, The Year We Seized The Day, by Eli Best and Colin Bowles. It tells the story of two friends hiking the Camino in Spain and we get a glimpse into the hike from both their individual perspectives.

We hope that you take the opportunity to support our sponsor, Trailtopia, when you consider your next backpacking trip. Go to https://www.trailtopia.com/ to check out their wide variety of meals.

This week, Eli Best tells me about the journey she took on the Camino De Santiago back in 2004. She had suffered a heart attack and organ failure several years before and the Camino was her way of testing herself in a life that had almost been written off. She shared the journey with an old friend of Steve's. Colin Bowles had moved to Australia as a teenager and found fame as an author while there, writing under the name of Colin Falconer.

Their journey together was transformative in many ways, many of which Eli believes, continue to this day. They wrote a book together three years after their journey and this book, The Year We Seized The Day, is going to be the new book read on the show from next week. It is a riveting read and we all hope that you enjoy the story told by both a woman and a man.

You can find the Paperback version of the book on Amazon, though the Kindle version doesn't appear to be currently available. They have a great little website for the book, with loads of pre-digital images now digitized for the site. They look great.

Eli's first book, Eli's Wings, is also available on Amazon, while Colin's website is also worth seeking out.

Jeff Alt returns to the show to tell us one or two things he'd change were he ever to repeat his 90s hike of the AT.

We hope that you take the opportunity to support our sponsor, Trailtopia, when you consider your next backpacking trip. Check out their wide variety of delicious meals.

Spencer Leebolt and Blaike Bateman have almost reached the halfway mark on the Appalachian Trail. Spencer is Blaike's stepfather and, although he had originally intended to hike the trail on his own, he took the opportunity to introduce Blaike to the trail for the adventure of his (early) lifetime. Blaike is just 14 years old.

Steve found them to be very much a team, with each having the other's back.

They have been videoing their journey, so you can keep up with them on YouTube at Batebolt Productions. If you'd like to see some of their pictures, head over to Instagram, where they are also at Batebolt Productions.

Kelly Anderson told Steve the things she would change were she ever to do the hike again in "If I Did It Again," while Blaise Vitale texted then told Steve his story about an unfortunate hitch-hike.

We hope that you take the opportunity to support our sponsor, Trailtopia, when you consider your next backpacking trip. Go to https://www.trailtopia.com/ to check out their wide variety of meals.

For a hiking show, Devan Horn wouldn't normally belong. Yet this extraordinary woman, a long-distance runner and rider, chose to hike the Colorado Trail while her party of five other women did it on horseback. She was able to draw distinctions and comparisons between the two modes of transport and provides great insights.

She also took part in two Mongol Derbys, with a third coming this year. Click on the link to see more details and wild video of this amazing race.

When our conversation turned back to long-distance running she even mulled over the idea of an attempt at an FKT of the Appalachian Trail. I wouldn't put that remarkable feat out of her range.

You can connect with Devan through her Facebook page, at texantemujin.

We had the return of the lovely Sarah Williams in If I Did It Again. As always, Sarah was boundlessly enthusiastic, with some welcome safety tips for women unsure of themselves on the trail.

Please make sure you consider our sponsor, Trailtopia, when shopping for food for your next backpacking trip.

A member of the Class of 2018, Art Donovan is fulfilling a dream that his mother had 50 years ago. With retirement came the desire to cross the AT off his bucket list, honoring both his mother and assisting her plight by raising funds for Alzheimer's Disease. He's even found the time to leave the trail to become an American Citizen.

Art has had quite the adventure so far, sharing time with one of his daughters on the trail and saving the last 30 miles of the Smokey Mountains for his other daughter after she has given birth later in the year. Below, Art is at MacAfee Knob.

You can follow Art's adventure on Facebook, where you'll also have the chance to donate to Alzheimer's should you so wish.

We also heard this week from Stacey Bucklin, or Stylez, in "If I Did It Again." Stylez leaves us with a memorable quote to consider.

Our Merch Store now has a pink Hiking Radio Network logo for tee shirts, hoodies, mugs etc. We hope that you like it.

Don't forget to visit the site of our wonderful sponsor, Trailtopia.

This weekend, April 28 and 29, the Flip Flop Festival will be held in the adjoining towns of Harpers Ferry and Bolivar, partly to celebrate the beginning of the outdoor season in Harpers Ferry but, more significantly, it is actively promoting flip-flop hikes as a viable, responsible approach to hiking the Appalachian Trail.

James Smyle earned the name of Mayhem when he did his first thru-hike, back in the 90s, but the more laid back Mayhem went again in 2016, this time as a flip-flopper. He tells us about his hikes, though the conversation is geared towards his role as Chair of the Flip Flop Festival.

You should check out the festival at FlipFlopFestival.org

James and Steve discuss the attractions of this alternate route, comparing and contrasting the two hikes that James has taken. Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail is a strong proponent of the flip-flop as a concept but less happy about the name!! We encourage listeners to submit ideas for a change of name and will share the entries with James and the ATC.

Jessa and an old favorite–"If I did It Again"–return to the show, as Jessa reflects upon differences that she would make to her hike if she were to do it again.

Please support the other shows on the HikingRadioNetwork.com and make sure that you head across to Trailtopia.com when you next plan to hit the trail.

Mike Carbonneau loves to play music on the trail. He is a section hiker who fell in love with hiking in his 50s. Since then, he has been taking on large sections as he makes his way towards a completion of the Appalachian Trail. He has combined this love of hiking with a love of music, organizing several trips to the trail with a group of like-minded young musicians. Mike usually uses a strumstick to entertain folks and three of his recordings are scattered throughout today's show.

If you'd like to see Mike play, you can find him on YouTube with his A.T. version of "Wagon Wheels" at Trail Days in Damascus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-XRI7aSnsc

Also on YouTube, you can follow Mike's adventure on the Long Trail with a slide show accompanied by Mike on his strumstick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae-r6YCtH8E&t=85s

For those of you interested in carrying an instrument on the trail, check out this Facebook post by Mike.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/michael-carbonneau/guitar-and-strum-stick-backpacking-tips/10153679894458401/

Jarrod Ross shared his experiences on the Lost Coast Trail, an exotic wilderness north of San Francisco.

Make sure you check out our other shows at HikingRadioNetwork.com and, while you're online, see what Trailtopia can do to kick your food choices on the trail up a notch or two.