62. Sauntering the Eastern Seaboard: The MST, FT, and ECT | Sam ‘Sammertime’ Holcombe

This episode has been a long time coming as I’ve had several folks recommend having Sammertime on as a guest for the podcast. A multi-time FT thru-hiker, he began his long distance hiking adventures on the Mountains to Sea Trail in the early 2010s. It set forth the upending and changing of his previous life and after a few years away from the trail he found himself on the FT in 2017. Next he completed a southbound ECT hike and most recently he revisited the Mountains to Sea Trail for a second time as he hiked for charity, raising money for a good friend who had recently had medical issues. We talk about all of this and more, including how profoundly Trail Angels and kind encounters along the trail are to hikers and just what kind of an impact they have, especially for the hikers who tend to stay away from large groups while hiking.