Emily Ford loves winter. In March of 2021, Emily became the first woman and the first Black person on record to complete the Ice Age Trail, a 1,200 mile trek that winds through the state of Wisconsin. In March of 2022, she completed a 28 day trek where she skied 180 miles with her dog Diggins.
Emily Ford loves winter. She does most of her adventuring during the coldest months of the year in the most frigid parts of the U.S. In March of 2021, Emily became the first woman and the first Black person on record to complete the Ice Age Trail, a 1,200 mile trek that winds through the state of Wisconsin. In March of 2022, she completed a 28 day trek where she skied 180 miles with her dog Diggins.
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Emily Ford:
So winter, here's the thing, there's not as many people on the trails and it's awesome. It's a fun way to move across the earth. So skiing, cross country skiing or moving your body that way. Dog sledding, you can walk on water. So this past winter, I just skied across lakes. You get to fish in it, you can skate on it. There's so many good things. There's sledding, there's tubing, there's snowboarding, there's fat tire biking. And then you can live in the snow. You can build shelters out of snow. You can bring so many different foods with you on your expeditions because they never go bad and it's awesome. And then you can build fires on the ice, look list goes on forever.
Shelby Stanger:
There are plenty of people who would do pretty much anything to escape the winter, and I get it. As a California girl, I'm all about sunny, warm temperatures. If the weather drops below 60 degrees, I'm getting out my puffy coat. But expeditioner, Emily Ford doesn't shy away from the cold. In 2021, Emily spent January and February hiking the 1,200 mile ice age trail in Wisconsin.
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Studio's production. Emily Ford loves winter more than anyone I've ever talked to. She lives in northern Minnesota where she embraces the ice, the frigid air, and the absolute quiet of the landscape coated in snow. Emily takes on massive winter adventures because she legitimately enjoys being out in the freezing wilderness. Playing outside, even in the cold has been ingrained in her ever since her childhood outside the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Where did you grow up and how did you discover your love for adventure?
Emily Ford:
So I born and raised in Minnesota, which is fun. The Midwest gets a lot of flack. We're kind of flat out here, people know us for our milk and our cheese and our croplands.
Shelby Stanger:
And your kindness.
Emily Ford:
And our kindness, our niceness. Yes, of course. And I grew up with a family that just did stuff outside. I come from more of a motorhead family, so we use snow machines and we would go ice fishing with a motor boat, but we'd just spend time outside. And I fell in love with it. My grandparents had this farm in northern Minnesota, and when I was a kid I would just wander by myself out in the woods, or I would take their dog with me and I loved it. And my family just let me do that, I was a little kid by myself. I think about parents these days, I'm not a parent, I want to preface this with that I'm not a parent at all.
Shelby Stanger:
I give parenting advice, and I'm not a parent, all the time. So it's okay.
Emily Ford:
Yeah. So, well, I had a single parent, my mom, I have siblings, and my mom didn't have time to keep us all tied up and whatever. So I would just wander, my family would let me do that. And I don't know if parents let their kids do that as much these days all the time. But I did. My mom's like, you have a dog with you, good enough, kind of thing.
Shelby Stanger:
Were you the youngest?
Emily Ford:
Yes, very much.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. The youngest child gets a little bit more freedom.
Emily Ford:
I know, I know. It's awesome. When I got older, there was one day I couldn't drive yet, and I looked at my mom one Friday night and I'm like, 'Mom, I'm waking up tomorrow and I'm going to walk through railroad tracks as far as I can north'. And she's like, 'Okay'. I had a cell phone and whatever. So I just threw saltines and peanut butter and I just walked for miles and miles and miles one day.
Shelby Stanger:
How many miles did you walk?
Emily Ford:
12.
Shelby Stanger:
12. Impressive. How old were you? Like 14.
Emily Ford:
Yeah, if not younger. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
That's amazing. How did you get home?
Emily Ford:
I called my mom.
Shelby Stanger:
Great. So when you're a kid, were you hiking through snow?
Emily Ford:
No. Man, I think it must have been the summertime. Long distance in the winter really didn't come until I was much more of an adult. But my mom would just make us be in the snow when we were younger. No matter how cold it was. She's like, 'You can't be in the house right now. You have to be outside'.
