Last Year, I Finished a Thru-Hike.
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- 4 min read
Now What?
On September 8th, 2025, I walked into Canada. 5 months earlier, I'd been in Mexico. My own two feet got me all the way across the country along the Continental Divide Trail.
In 2024, I'd attempted the same feat, but I had to leave the trail early when I got a severe stress fracture in my left femoral neck. For several months, I wasn't even allowed to walk from the couch to the bathroom and back without crutches. Building back up to walking, hiking, and backpacking was a grueling journey. First, I was allowed to walk around the house. When I felt ready, I was allowed to walk for a half mile on even sidewalks every day, and after a week, I was allowed to do 1 mile, increasing by half a mile every subsequent 3-5 days, depending on how strong I felt. Then, once I built up to 3 miles of walking, I was allowed to go for a half mile hike. Then I had to rest a day, then do another half mile. After another day of rest, I could do 1 mile, then rest, then 1 mile, then rest. I continued this pattern of increasing my distance by a half mile-rest day-same distance-rest day until I was able to hike 5 miles with no pain, and if I ever felt weakness, I had to take a few days off, decrease by a half mile, and resume from there. It was exhausting, slow, and demoralizing. From backpacking 15+ miles day after day to re-gaining all of my atrophied muscles, it was hard to feel like myself.
When I got back to the trail in 2025, I knew I had to start over from the beginning. I'd only ("only") completed about 260 miles of the trail the first time around, and I wanted this experience to be a proper thru-hike, not a section hike. Beginning a thru-hike is always anxiety-inducing, but this time was more intimidating than ever. Mitch took time off of work to do the first 150 miles with me because he knew I'd be a ball of nerves, and while his presence didn't fully diminish my fears, it certainly helped distract me from them.
I felt all kinds of phantom pains at the beginning. I knew it was a manifestation of my anxiety, and I called my physical therapist after only 5 days to get validation. It's the only time I've ever been relieved for a man to tell a woman that the pain was in her head.
I cried when I saw the exact patch of grass I'd rested on in 2024, waiting for a friend to pick me up and remove me from the trail. The phantom pains began to feel like a reminder of what I'd overcome, not a warning about how much was still to come.
Celebrating reaching this spot in 2025 Trying to rest and elevate my leg in the hopes that it would help my injury Waiting dejectedly for my friend to remove me from the CDT
(You can read more about both years' worth of journeys here.)
Finishing the CDT last year was the culmination of every fear, every doubt, and every pain that I had experienced after the injury. It wasn't until I physically touched the monument that I allowed myself to acknowledge the courage it took to get back to the trail. The physical strength of a thru-hike is nothing compared to the mental fortitude it requires, and this thru-hike felt like a mile-by-mile testament to my resilience.
Just excited to have reached the terminus I didn't cry at all my last day until I set eyes on the monument. I wasn't sure how to process the f No matter how many photos there are, it will never fully feel real.
In many ways, it also felt like I was running away from the worst parts of myself. I missed out on so many important moments for friends and family members. Some of our best friends in Denver had their first baby, and I couldn't be around for those first few months. Mitch's parents moved houses and one of his uncles passed away; I couldn't help him say goodbye to his childhood home, and I couldn't support his family at the funeral. Every time Mitch came to visit me on trail (which was often, as it runs through Colorado and is often only a couple of hours away from our home in Denver), I had to reckon with the fact that I was choosing, selfishly, to abandon my life and the people in it that I love. I had to prove to myself that I was still excellent; after completing the Appalachian Trail without a hitch, I felt unshakably confident in my abilities to pursue impossible goals... It turns out that the confidence was, in fact, quite shakable.
Thru-hikes often lead to bouts of self-discovery, but being off trail has done the opposite. Without a clear, all-consuming goal to motivate me, I've felt like I've lacked a clear direction.
When I was removed from the CDT in 2024, my post-trail depression made me focus on the feeling of failure. Even now, a year out from a successful trail completion, the post-trail depression has manifested in feeling lost.
Without a trail, who am I? Without a trail, what now?
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