The plan looks clean on paper. Then you start hiking. Episode 2 lives inside a CYTC year: the spreadsheets that go out the window three days in, the wildfire that sends one hiker sprinting downhill while his partner waits at a trailhead not knowing if he's alive, two months of snowshoeing that leave a hiker with frostbite and no feeling in his toes, and a Katahdin sunrise that feels like relief because it means the worst of the year might be behind them. It isn't. They're only halfway done.

Show Notes

The plan looks clean on paper. Then you start hiking.


Episode 2 of The Big Year follows the year through all three trails. The Aqueduct in the Mojave, hiked at night for four nights straight. A wildfire in Northern California that sends one hiker sprinting five miles downhill with a 30-pound pack while his partner waits at a parking lot, initially mistaking the chaos for trail magic. Two months of snowshoeing in Colorado that leave a hiker with frostbite and the growing sense that the year might never end. A Sierra bridge crossed at 1:30 in the morning, hours before it's scheduled to be demolished.


And then there are the people, the unexpected ones. A relationship that starts over satellite texts at a high mountain lake. A trail family that shows up exactly when one hiker needs company most. And on Katahdin, at sunrise, on the first day the mountain opens for the season: two friends finishing their first trail, knowing they have two more to go.


Guests:



  • Billy "Wahoo" Meredith — 2023 CYTC FKT holder, 234 days

  • Nick "Chezwick" Gagnon — 2025 CYTC FKT holder, 231 days

  • Sammy "Buzz" Potter — 2022 CYTC completer (11th in history)

  • Jackson "Woody" Parell — 2022 CYTC completer (12th in history)

  • Charlie "Kansas Express" Janssen — 2022 CYTC completer

  • Jack "Quadzilla" Jones — 2022 CYTC completer

  • Philip "Slide" Witmer — 2025 border-to-border CYTC completer

  • Carson "Anita" Oliver — 2023 CYTC completer


Topics covered:



  • The daily math of 40-mile days, every day, with no rest days on the calendar

  • The Aqueduct: four nights of night-hiking through the Mojave

  • A Northern California wildfire that separated two hiking partners

  • Two months snowshoeing Colorado and Wyoming, and what frostbite costs

  • A 12,600-foot Colorado pass: triumph and terror arriving in the same hour

  • A cardiac ICU stay mid-thru-hike, and getting back on trail anyway

  • A Katahdin sunrise that marks the exact halfway point of the year


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