Shelby Stanger:
After college Emily got a job as a gardener at a famous estate in Duluth, Minnesota where she had the winter months off. It's too cold and snowy to do much gardening between December and February. So in her free time, she got into backpacking. Emily did a couple of shorter multi-day trips before hiking the entire Lake Superior Hiking Trail, which is over 300 miles. Eventually she came up with the goal to take on the Ice Age Trail. The Ice Age Trail winds 1200 miles across the state of Wisconsin. Laid out, start to finish, that's half the length of the Mississippi River. Emily had done some dog sledding or mushing before, and she decided to take a dog on the trek with her for companionship and protection. So you have the right gear, you set off a couple years ago in year 2019, 2020?
Emily Ford:
It's really when Covid was ramping.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so 2020. You set off and you go do the Ice Age Trail. You're 28 years old, you've got your backpack, you got some salami, and you've borrowed a dog name Diggins, which is so great. Why did you decide to take a dog with you?
Emily Ford:
Well, I wasn't planning on it originally, but then... So we're no longer together, my ex and I, but we love each other so much. And it's so funny the way that we care for each other because we had this conversation of just like Flo was like, 'You have to bring a dog with you'. And a mushing buddy of mine, she's like, 'Yeah, you should totally bring a dog'. She's like, 'Here's some connections, post here on this mushing group on Facebook'. So I did, and I've always loved having a dog along. I mean, they're good company as long as you have a way to fuel them and feed them and take care of them. They're a really good company to have. So Diggins is an Alaskan husky, she can handle really cold temperatures without a jacket. She's good down to -15, -20, just needs a jacket and some booties maybe after that. And yeah, you kind of get to hang up with your best friend for days and days on end.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that's so cool. So you took 69 days to hike this trail. That's no joke, I mean that's just serious. That's almost your whole three months of your winter break to do it. I mean, I get why you did winter because that was the time you had off. But what do you love about winter and how are you able to do it? Because for me, I don't love anything below freezing. And I'm guessing Minnesota winters are often very below freezing.
Emily Ford:
Yeah, Minnesota's such a funny thing. So I thought about this past winter, I'm like, 'Man, I'm experiencing -40 degrees and in the summer sometimes it's plus 90, plus 100. Oh, we have tough weather here. It's funny.
Shelby Stanger:
But it's called the Ice Age Trail for a reason. I mean, I'm sure it's freezing.
Emily Ford:
Well it follows the last glacial extent.
Shelby Stanger:
Got it.
Emily Ford:
Is why it's called the Ice Age Trail.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay.
Emily Ford:
Right. So winter, here's the thing, winter has no mosquitoes and mosquitoes and I just like don't, they love me so much. That's one of the things. Another thing about winter is there's not as many people on the trails and it's awesome. It's a fun way to move across the earth. So skiing, if you like cross country skiing or moving your body that way. Dog sledding is, if you've never been dog sledding, I just want to encourage you to make your way somewhere that whoever has a team and you should just try it. There's literally nothing like mushing, it's like you're moving so fast with no engine and it's so quiet. You can walk on water, so this past winter I just skied across lakes. You're just using frozen lakes as a way of moving around the earth.
You get to fish in it, you can skate on it. If you've never skated on crazy ice, it's awesome. It's when the ice, if you seen any of those Instagram videos, people skating on clear sheets of ice on the lakes, that's what we call crazy ice around here. It's just like when it freezes really fast before the snow falls. There's so many good things. There's sledding, there's tubing, there's snowboarding, there's all these crazy things. There's fat tire biking. And then you can live in the snow, you can build shelters out of snow when you're hiking. You can bring so many different foods with you on your expeditions because they never go bad. And it's awesome. Your warm sleeping bags are even better in the winter time. It's so good. And then the sky is super clear because it's so cold outside. And then you can build fires on the ice. Look, I know this podcast can only be so long. The list goes on forever. It's so good.
Shelby Stanger:
Keep going. I love this. Keep selling me on this cold, cold weather hiking and camping.
Emily Ford:
And there's like nothing like, ugh, there's rime frost and then there's hoar frost here. And it's when there's humidity in the air and ice crystals attach themself to the trees. It's like perfect. And oh my goodness, I can't even describe what that feeling is like.
Shelby Stanger:
Try to describe it because I'm really curious. What is this?
