About the Guest

Dr. Caroline Himbert, trail name Earthcake, is a German expat and cancer researcher on the faculty at the University of Utah's cancer center in Salt Lake City, following a postdoc at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research focuses on cancer survivorship, mainly colorectal and prostate cancer, and how exercise can improve survival and quality of life. She moved to the United States in October 2015 and thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2016, followed by the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. She then moved into ultrarunning, finishing her first 100-miler, the Wasatch 100, in 29 hours and 45 minutes for a top-ten finish and a sub-30 buckle. On the John Muir Trail, she set the unsupported women's FKT in August 2025 in 4 days, 4 hours, and 58 minutes, edging a record that had stood since 2016 by eight minutes. In July 2026 she came back and lowered it to 3 days, 16 hours, and 36 minutes, running northbound from Whitney Portal to Yosemite Valley. She is coached by Joe "Stringbean" McConaughy, and she got her trail name from mispronouncing "earthquake" on the PCT. She is on Instagram at @im_earthcake.

What Happens in This Episode

Twelve Miles From the Finish

A Planner Who Trusts Her Legs

How "Earthcake" Happened

From Thru-Hiker to Wasatch 100

Rachel and Kevin

Taking It Back at Donahue Pass

A Bear, a Burrito, and a Grudge

Doing It Alone, and What Comes Next

Links & Resources

• Earthcake on Instagram (@im_earthcake)
• Caroline Himbert's 2026 JMT FKT page (3 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes)
• GearJunkie: "John Muir Trail FKT: Ultrarunner Fights Hallucinations to Beat Record by 8 Minutes" (2025)
• GearJunkie: "Shattered Record: The Queen of the John Muir Trail Does It Again" (2026)
• Moab 240 Endurance Run (Destination Trail)
• iRunFar: Joe "Stringbean" McConaughy sets the men's supported JMT FKT
• The Third Man Factor by John Geiger — the book on survival-mode hallucinations Caroline recommends.

• Email: hikertrashradio@gmail.com
• Social: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — search Hiker Trash Radio.

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The Cottage — Episode 5: "Work Hard. Stay Curious."

The series finale of The Cottage asks the question behind all the others: why do these people do what they do? Allgood on waiting for his life to require a walk of that magnitude. GVP on creating margin and slipping into soft focus. Bus on never giving up the walks that changed his life. And the realization that ties the whole series together: the cottage industry exists because people who carry less learned to do more, and they found the answers they needed on trail.

Featured Voices

Whitney LaRuffa (Allgood) — Gossamer Gear. AT '96, CDT '16.

Glenn Van Peski (G Squared) — Founder, Gossamer Gear. Author, "Take Less, Do More."

Dan Durston (Lorax) — Founder, Durston Gear.

Luke Piersall (Bus) — Founder, Trail Goods Company.

The Full Series Cast

Glenn Van Peski (Gossamer Gear) | Whitney LaRuffa (Gossamer Gear/FarOut/Six Moon Designs) | Lloyd Vogel (Garage Grown Gear) | Dan Durston (Durston Gear) | Cameron Abila (Leave Outdoor Co) | Brice Sokolowski (Vaucluse) | Sarah Berkeley (Symbiosis Gear) | Luke Piersall (Trail Goods Company) | Tom Liggett (Alpenglow Gear) | Elliot Dick (Different Dimension Designs)

Connect with Hiker Trash Radio

Email: hikertashradio@gmail.com

Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | TikTok

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Imposter Syndrome — Across Every Area

The JMT Conclusion and Its Contradiction

Why Beginners — Because She Was One

Teaching and Creating — Both Stem From Creativity

What Bee Wants Solo Women to Know About Safety

Dirty Pot Water — The LNT Case

Follower Growth — PCT as the Catalyst

What's Next — Camino, Spanish, and the Classroom

Hiking Hacks — Three for the Price of One

Off the Beaten Path — Further by Heather Anderson

Pay It Forward — NPCA

Crack Sniffer — Why She Declined

• Bee on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Substack: https://www.instagram.com/beeswildlife
• Topo Athletic UltraVenture — Bee's trail shoe of choice for the PCT. Five pairs. Zero Achilles problems.
• Six Moon Designs Trekker — The trekking-pole tent Bee switched to on day 5 of the PCT and used for the remainder of the hike.
• Further by Heather Anderson — Bee's Off the Beaten Path recommendation. Heather's Triple Crown FKT story. Highly recommended.
• National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA): https://www.npca.org

• Email: mailto:hikertashradio@gmail.com
• Social: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — search Hiker Trash Radio.

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Trailblazer's Toolkit — Topo Athletic UltraVenture

The Hiking Poll — Score: 41

Culture Surprise — The Skipping

Creating From the Trail

The Sierra — Connecting Familiar Places

The One Crying Moment

The Hardest Stretch — Oregon Border Expectations

The Midway Marker

Origin Story — Sierra Club, Stony Brook, and a 65-Degree Bag

• Bee on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Substack: https://www.instagram.com/beeswildlife
• Topo Athletic UltraVenture — Bee's trail shoe of choice for the PCT. Five pairs. Zero Achilles problems.
• Six Moon Designs Trekker — The trekking-pole tent Bee switched to on day 5 of the PCT and used for the remainder of the hike.
• Further by Heather Anderson — Bee's Off the Beaten Path recommendation. Heather's Triple Crown FKT story. Highly recommended.
• National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA): https://www.npca.org

• Email: mailto:hikertashradio@gmail.com
• Social: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — search Hiker Trash Radio.

