Courtney, I'm 60 years old and thru-hiked the AT in 2021 at 58. Your video encapsulated everything I have felt since I got back. I will never be them same and I have been restless ever since. The trail changes you, forever. For me its interesting that someone so young had the same experience after the trail. It seems that these feelings are not age dependent. There were times on the AT that I hated being there, now all I can think of is getting back. It's unsettling but "The Mountains are Calling, and I Must go". Thank you for an excellent and well thought out video! It had me in tears....

Neither utility theory nor regret theory capture the thru hiking experience. It’s about meaningful growth and personal transformation , not the crude seeking of pleasure or avoidance of pain. Being human is a more full fledged and salient experience on the trail. The utter meaninglessness of walking essentially nowhere for no real reason thrusts upon us a simple appreciation of life itself. The not-having-anything-to-do of thru hiking puts us face to face with the emptiness and fullness of our being in the world. This is too much for some people to handle, and then crash out of the hike or cling to a tramily to avoid the solitude of their own thoughts. The quiet desperation of people who walk at the same pace and tolerate each other well enough can lead to strong bonds. But underlying those friendships is the contingency of circumstances that will soon disappear as the terminus approaches. You will be alone again, but transformed. There’s no going back to that experience because you yourself are changed. Just as there’s no going back to the first day of high school or college. There’s no going back for anything. We only move forward, until we stop moving. Our being in the world is a being carried through time. Sometimes it feels like being dragged along by our hair and sometimes it’s a wave we can surf. Your mistake is to think the trail ends when you reach the terminus. That you can’t be on the trail when you go to work. The whole world is the trail, whether you are in an cubicle or on s ridge line. The only difference is your attitude towards it.

In my opinion, while on the PCT you experienced flow state and a level of mastery with backpacking. Flow is something that a lot of extreme athletes experience through their sports. The window when things become instinctual and you are simply in the moment of movement. A lot of people work very hard to figure out how to transition into flow state during their normal lives. It's not easy, but it is reachable. Finding the core things that really allow you to feel fulfilled in everyday life is a great starting point. That woman that hiked up the USA, is right there, all you need to do is allow her out of the box society puts her in. So many people wrap themselves in their intellect, which makes finding flow that much harder.

To accept the risk of failure and pain in pursuit of freedom amidst the wind and the rain- for I am the moth and what I love is the flame. Few people get to realize what sets them on fire. The hardest, most rewarding thing is pushing to create a life doing what you love. People will think you are crazy, sacrifices will be made, but in the end the success if worth it. Rootin' for ya CEW.

“I can look around and not resent the place I live” that was deeply moving. I have often resented places I lived because I didn’t let myself develop a strong connection to the land and now years later I miss those places and regret the missed opportunities I had while living there to not explore more. I’m a firm believer that everywhere has a type of natural beauty if you look for it.

A friend sent this video to me a few weeks ago. I've been avoiding watching it, knowing what you'll say because it's exactly how I feel. I finished my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail 6 months ago and although I'm home in a place I love, nothing still feels quite right. I'd drink the coffee again anyways. I'm forever changed and forever grateful to the trail and I hope one day I find the person I was on trail again.

Big hikes have never brought me instant clarity. They’ve often left me with more questions about myself than answers, and a constant longing to do more and be more. As a paramedic I’m offered a unique insight into being elderly. And I can tell you, the joy and love that comes onto my patients faces when they talk about both small and big adventures is how I now measure the course of my life. “Is it worth it?” Has become “How rad will this story be when I’m old”. Enjoy the journey, love your videos!

Girl I cannot explain or express to you how deeply this video touched me, deep within me. I feel lost more often than not. I miss being free. I miss adventuring. I miss not having the constraints of bills and materialistic things. My partner has never travelled, has never had the feeling of adventure. Never experienced meeting new people on the road. He can't understand why I want to sell everything and pack a backpack and travel the world. He doesn't understand why I am mourning, but that is essentially what I feel like I'm doing on the daily. Maybe I should just do it and to hell with it all. I can always start again right? I only just found your channel today. I can't wait to see where you go next. YOU ROCK!