Emily Ford:
Okay, so imagine you have deciduous tree, one that usually has leaves, but now it's just branches in the winter time. And the branches are covered with snowy ice. So instead of the tree just being this dark brown entity, it's like dark brown highlighted with crystals on the edges and it's amazing. And it can be a couple centimeters of ice hanging off the trees. You can have a whole forest of it. Or you'll get caught in a crystal mist almost, where it's misty but it's actually frozen in midair.
So it's like you're in this weird Narnia of just snow all around you and it's beautiful. And then if you're looking at conifers, so evergreens, and just their triangle shape and their needles are just covered with frost. And the thing about that too is that when the trees are like that it's like being, so I'm in a sound booth right now, it's like this where it dampens all of the sound in the forest. So the snow's underneath you, the snow is pretty much all around you and you're hearing intensifies because it's so quiet. And when you sleep in that, it's like, I don't know, maybe it's being back in the womb. I don't know man. But I sleep so good in the wintertime out in the snow, and there's nothing better than that in the entire world.
Shelby Stanger:
For 69 days, Emily hiked 15 miles a day and her routine was pretty much a broken record of eating, walking, eating some more and sleeping. She survived on mostly snacks, protein bars, and freeze dried meals. Emily had planned for seven resupplies along the way, but she was pleasantly surprised by some extra food and motivation from the communities she hiked through. Emily posted weekly about her progress on social media and people started following her journey. It was unusual to see someone doing this trail in winter and folks were excited to support her along the way. They would come out to meet and walk with her, which she particularly appreciated on the 500 miles of road walking. They also left warm food and motivating notes and coolers along her path. Did you have any trail angels on the way?
Emily Ford:
So many, so many trail angels and trail magic, I mean left and right. I had so much trail magic that I literally when I would do my resupplies, I would give back so much of my food because when I was planning for this trip, I didn't know I would see so many people. So I was planning for just being self sustained and that was just not the case. I mean people, there would be these retired hiking groups, of just retired people, and they would leave me coolers of hot soup, hot water, and just legit food. And I would just sit on the side of the road and just eat their soup and whatever. And it was awesome.
Shelby Stanger:
That is so awesome. How did people find out about you? Were there newspaper articles about you or just from your posts?
Emily Ford:
Yeah, so the Milwaukee Sentinel was the first one to really post about me while I was on my trip. And that was way in the beginning. And then after that I had a bunch of interviews and different podcasters would find me and I would just podcasts for my tent and do all that. And people started following on social media. I was like, 'All right, we're doing this. Legit, let's go'.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, I think also you were doing it in a time when our nation was so sad.
Emily Ford:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
And watching a young woman hike this badass trail and you're kind of like, I'm talking to you and you're very nonchalant and very humble, but you're a total badass. I can see why other people were inspired and wanted to find you along the way. What were some of the serious lows and what were some of the serious highs?
Emily Ford:
On trail, my lows were pretty minimal, really oddly, minimal. And I have never quite had a trip like that, where it was fine and I wish I was lying, but I'm not. My lows came after I got home and then it kind of shit hit the fan pretty hard.
Shelby Stanger:
I really want to talk about that. So what were some of your highs real quick?
Emily Ford:
Again, I think I said this before, the Midwest doesn't really have a good rap relief for any adventuring. I got to see some of the most beautiful parts of Wisconsin. I mean unbelievably just these crazy, gnarly, dense cedar forests where it was just dense and dark and it was crazy. And my dog and I were hiking and an owl, I could have probably reached up and grabbed it, it was so close to us. Which is, and hindsight terrifying because owls are nuts. But there were just these sweet moments just like that over and over again. And then some folks would let us stay at their, they would be like, 'It's going to be this cold tonight, would you want to stay in?' And then they would feed me and feed my dog. And just love on us in that way. And I was always so amazed that people would let us do that. Yeah, so many good people on that trail. It was amazing.
Shelby Stanger:
There were things on the trail that must have been hard and you had to do something to get through to the next stop. What did you do? Did you have a mantra? Did you do a little dance? I read somewhere that you had Britney Spears dance parties on the trail.
Emily Ford:
Oh my gosh.
Shelby Stanger:
Is that true? Is that fake news?
