Hi, I'm Willow Belden, and you're listening to Out There.

This is a podcast about the outdoors, from your window box and garden, to the fields on the edge of town, to the forests, prairies, seashores, and wilderness.

On the show, we explore our relationship with nature, through stories, interviews, essays, and even some fiction.

We travel around the U.S. and the world with tales of love and heartbreak, passion and adversity, desperation, and triumph. A few months ago, a dear friend of mine from college emailed me and asked if she could

interview me.

She wanted to talk about an experience I had had in the outdoors in the summer of 2014,

an experience that had changed both my career path and my mental health.

You're about to hear that interview, but first a little background.

The thing she wanted to talk about was a backpacking trip I had done, a through hike of the

Colorado Trail.

The Colorado Trail is kind of like a mini version of the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail.

It's a 500-mile footpath, and it goes from Denver to Durango, through the Rocky Mountains.

I was a total newbie as far as backpacking was concerned.

We'll talk more about that later.

But in the spring of 2014, I quit my job, packed everything I needed into my backpack, and started walking.

In this episode, we revisit that experience.

We'll talk about what drove me to flee from society, what life was like on the trail,

and how those five weeks in the wilderness changed me. I'll let my friend take it from here.

This is Amy Streeter reporting for Out There. Sorry. This is great that I get to edit this. It is

essential that you edit this.

So Willow, you hiked the Colorado Trail by yourself last summer.

How did you come to even have the idea of quitting your job, changing your life around,

...