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Picking back up, Bluey traces the real origin of his AT dream back to childhood summer camp, where two counselors disappeared for a season to thru-hike the trail and came back changed men — planting a seed that took him over two decades to act on. He talks candidly about the conversation with his wife that preceded his decision to go, including her quietly handing him a Christmas gift that said more than words could: an expensive base layer, no note attached, her way of saying she'd support him even if she didn't want him to leave.

The conversation turns to identity on trail — how quickly hikers strip away titles, credentials, and performance, and how that "unfiltered" version of himself became something he had to find a way to live with once he came home. Bluey explains how the idea for the memoir wasn't part of the plan at all; it grew out of a handful of journal pages he started writing months after finishing the trail, eventually becoming the full manuscript in a matter of weeks once he started.

He shares two of the book's most memorable stories in greater depth: Chappy, the mysterious trail mentor who appeared on Day 3 at exactly the right moment and then vanished after Hiawassee (Bluey makes a direct on-air appeal for Chappy to get in touch), and the now-infamous Pennsylvania rock-tantrum that ended with a stranger handing him a bottle of cheap bourbon and exactly the kind of human connection he needed at his lowest point.

Midlife Hike This launches September 4th, the one-year anniversary of Bluey's summit of Katahdin, and is available for preorder now at MidlifeHikeThis.com.

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Guest Featured

• The writing of The Endurance Artist: what three years of reporting looks like from the inside
• What Jared found that surprised him most about Laz
• The Barkley as a cultural phenomenon: Netflix, the New York Times, the viral photographs
• Laz on his own fame, the quote Jared captured that appears nowhere else
• What the race means beyond sport, the philosophical argument of the book
• The difference between the Laz the public sees and the Laz Jared came to know

Jared on the moment he knew he had a book: the math problem, the quit, and the email, and realizing that Laz had put him through a version of the Barkley before he'd ever set foot in Frozen Head.

Series Context

Bonus Episode 05 of 06. The penultimate episode of The Source Material. Next episode: Barkley's Mad Genius - Doc and Laz, the final word.

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The Man at the Pool

Eric

The Pennsylvania Tantrum

Coming Home

Writing the Book

Trail Wisdom

• Midlife Hike This — Pre-order and Book Info: https://www.midlifehikethis.com
• Jeff "Bluey" Lewis — Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midlifehikethis
• Midlife Hike This: Walking Away From a Life That Worked to Find What Really Mattered — Bluey's memoir. Pre-orders open now. Releases September 4, 2026.

• Email: mailto:hikertashradio@gmail.com
• Social: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — search Hiker Trash Radio.

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The Full Traverse is HTR's long-form narrative format, drawing from multiple years of conversations with a single guest to tell the complete story. This episode covers Wesley "Mega Man" Tils.

Guest: Wesley "Mega Man" Tils — Triple Crowner, Fourth Crown Route originator, archaeologist, and the only known survivor of a sustained predatory grizzly bear encounter on the Continental Divide Trail.

Trail name origin: Earned on the Appalachian Trail while hiking southbound with a stress fracture, combining "Mega" (the slang term for southbound AT hikers, from the Maine-to-Georgia abbreviation) with his childhood love of the Mega Man video game series.

Trails and routes featured in this episode:

• Appalachian Trail (southbound, 2016)
• Pacific Crest Trail (northbound, 2017)
• Continental Divide Trail (northbound, 2018)
• Florida Trail (2022)
• Pacific Northwest Trail (attempted, 2019)
• The Fourth Crown Route — Wesley's own Mexico-to-Canada route combining the Arizona Trail, the Hayduke Trail, raw route-finding through Nevada and Utah, and the Idaho Centennial Trail (2023)
• Mojave Sonoran Trail (2026) — a roughly 600-mile, largely trail-less route through the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts; Wesley was the third person to complete it
• Hayduke Trail (2026)
• Walk for the Wild (upcoming) — an attempt to be the first person to walk from the easternmost point of the contiguous United States to the westernmost point, combining the Appalachian Trail, the Long Trail, the North Country Trail, and the Pacific Northwest Trail, with raw route-finding through North Dakota and Montana. Roughly 8,000 miles over an estimated 500 days.

Terms referenced:

• Triple Crown — completion of the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail.
• FKT — Fastest Known Time, an informal trail or route speed record open to anyone.
• Physiographic region — a geographic classification based on landform and geology rather than political boundaries. Wesley completed a long trail in all eight major physiographic regions of the lower 48.

Wesley's current work: Archaeological fieldwork, primarily in the Great Basin region, surveying for prehistoric artifacts — work that can result in legal protections preventing development, including mining, on culturally significant land.

Walk for the Wild: Wesley's upcoming 8,000-mile coast-to-coast route, intended to raise awareness for the protection of public wilderness lands amid ongoing closures and funding threats. He plans to direct all proceeds from an accompanying documentary to conservation organizations. Tentative departure: May 2026.

Follow Wesley: Instagram: @vagrant_viking93 YouTube: Wild Wes

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