Well done video! I’m a 73 year old backpacker, I started backpacking and climbing when I was a 15 year old teenager. I have depression between each hiking adventure, my whole life has been like that. I seem to be at my happiest moments when I am out in the wilds climbing or hiking. A lot of people complain of trail depression setting in after a long thru hike, I can relate to that as I get depressed in between even short hikes and section hikes. Best medicine for me is to spend as much time on the trail as I can.

Drink the coffee!

The best vlog I've seen in a long, long, time. Fantastic expression of a truly unique experience !!!

"So now the real work begins..." Brilliantly done, Courtney. Just beautiful. I feel like this is the age-old phenomenon that we each have to eventually grapple with, whether we're mountain climbers, backpackers, sailers, or hell, even my military experience offered a bit of the same feelings. These experiences change us at our core. Then what? I've always found some inspiration in the words of Gary Snyder: "The wilderness pilgrim's step-by-step breath-by-breath walk up a trail, into those snowfields, carrying all on the back, is so ancient a set of gestures as to bring a profound sense of body-mind joy. Not just backpackers, of course. The same happens to those who sail in the ocean, kayak fjords or rivers, tend a garden, peel garlic, even sit on a meditation cushion. The point is to make intimate contact with the real world, real self. Sacred refers to that which helps take us (not only human beings) out of our little selves into the whole mountains-and-rivers mandala universe. Inspiration, exaltation, and insight do not end when one steps outside the doors of the church. The wilderness as a temple is only a beginning. One should not dwell in the specialness of the extraordinary experience nor hope to leave the political quagg behind to enter a perpetual state of heightened insight. The best purpose of such studies and hikes is to be able to come back to the lowlands and see all the land about us, agricultural, suburban, urban, as part of the same territory -- never totally ruined, never completely unnatural. It can be restored, and humans could live in considerable numbers on much of it. Great Brown Bear is walking with us, Salmon swimming upstream with us, as we stroll a city street." (Gary Snyder, "Practice of the Wild") Anyway, this is incredibly well done. Thank you so much for sharing.

Drink the coffee. Don’t let yourself be boring. I’m traveling all 2023 and it’s amazing how long it takes to let go of a life that lacked. But a hike today in the mountains of Cyprus woke me up. The future, mine and also yours, is going to be awesome! Also, I was on Kosciusko in early January 2015 without the snowstorm! A fun mountain.

I felt this way when I left college. Everyone at college was real, they were human, they were raw, they were their true selves. Take them as they were or leave them. Let’s work hard but enjoy the hell out of ourselves. Let’s share the good, the bad, the ugly. Let’s be spontaneous. Let’s experience. That all disappeared when we left our own small world and entered the real world and corporate life. Those in the real world were showing and being only what they wanted you to see and for what reason they wanted you to see it. Only those from our past did we still share and give the truth. Never will we go back to that again.

I so much love my job, I can watch this without envy. There's a Robert Frost poem where he says something like "you gotta love what you do" (Two tramps in mud time)

Ever since I got back from the PCT in September, I've felt dulled, underwater, disconnected. How can such a valuable experience end and leave more questions than answers, more doubt than hope, more loneliness than intimacy... All the confidence, independence, and resolve that drove me to the beginning of the trail seems to have dissolved into the stale air of an office afterwards. What is left of me and that beautiful person I discovered out there? You said it perfectly when you asked the questions of achieving a balanced life... "Am I wasting the days, weeks, or months before getting back on trail? Does discontent follow us everywhere we go? Once you become a thru-hiker, is being a thru-hiker all you have? Surely Not. I fucking hope not." I am seeking to find these answers and I really appreciate your ability to talk about this. Thank you.

I feel that same way that you feel about missing the trail about Fly Fishing. I feel like I am wasting life not being in the rivers trying to pit my wits against some fish somewhere. Or hunting for that matter. The thrill of the chase. It is wild.

W O W O W O W ! This video captures my whole heart! I didn’t do a long through hike like yours, but I did 95 miles on the JMT last summer, solo, at 52… and I’m still trying to figure out the life I want to live forward… end? Nope! Thanks for sharing your journey ❤

Your videos are always so well done. Thank you for sharing!

Very well thought out and an interesting perspective. Thank you for putting it together and I hope you have a fun adventure planned for this year. Rock on!

