Today's episode of Backpacker Radio is a fun chaotic episode recorded over a couple of days at

Trill days in Damascus, Virginia. This episode takes a lot of turns, involves a lot of laughter,

and maybe a tad too much whiskey. The spine of this episode

features a conversation between myself and our buddy Jabba aka the Real Hiking Biking

as well as Gary Sizer and Megan Thompson of Stories from the Trail.

Another podcast brought to you by the trek.

Interweave throughout this episode, our interviews with current through hikers,

you might even recognize a couple of these voices,

as well as a conversation with

Tom Kennedy the co-founder of Hike for Mental Health. But before we get into the

show I want to give a shout out to today's sponsor, Sawyer Products.

Sawyer is the maker of a slew of essential hiker-focused products, including permethrin fabric treatment to help ward off ticks,

Picaritan topical insect repellent to give yourself a suit of armor against mosquitoes, the soir

squeeze, which is the most popular water filtration device amongst the hikers, and the

new select filters and purifiers, which utilizes a foam absorption technology to remove chemicals

pesticides herbicides viruses heavy metals and more check them out at soirir dot com or at your

local outfitter, let's do this. I've been out walking so many miles I've had to go.

Welcome to Backback Radio.

This is a special edition, Sans Chaunts, which is ironic timing because I literally, I just got a text message from her.

She sent me a screenshot of her most recent iTunes review and it goes as follows.

Great potential, but that's the title of the podcast or the review

This podcast has great guests and the potential for the excellent interviews, but the maturity of the female host is really distracting.

...