In the Spring of 2015, writer Chilton Tippin quit his job and set off on the Continental Divide Trail, a 3,000-mile hiking route that runs from Mexico to Canada along the Rocky Mountains. 

In the five months he spent on the trail, Chilton made friends with fellow hikers, pushed himself to exhaustion, delighted in the natural splendor of the American West and got a taste for what it's like to live life as a vagabond. 

In some ways, he learned lessons you'd expect someone to learn on a trip like this, like how to rely on himself in the wilderness. But the trail did something else to him too -- something quite unexpected. On this episode, he shares his story.