Emily Ford:
I see where this is going. I did Britney's song, Stronger. That's right. But I changed the lyrics. My brain is such a funny place. It will take a song and it'll change the lyrics. So Britney's song Stronger, since I was losing weight as I went along, I just would change the lyrics into, I'm smaller than yesterday. Just because my belt would visibly get just cinched down smaller to smaller every day. That Britney Spears and Florence and the Machine totally got me through just that. And I wouldn't listen to music during the day, but during our little lunch breaks, I'd play a song and yeah, dance around. It was awesome.
Shelby Stanger:
What got you through the hard parts of the Ice Age Trail?
Emily Ford:
There was this kid, a couple schools had their students make posters for me and cheer me on along the way when I went to their town. Super cute. Some kid somewhere, I have no idea, I will never meet this kid, I'm sure. On this poster literally said, 'You have to hike this trail yourself because nobody's going to do it for you'.
Shelby Stanger:
Aw.
Emily Ford:
This kid's in fourth grade. And I was like, 'Wow. Wow. Okay, wow, wow'. And it's just true. It's just one of those things of when you're out there by yourself, you don't really have a choice but to go forward. And one of the things I developed was in the Boundary Waters later on, is just breaking things down into little projects. I love projects, I'm a doer. And so if I could break these really hard things that seem like too much down into little projects, so much easier. Just one little foot in front of the other, I will get there. Anything is possible. I can do hard things. Anything is possible.
Shelby Stanger:
When we come back, Emily talks about how her trek was made into an award-winning film. The difficulty of adjusting back to everyday life and her most recent adventure. Trailblazer Emily Ford's trek across Wisconsin on the Ice Age Trail, got a lot of attention from the public. She was the first documented woman and black person to hike the trail from start to finish. Plus she chose to hike it in the dead of winter, making it even more challenging, especially when you consider that the 2020, 2021 Wisconsin winter was fiercely cold. Emily's journey was so powerful and garnered such a following that some local filmmakers asked if they could document her journey. So you had a film crew or you took film with you while you were doing this trip?
Emily Ford:
Yeah, so at mile 500, a guy named Jessie from Credo Nonfiction. His wife told him about me, maybe he saw me in the newspaper and he asked if he could make a documentary off the trip. And I was like, 'I don't know man'. And he's like, 'Let's just try it for one day'. I'm like, 'All right'. And then one day turned into two days, turned into three days and he would just meet me at different intervals. And then he had his whole crew there on the last day.
Shelby Stanger:
What was it like having a documentary made about you and then eventually watching it? The audience can't see her face, but her eyes are giving me the emotion that it was a little bit bizarre.
Emily Ford:
It was so weird, man. It was good. It took a little getting used to just having your life filmed and there not being a script and you're just supposed to be you and you're mic'd up. There's a dude on Instagram, Ryan, who has trail talks. He just mics himself and he just, as he's on his hikes, he just says what comes through his mind like most hikers do. And when you're mic'd like that, you're like, 'Do I say what I would normally say? Do I sing right now? What do I do?'
Shelby Stanger:
What's the response been like? People probably find you and see you walking around Minnesota or Wisconsin and they probably say hi and stop you.
Emily Ford:
Yes they do. It's pretty funny. But I don't mind it because it's just like being on this podcast. If me doing this little thing... Because here's the deal, the name of this podcast is Wild Ideas Worth Living. It may sound like a wild idea to you and the folks who are listening to this, but this is just what I like doing. So there's no show going on, there's no performance. What you're seeing right now is literally just who I am all the time. And if me living myself authentically inspires others to do something that maybe they wouldn't do themselves, whatever, I can have a 30 minute documentary about my life out there. And if you see me in public, come talk to me because if that's what you want to do and you want tips on how to do something that sounds crazy to you, but you've always wanted to do it, then sick. Let's do that.
Shelby Stanger:
The finished short film titled 'Breaking Trail' has won countless awards at film festivals across North America. When Emily got home from the Ice Age Trail, she had to do frequent press interviews, go back to work and adjust to being around people again. On top of all those adjustments, she really missed being with Diggins. While completing the Ice Age trail in the Dead of Winter was a huge accomplishment, it was also a bittersweet moment for Emily. What was the finish line like? Was there a celebration? There was media.
Emily Ford:
Yeah. It was a huge celebration, well it felt huge. But what I did is I just invited whomever wanted to come to Saint Croix and there's 100, maybe a couple 100 people there.
