Written By: Katherine “Ringleader” Imp I’m high. Right now. Sitting on the public bus. Listening to music. At 8am. Next to a dude that smells like urine. I’m high as a kite. My mama told me when I was youngWe’re all born superstarsShould I be waiting for the other shoe to drop? This is absurd! [...]

Written By: Katherine “Ringleader” Imp   The weight.   My alarm goes off. I get up and sleepwalk to the shower. I squeeze some face wash into my hand, and the smell reminds me of the travel size face wash I carried with me on the trail. The weight. I re-focus my attention to the [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp In 3rd grade, my teacher gave me a detention for staring out the window during class. That’s all I remember from the 3rd grade.………. In college, I met this lawyer guy. I asked him if I should take time off before attending law school. I don’t remember much of anything [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp There was this one day on the trail that I’ll never forget. It was the day of the water spigot. Every morning on the trail, Emily, Brandon, and I would look at the thru-hiker’s companion to get a sense of what our day would like. Would there be any good [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp “We got this, B! We got this! Katahdin!!!!!!!!!!!!!” There are 9 miles between the AT’s entry into Baxter State Park and The Birches (a campground for northbound thru-hikers at the bottom of Mt. Katahdin). I don’t remember any of those miles. As soon as we set foot in the park, [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp The Appalachian Trail passes through numerous towns as it makes it way from Georgia to Maine. Most of them are small and outside of tourist America, but each town has its own unique appeal. When Bran and I set foot in Monson, Maine, our last trail town, we weren’t expecting [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp Our journey to Maine has been anything but perfect. There have been extreme highs and extreme lows, some moments I wish I could relive, and others I wish I could forget. But I’m not sure I would’ve done it any other way. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp   Four months. We have been living in the woods for four months. What does this do to your mind? Your body? Your soul? The only way for me to explain this transformation is to describe our time in the Whites… DAY 1: Mount Moosilauke Morning – begin to make our [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp “I find myself hanging out at REI.” Yianni Stoner. Talk about blast from the past. 19-yr-old Yianni is the only thru-hiker we’ve met that refused to adopt a trail name. We met him during the first half of our thru-hike and got to know him quite well. He got off [...]

Written by: Katherine ‘Ringleader’ Imp I have seen more of America in the last 4 months than I have in the last 24 years. I’ve always loved traveling, but when you’re young, places like Rome and Paris sound far more appealing than Bennington, VT or Dalton, MA. So those are the places I went. And [...]