Trail Stories - "Just Go" featuring Heather Anderson

About this episode

Heather Anderson shares her incredible story of perseverance during an 800-mile solo hike through Arizona, including a severe injury and her journey to becoming a triple-triple crowner.

On day two of her 800-mile solo, unsupported hike through Arizona, Heather Anderson fell, split her head open on the rocks, and kept going. There was a water cache a hundred yards away. She didn't use it. There was a town nearby. She didn't go. She used her sun hat to stop the bleeding, let the desert sun bleach the stains out of her clothes, and finished 22 days later with a handful of granola she didn't even eat. She tells this story the way most people describe missing a bus. Heather Anderson is a triple-triple crowner: she has completed the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail three times each. She is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. In 2018, she completed all three trails in a single calendar year, nearly 8,000 miles in eight months, one of only a handful of people ever to do so. She has just released a memoir about that year called Farther. This episode of Trail Stories traces the arc from a girl in Michigan who read about a man walking from Georgia to Maine and simply decided she would do that , to become one of the most accomplished long-distance hikers alive. Along the way: the routing logic of a calendar year Triple…

People in this episode

Host: Doc

Guest: Heather Anderson

Topics covered

• long-distance hiking
• personal stories
• adventure
• resilience
• memoir
• triple crown

Keywords

• hiking
• Arizona Trail
• triple crown
• adventure
• memoir
• Heather Anderson
• resilience
• long-distance hiking

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: National Geographic

Books & works: Farther

Places: Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, Maine, New Mexico

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