Hiker Trash Radio

About the Guest Will Roquemore — trail name Last Strap — is a fourth-generation Idahoan, PCT class of 2025 finisher, part-time Arizona Trail hiker, and full-time nomad living in a converted 2016 Toyota Prius V wagon. He has been on the road since 2020, produces hiking content on his YouTube channel Sucker for Side Quests, and is currently based in Boise, Idaho, editing his PCT footage and spending...

Guests / Voices Featured Lazarus Lake (Gary Cantrell) Pre-race speech to the 2025 runners, captured live Carl Laniak Conch blow, reading of the names of the dead Keith Dunn On-the-ground commentary and race updates 2025 Runners & Crew Pre- and post-race conversations including Richard Shannon, Kelly Halpin, Ben Wernick, Isobel Ross, John Clark, Tomo Ihara, Kris Rugloski, and others John Kelly 2025...

About the Guest Lori Balue is a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner and metabolic restoration practitioner based in Southern California. After a 25-year journey through chronic asthma, pre-diabetes, PCOS, food addiction, and 100 pounds of weight she couldn't keep off, Lori solved her own metabolism and then built a practice helping others over 50 do the same. She is a half-marathon finish...

About the Guest Lori Balue is a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner and metabolic restoration practitioner based in Southern California. After losing 100 pounds in her 50s and reversing asthma, pre-diabetes, and chronic joint pain through metabolic restoration, she has completed multiple Grand Canyon rim-to-rims, runs half marathons annually, and summits peaks across the San Gabriels and...

Jimmy Nichols lost two daughters to late-term stillbirth within a year. No medical explanation. Just the arrival at a hospital and the emptiness that followed, twice. He is a sommelier, a punk guitarist, a section hiker on the AT. He is also a man who spent a long time suppressing more anger and despair than anyone around him knew about. The trail didn’t fix it. But it equalized him. And then one...

About the Guest Lori Balue is a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner and metabolic restoration practitioner based in Southern California. After a 25-year journey through chronic asthma, pre-diabetes, PCOS, food addiction, and 100 pounds of weight she couldn't keep off, Lori solved her own metabolism — at 60 — and built a practice helping others over 50 do the same. She is a half-marathon f...

The Barkley: A Love Story concludes. This is the episode the series has been building toward. We hear from the finishers: the 26 people in 40 years who have completed five loops in 60 hours. Jared Campbell, four-time finisher, on what the race selects for in a person. John Kelly, who grew up across the road from Frozen Head State Park and calls the Barkley his home course. Ihor Verys, who didn't l...

Author, speaker, and Triple Triple Crowner Heather Anderson joins Doc for some studio time to talk about her new book, Farther. Settle in and buckle ups as Heather discusses her 2018 CYTC (the basis for Farther), spills on the AZT, bad life choices, heavy ass packs, the North Cascades, dumpster-adjacent campsites, blacklisted foods, interesting uses for Pringle cans, killer bees, mountain lions, l...

Author, speaker, and Triple Triple Crowner Heather Anderson joins Doc for some studio time to talk about her new book, Farther. Settle in and buckle ups as Heather discusses her 2018 CYTC (the basis for Farther), spills on the AZT, bad life choices, heavy ass packs, the North Cascades, dumpster-adjacent campsites, blacklisted foods, interesting uses for Pringle cans, killer bees, mountain lions, l...

Episode Overview: Doc welcomes back Jared "Fisherman" Lampal for his first official on-trail check-in . Standing right on the border looking into Colorado, Jared has checked the massive milestone of New Mexico off his list . In this raw look at life on the Divide, Jared breaks down how his structured mindset translates to the unpredictable backcountry, the reality of desert water management, and w...

Ben Cox has never really hiked alone. He carries a permanent tramily with him — his grandfather, who died when Ben was 15 and left him a specific rifle and a saddle because Ben was his cowboy grandchild. The girl in West Texas who passed that same summer. The others who came after. At 26, after a relationship ended and a work situation resolved itself, Ben bought a plane ticket to San Diego and hi...

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. Sh...

