A few weeks ago we got back from what might be our favorite trip so far as a little family (Jackson, Kona, and myself). We spent seven days in Colorful Colorado and winded down our adventures in Salida where we stayed at the Simple Lodge and Hostel. We were able to walk pretty much everywhere we wanted to go and Kona was welcomed in as eagerly as we were.
As we settled into the final stretch of our vacation in a small community of fellow adventurers, we got to talking to our host, Tony Ondrus. Tony thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2015 and my jaw dropped when I realized that’s the same year Jackson did his thru-hike. At some point, Jackson had passed Tony on the trail (likely when Tony had to dip off for a few weeks to fight Lyme Disease). Who knows how close these two came to meeting that year, but three years later the three of us were in Salida, Colorado chatting about adventure, travel, and life. Naturally I had to ask if we could do a full-fledged interview.
Tony obliged so we poured some more wine and started recording.
Lindsey: How’d you end up here?
Tony: In 2015 I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail after a bout of depression that lasted about 3 years prior to hiking. I had never backpacked a day in my life, so my my first backpacking trip was 2,000 miles on the AT.
Lindsey: Why the AT?
Tony: It was the only trail I really new about. A couple of friends had attempted it and not made it past Hot Springs, NC. I grew up fishing and hiking, no backpacking, just day hikes. I kind of thought that, after hearing some stories and doing some reading and research, about people’s re-connection to wild spaces and nature, [it being] very therapeutic so I wanted to get out of Ohio, and I wanted an extended escape and I thought that the idea of a thru-hike seemed very appealing. That’s how I wound up on the AT, not really knowing what I was doing; with a 52 pound pack with way too much stuff!
Jackson: Were you scared?
Tony: Absolutely. Absolutely. Like I said, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just thought, “I’m gonna try this.” But also, I did so much research! I decided about a year before that that was what I was going to do. So I spent the year leading up to the hike doing research, watching videos on YouTube of course, and nailing down my gear. Still, I had a 52 pound pack.
Jackson: I’m sure that changed.
Tony: Oh yeah. By the time I reached Damascus my base weight was probably down to like 20.
It changed my life. Within four months I realized I wasn’t depressed anymore. I still suffered some anxiety and some issues on the trail, but I was so involved with hiking that I didn’t realize my issues were just… going away. And then one day I noticed they were gone. So I decided I needed to do something to give back and joined a conservation core. Which, I joined an American Conservation experience based out of South Lake Tahoe in California. I had a really great trail season living in the backcountry in the Sierra Nevadas working on the Shepherd’s Pass Trail. It is arguably the hardest trail in the Sierra Mountains and it was really tough.
Jackson: Why is it the hardest?
Tony: You’ve just got really gnarly elevation gain. From the trailhead to the top of the pass I think it’s about 12 miles. Our basecamp was 10 miles in. Even from the trailhead to basecamp, there was an elevation gain of like, 7,000 feet. Which is, you know, they say a thousand feet per mile is really really tough, so it wasn’t quite that, but the first 5 miles were super tough, because you go from about 6,000 feet to 11,000 feet within 5 miles. Then you drop down 2,000 feet and then shoot back up 2,000 feet within a mile. It’s super steep.
Jackson: So average elevation doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.
Tony: Exactly. It’s like a roller coaster. And then, you get to basecamp and you’re still not at the pass. From Anvil Camp, you’ve got a pretty steep headwall to climb in the last mile up to the pass. You’re last mile of hiking is really, really steep. So we got a National Parks pass for the summer we were out there, it got us into all California National Parks. We weren’t Forest Service employees, but with a conservation core you usually partner with a government agency, whether it’s Land Management, Forest Service, or the Park Service. That year we were living in the Inyo National Forest and they got us passes because we were going to be out there for four months. We had mules delivering our food every Tuesday. We technically weren’t supposed to hike out; and I did that more than anyone on my crew. A couple of them I had to… I guess the longest time I stayed in the backcountry was 42 days and in those 42 days I spent our off days in King’s Canyon and Sequoia basically just climbing routes up and over the Great Western Divide and bagging fourteeners. Califorinia’s fourteeners don’t have trails up to them like Colorado’s do, except Mt. Whitney. It’s all bushwacking or just cross-countrying up the mountain. We took turn planning routes. I had a fantastic season with ACE and then last year I applied to be a crew leader with the Southwest Conservation Core here in Salida and I led a crew on a fourteener down in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, on Kit Carson.
Tony explained to us that Mt. Kit Carson sits near the town of Crestone and recommended if we ever get the chance to visit this weird-in-the-absolute-best-way mountain town, we absolutely should. Tony described Crestone as a place that formed when someone decided there should be a place where all religions could be practiced and celebrated. (Sounds like what our country claims to be, right?) From what I was told, Crestone has created this place successfully, and in town you’ll find a very different mix of people living happily.
Tony: So I worked with this trail crew called the Rocky Mountain Field Institute and we built a reroute. One thing I think people don’t know about fourteeners, and in Colorado there’s a lot of them, I think 53 or 54, is that reroutes are necessary and they’re going on across state, and it’s gonna take a long time to do this, but most of these routes up to the top just went straight up the mountain. People don’t naturally hike in switchbacks. These trails were never actually built in the first place; these are just routes that people took. What you start to see is one straight path up a mountain, which creates massive erosion issues. We call it fall line trail, which is where water just runs straight down the trail and it gullies out the trail. The trail just ends up becoming a huge ditch. In the past 30-40 years, sustainable trail building has come a long way. That’s what makes switchbacks necessary. That’s why you outslope your trail at a grade of 5% so that you can allow water to run off the trail. Anything more than 5% and the trail is going to erode away… Eventually it’s all going to erode away. But trail building in the sustainable sense is erosion mitigation. That’s what I’ve gotten into. So to answer your original question, that’s what brought me here.