What a great piece of Art!!!

Wow. Amazing video. Thank you for all that effort and dedication and for this intimate insight in your soul. I feel humbled.

Love your reflection and perspective on things!

I really loved this video and relate to a lot of what you said. I believe in you! Small steps lead to big changes

Another beautiful video, one of the best I've seen in awhile. It's a hard message to share, but there's many people in the same boat as you. Please keep sharing your adventures and your messages. Hope you are enjoying Scotland, it's a magical place!

“Not All Who Wander are lost” The Sacred Mountains in New Zealand have called to me, they are not very far from you if you are in Australia, possibly try your hand at getting an outdoor job in New Zealand river runner guide, trail guide I don’t know whatever’s available in that area, (just a thought…) Awesome video here too! Hugs from the Pacific Northwest 🫶🏼 USA 🇺🇸

Every video on your Chanel is just so amazing and inspiring

Such a great vid to explore the transition after the trail. Turns out that Hiking the PCT takes less time than you think and life goes on. I'm so grateful for my PCT experience, I met my younger self out on trail. I'm trying to connect with that person a little each day, starting to look forward to new experiences not only back to the experiences on trail. That's easier said than done. Thanks for sharing your personal refections on your post trail life.

Your storytelling and way of narrating puts my soul at ease. Keep it up and can't wait to see what's next!

Wow this was probably the most relatable video I’ve ever watched. I was never able to understand the feeling or even explain until watching this. Thank you

Thanks for this message on the eve of my hike. Hits home.

Such a great video! I have felt something similar after my high school exchange year. The year felt like it was a whole life in a year, and now I'm living my second life. Weird, but those experiences always come back to me

What a fantastic, thoughtful, beautifully conceived and rendered video. Bittersweet. But at least you have that trestle bridge to head out to repeatedly and enjoy.

Thanks for sharing. Post trail depressions is real. I felt the same way. It's hard to go back to "normal" life, so I worked and planned the next thru hike, and when i saved enough money, I hit the trail. I eventually realized I probably couldn't thru hike forever, and I needed to find something challenging that I could be excited about. I got involved with marital arts and have started a few businesses that I love and challenge me in a different way than all my long-distance hikes. I still take shorter hikes and might do another thru-hike in the future. Good luck with your journey on trail and in life.

thank you so much for this video... listening to your words I now understand myself, my sadness , my feeling of being lost and disconnected to myself... after 7 years of traveling I returned back home to a big city and to friends and family that I sometimes feel like I don't know anymore..seeing your video makes me understand that I'm not just sad because I miss the road and the sun and the freedom... I miss the person that I was on the road , in the sun, free...! beautiful video...the way you tell your story ,you can feel its real and true

Eve!! I’m 42 and your journey brought tears to my eyes. Tears of joy and of longing to find ‘all that’ in the little things. What a messy rat race we get stuck in and what joy when we break out of it. I’m in Canada and with 2 almost teenage kids, my life path will need major derailment to hike the PCT, BUT, I’m looking and planning to enjoy what’s around me. We have a wonderful set of parks that offer a lot of backpacking opportunities, and I choose to be busy until that day finally arrives, when I hike your hike. Keep posting. Loving it. Len

Your laugh makes my heart melt

OOOF GIRL... beautifully delivered video. I feel ya. Once you have an experience that changes you so deeply its about living to your fullest, shedding what society expects of us and following your heart. Whatever that looks like.

An extremely transparent video about mental health Courtney. Thank you for sharing, please keep it up ❤

Brilliant video ❤

Thank you so much for sharing.

Your PCT documentary is the best one I've seen so far. I'll experience that amazing wonder in the future, thank you

You create some crazy good videos, I've watched the whole series and it's amazing.

Thank you! 🥲

Beautiful introspective video! “July is follow’d by December.” Sometimes we’re the ant and sometimes we’re the grasshopper. The evolution and integration of personality.

Well done!!

I have watched this about 10 times and I still get caught thinking about some thing you say at some point- because the things you are saying require a lot of unpacking (not pun) - and then I have to watch it again to figure out where the video goes. Still have not figured it out! Not sure how many times I'm going to watch this before I can really grasp it - which, imo, is a great thing. Inspiring, idea-laden video that doesn't get old. Love the way you did this and love that you are touching on things that a lot of us struggle with living in modern society. Thank you for sharing and creating!

