Trail Stories - What Would Your Dead Self Say?

from Hiker Trash Radio · host Bleav + Doc

About the Guest Jeff "Bluey" Lewis spent 16 years in nonprofit leadership and business strategy before resigning at 40 to hike the Appalachian Trail, Georgia to Maine, in 2025 — 2,198 miles in five months. The hike became the foundation for his memoir, Midlife Hike This: Walking Away From a Life That Worked to Find What Really Mattered, releasing September 4, 2026 — the anniversary of his Katahdin summit. He lives in Baltimore. Episode Highlights The Trail Name The Man at the Pool Eric The Pennsylvania Tantrum Coming Home Writing the Book Trail Wisdom Links & Resources Midlife Hike This — Pre-order and Book Info: https://www.midlifehikethis.com Jeff "Bluey" Lewis — Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midlifehikethis Midlife Hike This: Walking Away From a Life That Worked to Find What Really Mattered — Bluey's memoir. Pre-orders open now. Releases September 4, 2026. Connect with Hiker Trash Radio Email: mailto:[email protected] Social: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — search Hiker Trash Radio. The full interview with Bluey drops Wednesday. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it takes 60 seconds and makes a real difference. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What this episode covers

At 40 years old, 16 years into a nonprofit career he was good at, Jeff Lewis stood by a hotel pool in Orlando and watched his future arrive — a parade of men who all looked the same, dressed the same, and carried themselves like they'd long since stopped asking questions. He decided he didn't want to be one of them. Within a year he'd resigned and started walking from Georgia to Maine. This episode traces that decision back to its real origin: a friend named Eric, gone in three weeks from a cancer diagnosis at 43, and the concept Bluey and another friend invented at a campsite afterward — your dead self, the version of you who's already lived it all and knows exactly what you should do. It's the framework that got him to the trailhead, through the rocks of Pennsylvania, into a stranger's campsite for bourbon and an unexpected knife scare, and eventually into a memoir he wrote in five caffeinated, tear-streaked weeks. He earned his trail name losing rock-paper-scissors to an eight-year-old. He's kept it ever since, on principle. The full interview with Bluey drops Wednesday on the Hiker Trash Radio feed.