Brandon Weis had never thru-hiked anything before he attempted the Calendar Year Triple Crown. He got his trail name carrying a 70-pound pack on a university group trip to the High Sierra. Three years later, he read Jeff Garmire's book, decided the CYTC didn't sound impossible, and started the Appalachian Trail on January 13th. By day 17 he'd passed out from frostbite in a North Carolina shelter. By May he was in the Sierra with summer gear in a whiteout snowstorm, icicles on his face, sliding toward a pile of rocks on Glenn Pass and thinking one thing: this is gonna hurt. He finished on October 25th as the 13th person in history to complete the Calendar Year Triple Crown. The first thru-hike he ever did.
Show Notes
Brandon Weis is from Ottawa, Ohio — farm country, flat, not a hiking family. He grew up playing football and basketball. His first experience in the mountains was a 2018 university group trip to the High Sierra, where he earned a trail name by carrying sixty to seventy pounds of group gear because he was the biggest one there. They called him Horsepower.
Three years later — one pandemic canceled PCT permit later, hundreds of hours of research later, one Jeff Garmire book later — he stepped onto the Appalachian Trail in Georgia on January 13th, 2021. His stated reason: Garmire's account of completing the CYTC in nine months at age 20 didn't sound easy, but it didn't sound impossible. His parents, when told, sat quietly for a half-minute and then said: okay, well, good luck.
This bonus episode of The Big Year follows what happened over the next nine-plus months. Day 17 frostbite in a North Carolina shelter that left him unconscious and woke him with the sun shining on him — and no particular desire to quit. A May Sierra snowstorm in summer gear with icicles growing off his face and a microspike saving him from a pile of rocks at Glenn Pass. A campfire in a Wyoming blizzard with eight other people trying to dry their socks as if that was going to do anything. A 600-foot vertical drop in the Wind River Range, a rock he couldn't reach, an action-movie maneuver back to the top, a 400-foot slide down a mountain face, and the Rage Against the Machine playlist that got him through the rest of the day.
He finished October 25th, 2021. The 13th completer in history. A year later, he watched the 2022 class — the largest in CYTC history — attempt the same thing he had.
He's not that fast, he says. He just walks for a long time, and he's really stubborn, and he doesn't take breaks.
Bonus episode — Hiker Trash Radio / BLEAV Network The Big Year: A Calendar Year Triple Crown Documentary Series
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Listen On
Also In Season 10
-
Trail Stories - The Full Range with Carolyn Highland
Carolyn Highland has been writing since she was seven years old, which means she -
Walking Away From a Life That Worked - Jeff "Bluey" Lewis (Part I)
A man walks away from 16 years of nonprofit leadership because he saw his future -
The Four Corners Loop - Kevin Koski (Part II)
In Part 2, Kevin Koski explains how he once carried 14.5 liters of water across
Comments & Upvotes