Please dont stop sharing your experiences. You have an amazing way of expressing things. I feel what you articulated here applies to more than feelings post a thru Hike. On some scale I have felt this way after backpacking Europe in my 20’s and also more recently on a smaller scale after experiencing the Kokoda trail. Even a weekend hike has me thinking differently on a Monday as I head into the office Keep drinking the coffee. Large mugs, small Cups and tiny Espresso. :) Love your work

Love this

oh my goodness!! This "somewhere" you visited is my home town!! there is some amazing hiking there and beautiful national parks

I certainly feel this. I've yet to complete my first thru, but hiked over 500 miles of the AT in '17 and more than a thousand in '20. I'm almost 56 and about to sell the home I've lived in for more than twenty years in the town I've lived in since I was 4. I plan to spend the rest of my life hiking that damn trail and maybe parts of others now and then. May your coffee mug overflow.

Thank you for this. I’m looking for that to.

Hey Courtney! I've struggled a ton with feeling generally lost in life after some stellar outdoor experiences. I totally get where you're coming from. I feel like I'm stuck on a mountaintop with an incredible perspective on the world around me, but zero clue on my destination or the fulfillment I might find there. Thank you for making such an awesome and vulnerable video. Keep up the good work and hang on to that adventurous soul always. Cheers from the States! - Sam

16 years ago we spent 3 years bike touring around the world. We felt the same when we returned home, lost, and without a purpose, just like you say, having to fit in to a ´normal’ life didn’t seem possible anymore. Thankfully we were able to create a simple life off the grid, run our own business and spend our weekends in the outdoors and a few months every year adventuring somewhere new. It took time to get here, but we found our balance, I hope you do too. 🙌

Beautiful video as always. I haven't done any long thru hikes, but plan to when I graduate. I do get exactly the feeling you're talking about, though, and it really brings me down. It feels like every second you spend away from nature is a waste of time, and, even when in nature, you're acutely aware of how close you are to infrastructure and people and their trash. It's not a good feeling, and neither is the feeling of nothing you do fulfilling you. What you said about feeling like you're not understood is a great explanation, as is the mention of resenting the place you live (or not). All of it makes me wonder if I'll ever get to a place where I can feel satisfied in my daily life, after the things I've seen and felt in nature. Whatever happens though, I'd do it all again, and more. I don't regret a single hike, trip, or day spent out in the wilderness, no matter how much it messes with me once I'm back home.

Love your videos. Well done

Hi Courtney, great heartfelt video! I also PCT'd in 2022,(finished on my 50th birthday in Aug) You really captured the post trail dilemma. After a life full of outdoorsy stuff like the PCT, my advice is, between hikes try to physically push yourself as often as possible, train like you're about to thru hike again next month. It helps (& distracts! 😊) I'm booked for the GDT 🇨🇦 this July. Enjoy your youth & keep challenging yourself! Well done! 🙂 Greg

All the best for Scotland. Will be awesome to have you here in the UK and so excited to see any videos you do produce! You're a great storyteller 📚

I can watch your videos all day. Truly an inspiration. Your videos show the reality of a backpackers day in the life. Keep up the good work and above all SANAMENTE! 🙏🏻

Amazing that you were able to break away and do the PCT… but also see that more simple and shorter adventures can bring a lot of joy too. All the best in whatever you’re training for now.

You have a lifetime subscriber here!!!! I love and appreciate what you do

Love, love your videos. And I know what you mean. As one of the other comments down bellow, for me was my military experience as a mountain soldier. After coming back life was like...now what? I just don't want to be content with a normal life anymore, but I don't know how to live in this weird world, and people don't know me anymore. Life is much easier than what I used to think, but also so much complicated. Hope all of you have a wonderfull journey and... see you on the trail.

CEW you weave such a genuine, heartfelt, incredibly well crafted, honest, well written tale. Please, please, please, keep doing what you are doing!

