I am back, with a vengeance. Watching YouTube AT video pretty much every night. This is just my second year with this obsession. Below you can click on AT2022 and see the material I collected from then. I put in a lot of clips from the hikers to give anyone an idea of what was available. Hard to say if I will do that in 2023. The clips from 2022 really serve the purpose for any year, they give you a little idea of what to expect.
As usual, when I am just starting out on a topic, AT2023 in this case but it could just as easily be Portugal 2023, I tend to just ramble on this main page. Later, as I get things uploaded, I probably will break this page into smaller topics in a menu below.
For the first time I saw pages from Bucy TV
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNBBiBdVxy9XAES_BQMuALkT3l_8o_B03
Never sure how a link like the above will work. Let me know. As of 4/23/23, he has posted 8 Thru Hikers to watch videos. Not 8 hikers! 8 videos with 5-10 hikers each. In most cases he has included a little of their “announcement” video. He also comments on each of them, careful to always be positive.
Far and away, my favorite this year is Stella Hikes. Watch that this link opens in a new tab. Hopefully you will see her latest or watch any of them. She is way ahead of most people, 1/2 way to Katahdin, on like day 53. I know from 2022, not hiking, just watching, that hiking with a group, called a trail family or tramily, correlates highly with success. Stella has been walking alone. She is very social. She stays MANY nights in hostels. But she does average almost 20 miles a day and most people are well below that, and they started later. Coyote, a young man, is with her at the moment. We will see. She also has had two other “drama” threads. She picked up a dog and took him along for a couple days. Really worth watching. She found him about Day 23. And if that is not drama enough, she is 32, divorced, and her husband has shown up a couple of times to support her. He shows up a couple times around this Day 43 video. Here in the title he is referred to as ex husband but often in the talking she just refers to him as a friend. In a later talk she claims they are not dating. She also has done 3 live chats. You can find them on her Youtube home under Live. My wife Kim really is not a fan of hers, or maybe most of the hikes I follow. She says this is somewhat connected to Kim’s visual image of a bunch of old men sitting in their living rooms obsessed, not in a healthy way, with nubile young woman.
Maybe my second favorite so far is Taylor, the Nahamsha Hiker. She already completed the trail in 2021! This is her second! She has a gift store in Meredith NH.
I have also enjoyed Couch to Trail. Renee is doing the actual hiking. Husband Eddie started out with her but is now mainly doing the You Tube editing? She is a little God Squad but she keeps it light. This was always her project. Eddie started with her and really supports her but just could not do it day to day. They both lost tons of weight in preparation. This is the origin of the Couch in their name. She has dropped off trail with dental concerns and now with knee. Latest update, today, 4/23 says she has been back on trail but clearly precarious.
My favorite from 2022 HikingDancer, has been posting a lot of stuff. Not much hiking but lots of thought pieces around hiking topics. She is shy and has been known to post something and then take it down, or at least I can no longer find it. Part of her tramily (Trail Family), in fact the only man, was Lil’Chap. She did a video with him a month ago and I can not find it? Hiking Dancer is a ballroom dance instructor from Germany, now living in Florida. She did a great piece, before she started hiking, about taking one of her students to a dance competition. It is gone?
Another great member of the HikingDancer tramily is Groceries. She has been posting now at day 35 on the Pacific Coast Trail and has a whole series on Algonquin park and Western Uplands hiking video from 2022. A bit of a gear head, older, and really fun to follow.
Here is a link to my material about AT thru hikers 2022