Tony wants to live the “dirtbag life” but for now he intends to keep working seasonally until he earns his Triple Crown. For anyone reading who might not know: a Triple Crown in the thru-hiker community is hiking the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. Tony wants to be involved with outdoor sustainability whether he’s working on a trail crew or even being a backcountry ranger.
Lindsey: Why? What about the trails draws you?
Jackson: What about sustainability draws you?
Tony: I think that we live in an age where more and more people are going outside and I think with the added traffic to these areas it’s creating a lot of issues. That’s just one side of the coin… the other is that we live in a time where, with so many focused on the acquisition of land and resources for profit, sustainability is kind of thrown out the door. That’s not to say that there aren’t people who care, but I think most of the people that do care aren’t in a position to do as much. We live in a crucial time for impacting sustainability. So if I can somehow get involved and maintain these passions then I can be one more person that cares about maintaining these wild spaces.
Jackson: So I think that’s interesting, I mean, even if you can help preserve one trail, that’s worth it to you, right?
Tony: Absolutely. Trails are important. And a lot of people don’t see it that way. On my very first trail crew we had people from the Sierra Club in Bishop, California that would hike up, and they hated us. They didn’t like us because we were maintaining a part of trail that the Forest Service had at one point said they were going to let naturalize. And that was at the very top of Shepherd’s Pass. They gave us crap for making it stock passable. They said they didn’t want stock on their trails, that it’s erosive and now gone from a 2 foot wide bench to a 3 foot wide bench and it’s encouraging erosion. In some ways these arguments are valid. I’m not going to tarnish organizations like the Sierra Club. However, I think people fail to miss the point sometimes. Why build trails in the first place? The reason you build a trail, and it does require destruction, but if you can provide a narrow corridor that is very accessible to people, then the majority of people are going to follow that. People are going to be going outside anyway, even if you don’t build the trail, but if you build a trail it allows for less routes and less erosion on a macro level. So you destroy a little bit of nature in an effort to preserve the rest of it.
We established that we could talk about this topic for hours; we could discuss the pros and cons of trail building, the efforts of Leave No Trace, the thoughts on the federal government’s involvement with trails, etc. We talked about conservation and what that really means to us; taking care of where we live. And if we’re not taking care of where we live, we’re not really taking care of ourselves. It’s like leaving your own a home a disaster and then forcing others to come live there, too. We ALL have to live here, so we need to care of it for the sake of others but also ourselves.
Jackson: It seems like you’re super passionate about conservation and trail building. I’d like to ask you to look at it this way, where are you most happy?
Tony: I’m hiking a trail.
Jackson: Why is that?
Tony: Honestly, I’m still trying to answer that question. I don’t know what happened to me on the AT in 2015. I think there’s many reasons… I think that it allows me many opportunities. I get to explore the world and see these places that the majority of people don’t get to experience. There’s true beauty in nature. And it allows me to reflect on my own life in many ways. I guess I’m still trying to answer that question. But there’s a lot of power in our natural spaces and it’s a power I’m still getting familiar with. There truly is something beyond us to experience outside.
So whatever it is, it adds substance to my life.
Jackson: So what advice would you give to someone who finds themselves like us in this “in-between” stage of life?
Tony: Well, I love long distance hiking. It’s a shame that some day hiking doesn’t do it for me anymore. You know there’s some people who say that thru-hiking ruins you and I can see that because, there’s just something about the journey and the people you meet. You’re all sharing in this struggle together and there’s this camaraderie that you share. On trail crews I find the same thing. And it’s hard, but you have other people to latch onto. I’ve gotten to know more about some people in 6 months on a trail than I have knowing friends back home for 6 years.
Again, I don’t know exactly what it is about the outdoors that makes it fulfilling for my life. It might be community or just being in nature or recognizing the importance of wild spaces and the need to look out for it and protect it.
But, going back to your question… which was?
Lindsey: What kind of advice can you give someone who is thinking, “How do I find fulfillment in life when I have no idea what I want to do? How can I be happy when I’m so lost?”
Tony: I think the real answer, for me at least, is I don’t know… Right before I hiked the AT a good friend that I was in a band with committed suicide. His name was Garrett and our friend started an organization called the Last Letter Project because he had written a lot of letters to friends and only two of those letters ever go out… I’ve-I’ve thought a lot about this question. Clearly, I was in a really negative state of mind and my friends knew it. Garrett was in a really negative state of mind and no one knew it. I’ve thought a lot about… what can you do to find fulfillment in life? I was fortunate enough to find the AT and find my sense of purpose. What I want to do now is help protect what has changed me and made me a better person.
Tony gave a speech to honor his friend where he talked about these things and said that one friend approached him after to tell him that first, he was nuts for hiking a trail like that, but also, he had been taking notes the entire time Tony was talking and one thing had stood out. Tony had said: “You need to really go out there and take a calculated risk and take a stab at at least one or two of those things that you think might make you happy. Just go try it out. It might mean having to quit your job or something else that scares you. But if you think it’s going to start putting you in the right direction then just go and do it.”