Bad ass video. Honestly I needed this ❤ you made my day and helped me realized a lot about my way of thinking. I just did 6 months in the back country in the Klamath national forest. best and worst days of my life. life is much simpler with out the bullshit. loved the video make more :)

Very nice film! I can certainly relate after hiking the PNT with my wife last summer. Something's different now, but it's hard to put one's finger on it.

Love your videos!

You do a really good job at telling a visual story. Much better than the majority of adventurers on here. I think you have your path for the foreseeable future.

Hi Courtney, I hiked the PCT in ‘21 and it was my first thru and not something I knew about until stumbling on Dixie and Darwin videos during covid lockdown. It was the greatest experience of my life. I missed it all afterwards which started an ongoing saga and I hiked the AZT six months later but it was not the same. I then did my first Ironman but again not the same. I then started hiking the Te Araroa south island but was injured in a fall. So I then went bikepacking around Japan which was special but still not in the PCT echelon. I dont socialise so much these days and consider my real friends the PCT hikers I message on insta but never see (I live in Thailand) I have always been a driven person and the PCT made me feel so purposeful. I love watching PCT videos and recognising it in other hikers. Best wishes with your plans and I will follow your channel with interest.

I am about to „finish“ two years of vanlife. In that period I also did a through-hike in Bulgaria. Your thoughts resembled with my fears of coming home. 😅 Now, I am even more motivated to not become my old self once I got home, life is to precious to be lifed inside.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one going thru these post trail thoughts...

To me what I look back wistfully on is that life based on basic survival that gave you primal raw freedom. Love your work Courtney.

Beautifully put together video. Perfectly encapsulates how I feel after finishing the Camino De Santiago. In a poem I read about about the Camino, at the end it goes The True Camino begins when the way ends. The real journey continues by taking what you've learnt and integrating it into your own life.

Wow! Clever, insightful, moving! You have a tremendous way with words and a gift for story telling. You should write a book. I'd be first in line to purchase a copy of whatever you have to say.

amazing

Fantastic video Courtney. I've watched it three times now because it resonates so much. While I've not done anything as significant as hiking the PCT, I believe your observations are equally relevant to anyone who goes on proper adventures and really enjoys having to focus and strip away all the bullshit to achieve their goal. I've usually decided on the next adventure before I get home from the one I'm on. However, life gets in the way and I find myself in a constant battle between what I'm expected to do and what I want to do. It is very frustrating. You're young and clearly an excellent story teller. And like you said, you have all the pieces and just need to put them together to create the life you want. The videos you've made are very unique because of your authenticity and vulnerability. I hope you make many more.

Thank you sincerely

Thanks for video! I have struggled with how I have felt myself. I am married to a wonderful woman with 2 kids and one granddaughter. Within a few months of getting back to reality I was back to work in a job I have had for years. Life is back to normal. But I feel like I am trying to discover what I have learned from this long journey. Life is simple on trail. You have time to reflect and enjoy the slow pace of life. Back home everything moves so fast and time seems more crunched. I miss the daily adventure of life, seeing new things and new places. My wife and I are making plans to do more adventuring in the future. I just hope to hold on to the person I was on trail and grow from that experience.

Loved it. Please keep it coming. Hugs from Sweden ⛰️

This is the most granola, thru-hiker thing I’ve ever seen, hahah. I love it!

Wilderness is life ❤

Awesome video!

Great video! I wish I would have seen this after my thru on the AT in 2012. Post thru hike funk is real. My plan is PCT in 2024. Live your best life!

Outstanding! Love the capture of so much of what speaks to the heart of Australia without it atually being about that. Really well put together and I love the treatment of the video. I felt like I was back in Dad's Holden in the 1970s with the window down. Can I ask where the valley is at 0936?

