I'm Gail Strob and you're listening to She Explorers. I've got to be honest. I wasn't sure I wanted to release this episode today.

If you live in the United States, you know that our country is feeling even more divided than usual after the results

of the presidential election.

And no matter how you feel about who was elected president, this feeling of division is one of the scarier

feelings we can have. While I'm not an optimist I try to consider myself a

realist, I do my best to look at the world from a place of empathy. I know I can't

truly put myself in anyone else's shoes, but I can try my absolute hardest. I've chosen to release Carat Quinn's interview because

there are so many amazing lessons within it. We talk about the allure of

escaping to the trail, about the division that exists between real life and

trail life.

There's something about trail life that's just so much more satisfying.

So I've I started thinking about like well what is it about the regular world

that I actually want to make it more

that makes me feel like I'm actually trying to make it more like a place

that feels good for everyone. Carrot says we should be kind to ourselves.

She says that we should think about what we can change about the world

to make it one that we want to live in. We're powerful. We can

shift perspectives. We can talk to people and start to understand them.

Carra Quinn is the author of Through Hiking Will Break Your Heart, a memoir about her

through hike of the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013. She hiked it again in 2014 and

hike the Continental Divide Trail in 2015.

I read her memoir just two days before we talked over Skype.

...