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 Crown, a winter storm on the AT that left her running down a trail in the dark with frozen hands and a soaking wet tent, a stranger named Brian Robinson who slept in his car at a New Mexico trailhead for three days waiting for her to finish, and a calamity sequence on the Arizona Trail that includes killer bees, a mountain lion, a Pringles can, and a 32-ounce jar of Nutella she force-fed herself for four days just to have something to drink coffee from.

The full uncut conversation with Heather drops Wednesday on Hiker Trash Radio.

Show Notes

About the Guest


Heather Anderson is a Michigan-born long-distance hiker, author, speaker, and National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. She has completed the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail three times each, making her one of very few triple-triple crowners in history. In 2018 she completed all three in a single calendar year: 7,900+ miles in eight months. She has held multiple fastest known time records on long trails, including an unsupported FKT on the 800-mile Arizona Trail completed in 24 days and one hour. She hosts the Fastest Known Time podcast and is the author of three books: Thirst; Mud, Rocks, Blazes; and Farther.

Farther — The Book


Farther chronicles Heather's 2018 calendar year Triple Crown. It is written entirely from memory — no trail journal, no notes — eight years after the hike. Heather says she doesn't work from outlines; she writes the way she hikes: the structure comes from the journey itself. The emotional core of the book is the tension between accomplishment and self-doubt — the experience of having done a great deal and still not knowing if you can do the next thing — and the way that walking, repeated across years and phases of a life, becomes both a constant and a mirror.


 


The Books



  • Farther by Heather Anderson — memoir of the 2018 calendar year Triple Crown. Available now.

  • Mud, Rocks, Blazes — Heather's memoir of her AT speed record.

  • Thirst — Heather's memoir of her PCT speed record.


Heather's Media Recommendation



  • A Fabulous Through Hike by Derek Lugo — a newly released account of Lugo's CDT through-hike. One of very few books written about the Continental Divide Trail. Heather's recommendation. (Note: Derek Lugo has appeared on Hiker Trash Radio — see also his first book, The Unlikely Through Hiker, about his AT hike.)


Links & Resources



Upcoming Appearances



  • Appalachian Trail Days — Heather speaking on the calendar year Triple Crown and Farther.

  • AT Trail Festival near Harpers Ferry, Loudon, Virginia — June 5th.

  • Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan — September (TBD).


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