A thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail looks glorious in highlight reels, but the day-to-day reality swings hard between comfort and misery. A new video diary from hiker Alyssa, documenting week 12 of her trek, captures that rollercoaster better than most.
The week opens badly. After a rough night's sleep, Alyssa wakes up cranky with a 23-mile day ahead of her — the kind of number that looms large when your motivation is already low. A visit from her best friend helps, as does a very serious trail debate: is a whole apple pie worth $25? (On trail, the answer to most calorie questions is yes.)
Then come the bees. Roughly five stings to her foot and ankle in a single encounter knock her morale down again, and she admits to the camera she's "not really having fun." A phone call with her dad steadies her a little, and she and her trail friends cut the day short at 10 miles. The early finish turns out to be a win: a bunkhouse, a shower, and a discounted buffet dinner made from leftovers of a local kids' camp. Add packed-out apple pie, leftover mac and cheese, and a downloaded TV show, and a rough day ends on a decent note.
New Jersey brings a fresh test the next morning. The trail there is notorious for wet, slippery rocks, and Alyssa takes two falls in her first 10 miles — her worn-out shoes, she notes, offer little grip on the slick stone. A restaurant lunch provides a midday reprieve before a punishing afternoon climb, made worse by what she describes as a sugar crash after the big meal. Her overall takeaway: a thru-hike can flip from relative luxury to pure frustration within a few hours.
For anyone considering a long-distance hike, the video is a useful reality check. Gear matters — tired shoes on wet rock are a genuine safety issue, not just an annoyance. Food planning matters too: heavy sugar hits followed by crashes can wreck an afternoon, and hikers talk constantly about balancing quick calories with slower-burning fuel. And perhaps most importantly, morale is a resource you have to manage like anything else. Rest days, short days, phone calls home and yes, whole apple pies, are all part of the toolkit.
It's also a nice window into trail culture: hostels and outfitters along the Appalachian Trail cater specifically to hikers, buffets get scouted for pack-outs, and strangers become a trail family within weeks. Week 12 falls somewhere around the New Jersey–New York stretch of the 2,190-mile route, which runs from Georgia to Maine and typically takes five to seven months to complete.
The full vlog is available on The Trek's On Trail channel, where Alyssa is documenting the hike week by week — worth a watch whether you're planning your own attempt or just curious what the trail actually feels like when the stings and slips pile up.
Via The Trek.
