Episode #546 - Days 49-51 Appalachian Trail 2026
Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis
Steve Adams
4.8 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, I had my first experience of substantial rain, with the hike out of Damascus. This took us through a 20 mile detour which turned out to be very benign, compared with the previous detour several miles back.
Along the way, I spoke with Alan Roberts, or Wizard, who was hiking with his 15-year-old son, Blood Foot.
I'm using Polarsteps to record my AT thru-hike this year. If you'd like to follow my progress between episodes, as well as photos of my journey, please go to https://www.polarsteps.com/mightyblue and click on the follow button.
I used my hike in 2024 on the South West Coast Path in the UK to help raise money for my absolute favorite charity, Parenting Matters, on whose board I've been privileged to serve for over a decade. You can learn more about the hike and the organization–and donate–by visiting Hike with Steve - Empowering Parents, One Step at a Time | Parenting Matters %. I hope you want to support this critical mission.
Don't forget. Our entire series of videos from our Woods Hole Weekend in 2022 is now FREE and available at my YouTube page at Woods Hole Weekend - Trailer There, you'll find all sorts of tips and tricks that our guests took away from the weekend that helped them with their own hikes this year. Check it out.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to the Hiking Radio Network, where we talk the walk with shows by hikers about hikers for everybody. |
| 0:26.9 | Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail, the ultimate midlife crisis, joined Stephen his guests every week as he staggers from Georgia to Maine. |
| 0:36.2 | Hi guys, welcome back to the podcast. It's Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail and I'm |
| 0:41.4 | Marty Blue and I'm on the Appalachian Trail. While I still haven't put in really big miles, |
| 0:46.7 | just on two 16 mile days, the miles are definitely stacking up and in these three days I reached |
| 0:53.5 | just before at the magic 500 mile mark. |
| 0:57.9 | Whichever way you look at it is a long way and I feel good about most aspects of my hike right now |
| 1:02.9 | but I'm looking forward to three days off from hiking at trail day so that I can let my feet rest |
| 1:08.4 | and get a new pair of boots. I haven't had many zeros. |
| 1:12.6 | In fact, I think Dana was one of them. |
| 1:15.7 | The other one was Rory winning the Masters. |
| 1:17.7 | Even then I did a two and a half mile hike that day. |
| 1:21.2 | So I think I've only had one zero, maybe two, I'm not sure. |
| 1:26.3 | And you need the rest. And you need the rest. |
| 1:27.6 | You definitely need the rest. |
| 1:28.8 | And I'll be doing that at Trail Days this week and meeting hopefully some of you |
| 1:33.1 | who, you know, are going to turn up at Trail Days. |
| 1:37.5 | Please say hi to me and perhaps we'll get a beer together. |
| 1:41.1 | I'll be a bit of a shambles by the end of the day. |
| 1:43.4 | I'll have to see how that works out. |
| 1:45.6 | So let's look back to last Sunday, but before we do, let's hear from our sponsor, Polo Steps. If you're heading out on a long hike this year, which I am, I've got something I think you're going to love. It's called Polo Steps. It's a travel tracking app that's going to become my favourite with hikers. You set your start date, let it run quietly in the background, |
| 2:02.9 | and it maps your entire journey automatically, all on your own beautiful spinning 3D globe. And don't worry, the tracking feature uses about 4% of your battery on a single charge, so it's not going to kill your phone when you're out there. You can add photos and short journal entries as you go, so your map |
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