Bailey "Snake" Christopher left a job in the iron mines of Western Australia for a one-year sabbatical, never came back, and has been hiking around the world since. In Part 2 of this Hiker Trash Radio interview, he tells the story of the money he couldn't figure out what to do with, the nine trails that followed, and how he picked them (the hardest ones, while he is young and healthy). Along the way: a grizzly eating berries on the Great Divide Trail, a week stuck in 200-kilometer-per-hour winds in Patagonia, a Via Alpina that starts in Monaco with the worst trail of the whole route, a dropped 12 kilos on the PCT, and the origin story of a 130-kilo man who wanted to turn around on his first mountain.

Show Notes

About the Guest


Bailey "Snake" Christopher is an Australian environmental engineer, a former iron-mine hydrogeologist from Western Australia's Pilbara, who took a sabbatical to hike Te Araroa and the Pacific Crest Trail and never went back. In the two years that followed, he hiked about 10,000 miles on nine long trails: the Pyrenees High Route (HRP), the South Island of Te Araroa, the PCT, the Great Divide Trail, the Greater Patagonia Trail, the Arizona Trail, the Hayduke Trail, the Via Alpina, and the Transcaucasian Trail. He got his trail name from moving rattlesnakes off the PCT for hikers who were afraid to pass them. He is six foot four, and took up hiking at the end of 2020.


Episode Highlights


Iron Mines and Two Weeks Off


A Savings Account With No Purpose


The Great Divide Trail


Nine Trails, No Rhyme or Reason?


The Most Dangerous Moment and the Hardest Trail


Skin and Bone


Hiking Hack, Off the Beaten Path, and Pay It Forward


What Have I Not Asked You? — Mount Bogong


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