Shelby Stanger:
And this is Wisconsin?
Emily Ford:
It's right on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay.
Emily Ford:
It's the terminus of the trail. And that was really good. I think I was still on such a high, that ending was good. I had to say goodbye to Diggins and that almost wrecked me. That was so hard. And I left and we started driving home. And just for me, it's mostly that the world is so loud versus being on trail. And I really made the mistake of doing interviews way too early, I didn't take any time off. I got home and the next day I had three either podcast interviews or newspaper interviews or news interviews. And then I just did that for the next two months, several interviews a day for two months straight. And I hit a wall and I hit a hole I have never felt in my life. I did not like anything, I did not like anybody. It was awful. I hope to never return to that ever again in my life. I learned so much about how to do reentry so much better based off that. So that's the silver lining, but I don't want to ever experience that again. I think I was depressed for at least 10 months.
Shelby Stanger:
10 months. Wow. Okay. So I know that something that helped you get through that time was getting to keep Diggings as your own full-time dog. So how did you reconnect with the owner and end up adopting Diggins full-time as your own?
Emily Ford:
I was going to borrow Diggins for just a little weekend pickup, and when we departed Sherry said, she's like, 'Anytime that you want to borrow Diggins, just shoot me a text'. And I said, 'Okay'. And I was like, it was a month later, I was like, 'Can I borrow her please?' And then on our way back from our little weekend getaway, I texted her and I was like, 'I know that you're planning on running her in the [inaudible 00:23:19] next year, and I know you want to run big races with her, but is there any way I could buy her off of you at all?' She was new to their kennel and had so much potential. She had a pack, she had a little litter of her own. And I was like, 'Is there any way at all that I could buy her?' And she's like, 'I need to talk to my daughter. This is actually her dog'. And then she's like, 'You know what Emily.' She's like, 'Chloe and I think that you should just keep Diggings, just keep her for free. We already have her offspring. We already have her bloodline. And I think that you two have such a connection that you need to be together'. And I was like this is unbelievable that I get to keep her.
Shelby Stanger:
Though the adjustment back to everyday life was difficult, adopting Diggins permanently made a huge impact on Emily's mental state. Another thing that helped Emily heal from the tough transition after the Ice Age Trail was planning her next trip into the wilderness. Emily decided to take Diggins on a solo ski trip across the Boundary Water Canoe Area. The Boundary Waters is a million acre protected area of Minnesota that contains thousands of backwater lakes. It's the most visited wilderness area in the United States. Over 28 days, Emily and Diggins skied 180 miles, digging camp out of deep snow and once again, enjoying the quiet of winter. When did you get the wild idea to just go ski across the Boundary Waters next?
Emily Ford: June.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so that summer. You got back in winter, you worked your job and within six months you're like, I'm going to go hike and ski the Boundary Waters. When did you do this?
Emily Ford:
I just got back in March.
Shelby Stanger:
March of this year?
Emily Ford:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
You skied 28 days with absolutely no one around, carrying 100% of everything you needed and 100% of the things your dog needed.
Emily Ford:
I had two resupplies on this trip. So one musher brought me out one resupply and then a couple people from YMCA camp snowshoed out to me and brought me my stuff. But other than that, yeah, it's just me and my dog.
Shelby Stanger:
So tell us a little bit about that wild idea, the why and what that even means and looks like.
Emily Ford:
Yeah, so the Boundary Waters is a million acres of wilderness. It touches Canada, Ontario, and Ontario holds the Quetico, which is a very similar space. So a lot of the spaces are non motorized areas and you just have to move by dog or by ski or by horse, I guess you could if you wanted to.
Shelby Stanger:
So not accessible by motorized vehicles, is what you mean?
Emily Ford:
Most of it, yes.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay.
Emily Ford:
And I really wanted something that was more secluded, where I wouldn't see as many people on this trip. And I have this pretty much my own backyard and it sounded perfect. And there was a guy who did it the year before me and so I was able to use his map as a reference, his route as a reference. And then I hopped on with a bunch of other sponsors and started talking to these different folks and it all came together. And then all of a sudden I was skiing in a blizzard on my first day.
Shelby Stanger:
And you were skiing with a sled, carrying your gear?
Emily Ford:
Yeah, so there's a pulk behind. We call it a pulk and you just pull it behind you.
