About Me

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My name’s Nick. As you read this, I am somewhere between Springer Mountain, Georgia and Mount Katahdin, Maine following the white blazes of the AT north. For the next 5 months (if everything goes according to plan and I am not eaten by bears or stabbed to death in my tent [it wouldn’t be the first time on the AT, in either case] ) I will be hiking the Appalachian Trail on gap semester from Penn State University. 

This blog will serve as a creative springboard for literary pieces about my experience, and also as a way for my family and friends to know that I am not, in fact, bear food. 

I decided to take my education outdoors for a number of reasons, the main one being that school during corona is kind of a drag. I was also inspired by my friend who took a big risk when it came to his own unique academic experience; I wanted to do something that would further my education but on my own terms and on my own timeline. As such, starting on February 27th and extending until some unknown date far into the summer when I will have patchy facial hair and killer calf muscles, I will be hiking the trail. 

I invite you to follow my experience as I interview hikers, speak to locals from Georgia to Maine, observe regional culture, examine the effect of the pandemic on Appalachia, and tell the story of a neurotic, 150 pound twenty-year-old hiking far too long in far too real a world across the Eastern United States. 

All the best,

Nick