The Barkley: A Love Story continues. In Episode Two, we go to Frozen Head State Park. This episode is anchored by audio captured live at the 2025 Barkley Marathons: the conch blow, Laz's pre-race speech, the reading of the names of those no longer with us, taps, and the lighting of the cigarette. You hear the race begin. Then you hear what happens to the people who go out into those woods. We hear...

Triple Crowner and creator of the Great Colorado Route Donovan "Iceman" Rice joins Doc in the studio to talk about his love letter to Colorado, the 1,700-mile route through the heart of the Colorado outdoors. Settle in and buckle up as Iceman discusses frozen tents, seasonal gigs, overcoming addiction, only known times, mutual enablers, cold soaking, 400k feet of elevation gain, the gnar...

Triple Crowner and creator of the Great Colorado Route Donovan "Iceman" Rice joins Doc in the studio to talk about his love letter to Colorado, the 1,700-mile route through the heart of the Colorado outdoors. Settle in and buckle up as Iceman discusses frozen tents, seasonal gigs, overcoming addiction, only known times, mutual enablers, cold soaking, 400k feet of elevation gain, the gnar...

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available 24/7. Call or text 988. Cara Benson spent years in active addiction before the Adirondack Mountains gave her something she’d been looking for in all the wrong places. She got sober. She hiked. She found a man named John who left rebus messages on the kitchen counter — hand-drawn symbols instead of words, rays of sunshine about the most pe...

Donovan “Iceman” Rice is a Colorado native, Triple Crowner, and the designer of the Great Colorado Route. He earned the name Iceman on the PCT in 2020 after freezing his tent to the ground. Twice. Once on Mount San Jacinto in the Southern California desert. Once at the base of Forester Pass. The second incident required a borrowed ice ax and boiling water poured directly onto frozen ground at 3 a....

The Barkley Marathons has only been finished 26 times in 40 years. This is the first episode of a three-part audio documentary series from Hiker Trash Radio — The Barkley: A Love Story. In Episode One, we go to the beginning. Who is Gary "Laz" Cantrell, the man who built the most obsessively followed race in endurance sport? We hear from Laz himself on how the Barkley was born, why it wa...

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available 24/7. Call or text 988. Steven Wright’s wife Sandy told him on her deathbed to hike the Appalachian Trail. She had six days left to say it. He didn’t go right away. First came 18 months of grief that got worse instead of better, a breakdown, an escape from a hospital in a nightgown, and a moment in his truck on a highway where he shut his...

Thru hiker Brad "Sheep Dog" Barber joins Doc in the studio for some trail talk on the eve of his CDT thru hike. Settle in and buckle up as Sheep Dog seeks his limits while discussing Vertigo, old water charts, the Great Basin Loop, not cheating on the Hayduke, unique shakedown hikes, Coldfoot, water seep strategies, Wildflower, the AZT, the AT, the PCT, and the thrill of living up to the...

Thru hiker Brad "Sheep Dog" Barber joins Doc in the studio for some trail talk on the eve of his CDT thru hike. Settle in and buckle up as Sheep Dog seeks his limits while discussing Vertigo, old water charts, the Great Basin Loop, not cheating on the Hayduke, unique shakedown hikes, Coldfoot, water seep strategies, Wildflower, the AZT, the AT, the PCT, and the thrill of living up to the...

David "Remy" and Sally Ann "Beacon" Mertens sit down with Doc in the studio to talk about their 2025 thru hike of the Appalachian Trail with their four kids aged 9, 11, 14, and 15. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

David "Remy" and Sally Ann "Beacon" Mertens sit down with Doc in the studio to talk about their 2025 thru hike of the Appalachian Trail with their four kids aged 9, 11, 14, and 15. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The trailer is here. In 40 years, the Barkley Marathons has been finished 26 times. This is the story of why everyone keeps coming back. The Barkley: A Love Story, a three-part audio documentary from Hiker Trash Radio, drops one week from today. Press play. Then send this to someone who needs to hear it. Episode One: "I Discovered It" - May 15, 2026 Episode Two: "The Edge of Possibl...

In this week's chapter of The Logbook, Doc takes on the original thru hiking story, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.