This video is amazing! I relate to this so much. I have recently moved from Aus to the UK and hiked Scotland as soon as I arrived. Looking for more hikes all the time, and hiking buddies. Let me know if you're ever over this way, next on my list is the dolomites. 😊

I wasn’t expecting to have such an emotional response, I’m 20 and I started hiking around the beginning of the year when I got into mycology. My dad and I took a trip to the Rockies and at the time I was in bad shape, good shape relative to how I was before I started hiking but not great. My dad decided we should go straight up the face of the mountain, cause of course. It was steep and fucking hard, It was the hardest thing I have done in my life, I hurt like I never hurt before and sweat like a mofo, which didn’t help the fact I brought almost no water as I forgot to fill my bottle. Most of the assent is a blur of pain and sarcastic complaints but one thing that stuck with me is the feeling of looking down and seeing clouds. The pride and amazement I felt taught me how to love pain and embrace a challenge. Ever since then I have lost 60lbs, have Been hiking 20km a day in 25lbs of kit. Im in the best shape I’ve been in my entire life. I can do things physically that I used to look at others and think of them as hero’s for being able to do. When we got to the top of the mountain it turned out that the summit was still a ways away, luckily mostly of the horizontal axis. Even after 5+ hours of pain and very little water I would have climbed every damn mountain in that range. Ever since that day I have been chasing that high. Nothing can compare, and believe me I’ve tried. I’ve started camping in harsh conditions and hiking in even harsher Terrain. Mt. Sulphur taught me that I can do it, no matter what it is. I can rely on myself to survive and push far past my limitations and thrive doing so. I’ve spent my entire life relying on those around me, my autism and back problems limiting me in ways I was never prepared for. But that trip showed me that I didn’t need to be prepared, I needed to be brave, strong, and trust myself enough to try. Thank you for making this video, it resonated with me in ways I didn’t know a video could. I’m looking forward to joining you in my search for meaning in the face of what I believed for so long to be the impossible.

I hope to see you on the Appalachian trail soon! ❤

Love this wonderful video,have a lovely Easter and stay safe fan debs xx ...........

Howdy from Texas! - fellow PCT Class of 2022 member

PTSD (Post trail stress disorder) is v real for some. Although I’ve been on trail each of the last 10 years, I feel like I have a touch of it when I’m off trail and alone. So, for me, hiker contact is important. Searching for, then planning, the next adventure is good therapy in the meantime.

Just wow. That's it.

I love this video ! .... Thanks bunches ....... :D

its striking how closely courtney resembles miranda from Picnic at Hanging Rock, which is is a classic australian film about the supernatural power of nature.

What you talked about reminded of the Theory of Alienation. There's a lot to it, and more than one philosopher talked about it. But there's this concept of being alienated from nature, from others, from yourself and what you do. It's interesting how these things (like thru hiking) reveal this to us. But unfortunate that it isn't treated as real... "Get over it, you'll come back to the 'real world' eventually." In extreme cases: "take these pills if it's too incapacitating." Thank you for sharing this.

Thank you for sharing this. Definitely not discussed enough... Sorry to hear you got Covid on your way home too. Harsh let down.

I would say that long-distance hiking is a good way to learn to be human. Your video is an indictment of sorts of the way of life that is most commonly experiences by us industrialized westerners: Lots of physical comforts, but replete with life-sucking banality of working every day at something that, if you are lucky, you find at least marginally interesting and has a tiny bit of dignity, but still with the never-ending litany of rat-race indignities that we endure (endless advertisements, robo calls, voice mail systems, emails, traffic jams, etc etc). Long-distance backpacking is a closer approximation of conditions that most humans thrive (and evolved) under - connection, beauty, manageable stress, lots of physical activity. A Krishnamurti quote comes to mind: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”.

To cultivate non-self, carefree detachment, compassion and devotion to (universe, god, animals or guru) requires a spiritual practise. meditation, yoga unless you live in an environment that is already supporting this which in your case seem to be on the path in nature. This is what we learn to cultivate daily in Dzogchen Meditation, zen meditation, vipasanna meditation, and the kriya/patanjali yogas. Also duality is stored in memory. Memory is the environment you live in and go back to. objects, items, people, places etc. Changing all these places helps to create persistant change. Not changing any these and expecting change is like smoking a cigarette everyday and expect to be healthy

I absolutely love this (‘:

+1 for the audio!

You're cool. I like you. Fucking drink the coffee! I think, like me, you're addicted to excitement, and it's difficult to let go of that grubby, carefree, vulnerable, brave life. Im 46 and still living grubby, carefree, vulnerable, and courageous. Rejoice in and remember difficulties are life's nectar of growth, and simple nature is the best medicine.