I respect how careful you are about talking about depression. I wasnt always depressed, its from my life experience. I suffer and my husband does not. It's hard for him to help me and I can tell he struggles to understand completely. It's the one thing that scares me about going on trail. It will be a battle, one day I hope I'm ready for it.
I followed Appalachian Adventurista her whole hike. One of my favorite. It was organized and well done. She’s very interesting and shared great content. I still look forward to her posts.
I could really relate saying goodbye to your loved one a second time after being gone. My first experience was attending Army basic training and my wife came out to my graduation and then having to say goodbye for the second time and still having to finish another six months of training. That second goodbye was super tough. Since then I’ve been deployed overseas multiple times and it’s still never easy saying goodbyes to family and friends . Kudos to you for staying strong and finishing your hike.
As a silver-haired hopeful AT hiker I want to thank you both for your stories which I find encouraging re my own goals. Deep hearted gratitude to you both for the honest discussion regarding depression and how it affected you leaving the trail. Thank you 🙏🏻 I am grateful
I ran into Ali in NJ when we both picked the same stealth camp site last June. She and her friends we all super friendly. Love her videos! Great guest Kyle!
I'm turning 44 next week and I have been obsessed with thru hiking the AT for years now. I have a career. I have a family. 1 kid still at home and very involved in sports. I keep telling myself to stop obsessing because it's never gonna happen. Obviously can't take 5 months off work. I so admire these younger people that accomplish this dream that seems so inaccessible for me. Keep hiking!
Same here. I took 3 weeks off a couple times. It gave me a taste of through hiking. Just long enough to get trail legs. It was a bit tough re adjusting when I got back.
GREAT interview. There are so many good discussions here. I did not follow you, Appalachian Adventurista....wish I had! I'm getting ready for my 3rd attempt to actually finish hiking the AT from the beginning to the end. I've hiked about 3500 AT miles. I have faced, dealt with and pondered so many of these things you've talked about. About Post Trail Depression...(I was hospitalized for major depression in the 90's) and it was an issue for me for a good chunk of my life...and I never started to win the battle with depression until I started supplementing with Vitamin D3 (WE GET IT NATURALLY FROM THE SUN!) Many thru hikers go from hiking 8 hours a day soaking up Vitamin D3 on their thru hike, to being inside all day and going off D3 'cold turkey' when they come home. I know...the green tunnel...but you are still getting some D3 through the trees, and you are not in the trees all day on the trail. . Most American's are already D3 deficient. When a thru hiker comes home, they're also not getting the endorphins they were getting from all that exercise in green spaces...which has been proven to help depression, also. I just wish more people would consider this aspect of 'Post Trail Depression'. I think people also need to consider that it's difficult to get the proper nutrition on trail. After 6 months of abusing the body nutrtionally, it can't help but start breaking down. There really is something to the 'gut-brain' connection. Anyway..just my 'old fart' two cents on that subject. If anyone stumbles upon this comment, and you are suffering depression, please consider getting your Vitamin D3 levels checked. I appreciated the discussion on hiking partners. I hiked alone on attempt 1 and 2 by choice, but am considering hiking with a partner this time if the right one comes along. You brought up a lot of great points and things to think about as far as how the social aspect of the trail affects you mentally. Also appreciated the discussion on filming the hike. This will be my first time to film a hike, and I'm nervous about it and worried about the time it will take, and how much it might possibly take away from the hiking experience. Thanks for a great interview.
45:21 I SO appreciate that you didn't totally edit this section! I think it's incredible and exactly what the people need to see.. Someone modeling working through difficult subjects and changing opinions. I'm sure it can't be easy to be so vulnerable, but thank you Kyle for doing some good where you can with your platform ♡
I found (Aly's) Appalachian Adventurista's vlog on YT around the time she made her announcement that she was going to thru hike the AT. She seems very authentic/real and It was such a joy to follow her journey. Watching her vlog became the thing that I looked forward to on Saturday mornings. She really has inspired me to try longer hikes myself. I am looking forward to seeing what adventures she will get into in the future.
Thank you, both of you. I am feeling a little down after a whole 9 months of hiking every weekend in preparation for the AT in 2025 and now, waiting for the winter weather to dissipate, I can’t help but think there is a physical withdrawal that happens from the physical aspects of the trail. Even if not, it the depression is real. Feel better and thanks for the great content. You are amazing!