Shelby Stanger:
And what about Diggins?
Emily Ford:
She helps me pull the sled along as well, which is really awesome. She loves to pull.
Shelby Stanger:
That's amazing. Was there any high highs on that trip or low lows that you can share?
Emily Ford:
High highs. There's nothing better, I'm convinced then getting out of your tent in the morning on a lake with no wind and watching the sunrise. The whole sky snow situation, chefs kiss, it's literally the best. And you're just skiing in it all day long and it's awesome. My low low, I was really tired and I fell through the ice one night.
Shelby Stanger:
What?
Emily Ford:
I was about a quarter mile below a waterfall called Curtain Falls. Beautiful. And I had skied this river earlier looking for this silly portage for hours, but my skis are over six feet long. So I weigh 180 pounds and 180 pounds over two six foot long skis, your weight spread out pretty well. Well I took my skis off and I was just booting it around. And so now my 180 pounds is over my, I don't know, my one foot long foot in my ski boot. And I tapped the ice with my water bottle and I just fell right through because all of that weight was just on one spot. Which is such, for a person that's lived on ice for so long, it was a rookie mistake. Hands down.
Shelby Stanger:
In my mind though, that could have been really deadly. If you didn't get out the right way. How did you get out?
Emily Ford:
So for anybody who ever falls through the ice is, a, you don't get hypothermia right away. Hypothermia does take time to settle in. Number two is remember that you were once upon a time on top of the ice, it's probably behind you. So when you get in the water, turn around to where good ice is and just like on a pool edge, you can put your elbows up or some people use ice picks and you just kick your legs as fast as you can to get yourself out of the water. And then the next hardest part, which is a mental block for a lot of people, is you have to roll in the snow because snowflakes are 90% air and love to soak in moisture. And so it'll soak that water off of you instead of it soaking into your clothes. And then after that, of course getting warm, taking off your clothes, getting dry clothes on, blah blah blah, blah, blah.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow, that would've been so scary to me.
Emily Ford:
I mostly just felt stupid. I made a rookie mistake.
Shelby Stanger:
What was Diggins doing the whole time?
Emily Ford:
Sleeping. She was sleeping the whole time.
Shelby Stanger:
That is so classic. Okay. What were some of the best experiences of the Boundary Waters?
Emily Ford:
Oh man. Besides the scenery, I don't know, man. It's pretty freaking gorgeous out there. Living out there was the best thing ever. Because there's no, there's literally no internet out there, so everything is just back to you. And every night, so with the type of tent I had, it's like a polar expedition tent, there's the tent part where you sleep in where it's all enclosed, but then there's a vestibule, which has no bottom. And the lakes can have anywhere from one to three feet of snow on them. So you can dig out this little living space, you can build little shelves, little cubbies and all this stuff. And I would build my little shelter every night, start boiling water, and I'd play ukulele pretty much every night. I'd sing songs for Diggins every night and kind of what you're talking about, reentry, right? This was like the most simplified living I had lived in a very long time and it just fed me so much internally.
Shelby Stanger:
One thing that Emily knows how to do is focus on what she needs and enjoys. She's taking on big expeditions in harsh conditions, but not to set records or prove herself. Emily's doing it for the sole joy of adventuring in the snow. While many people stay inside and cozy up during winter, Emily gets out into the elements. No one has ever made me want to go out into winter the way Emily has. She makes it sound like the most beautiful snow globe or perfect holiday card come to life.
Emily Ford, thank you so much for coming on the show. Our team loved your interview and I honestly, I hope we get to have you back on when you check off some of the next items on your adventure list. For her next feat, Emily is planning on through hiking the Appalachian Trail in the wintertime. Down the line, she might even become a triple crowner, which means she'll hike the entire Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. But of course she wants to do them all in, you guessed it, the winter. To follow along in Emily's adventures you can follow her on Instagram @emilyontrail. If you're old school, as Emily put it, you can also check out her website, emilyontrail.com.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is a part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Annie Fassler and Sylvia Thomas of Puddle Creative. And Annie is excited to go snowshoeing with her husband and young son this winter in Mount Hood in Oregon. Her secret is to take some hot cocoa and a thermos and leave it in her car to make the ride home extra cozy. Our senior producer is Chelsea Davis and our associate producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow this show, when you rate it, and when you take the time to write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.