You probably are having seasonal affective disorder induced by the huge shift in exercise and light. Get some cross country skis, snowshoes, or microspikes / shoe grippy things like yaktrax but not the springs kind because those suck, so you can safely do outdoors stuff in winter. You probably already have trekking poles and with a few bucks, or a couple of nutella lids and a drill, you can put snowbaskets on them and use them for winter activities. (I'm only half kidding about the nutella lids...they do work, but they crack in the drill hole easily, but you could duct tape them and they would seriously actually do the trick in a pinch.) You could try renting gear from any number of places to hopefully get an idea of what kind of features work for you or not in snowshoes or skis before you invest in some, or you could just start out with cheapies. If you hate falling, then maybe go for snowshoes, but if gliding along sounds fun and you don't mind falling, then you might like skis instead. It just depends on where you want to go and what you want to do. If you want to be able to go up hill in skis, you can do that with skins. They give you traction uphill but let you slide downhill. Or you could just drop 500 on fatty backcountry skis that have traction built-in. I think skins would even make it easier on the flat, and I wish I knew about such things years ago. I might have actually liked cross country skiing. If you want to just walk- As far as traction for shoes- just avoid the kind with springs wrapped around the rubber. Those suck, but the kind with little cleats are good. I walked about a half mile on an entirely iced sidewalk in alaska last spring with the kind with little spikes, and they worked BEAUTIFULLY. I always use them around town in winter anyway, but that iced sidewalk along a highway on the way to a frozen lake was a good test, and they were awesome. For iced up trails, you'll need something more aggressive, like borderline crampons, but with not much money, except the skis, you could be out doing stuff in the winter. Just don't try to wear them into stores because you'll be in danger of slipping on the hard floors, and stay off linoleum or softwood floors...best to just stay off wood floors entirely. I get away with walking on our wood floors carefully without damaging them, but softwood can be damaged, and probably some laminates.
Growing up in Tennessee, near the Smokies, only northern transplants pronounced it App- A-Lay-chan. My best friend, a transplant from Long Island, New York, insisted it was pronounced that way. I always replyed "Not by East Tennesseeans. Sorry. You can pronounce anyway you want but don't be surprised when locals respond...Where are you from? Your were obviously not born here." Haha We are in our 50's now and he still tells people that he is from New York and never mentions that he's lived the majority of his life in Tennessee. Afraid they'll think he's a hillbilly. What's wrong with being a hillbilly? 😊
If you're from Appalachian North where linguistically we use the long A in speech, it's Apple aye chan. If you're from Appalachian South it's ah pull ah shun. The mountains go through multiple regions with multiple speech quarks. North Appalachian is old England and old France. Speech pronunciations stem mostly from those two demographics. Southern Appalachia stems from Scots and Scots Irish. Just call it the Central Pangean Highlands, that will throw them off.
@@findingmyway2788 ok..... Not sure what that was all about. I'm mostly talking about groups of European occupying certain regions and pronunciation stemming from it. Thing with a lot of native language and history and those languages being extinct, no one knows. Here's a good example as to why different areas bordering different tribes who have their own name for said group can be different. Ethnographer John Reed Swanton wrote that Apalachee may have come from the Hitchiti language term for "people on the other side" or the Choctaw language word apelachi meaning "a helper."[4] It has sometimes been spelled Abalache, Abalachi, or Abolachi.[5] Who's to say when some French or Spanish explorer asked for a name and the language given was E'kptlakquiea and that explorer said "We don't put those sounds together in my language. Appalacee is the closest I can come up with, so that's who you are now. There's hundreds of examples of that in historical North America and thousands around the world. Like how we'd say "German" when they'd say "Deutsch" or we say Japan when they say Nippon. So you're 100% correct, it isn't an English word. It's a word that could be from the tribe, it could be from their neighbors and translated badly to French or Spanish.
Love this episode. Two REAL people having a great conversation. Thank you both for your openness and honesty. Also, north easterner here so I grew up saying appa-lay-shun.
I am from north Georgia but I pronounce it like the northerners . I got the pronunciation from my mom who is from Pittsburg PA . They also pronounce it that way on National Geographic so that is good enough for me !
I really don't care how the AT is pronounced correctly. I'm from germany, listening and enjoying this podcast when commuting to my office by bike. So just wanted to say thx for the entertainment and information i get from this great podcast. Do have some german trails in the planning, but the big ones in the US seem to be what i am looking for on long perspective. Ok, the french Hexatrek also seems promising - maybe you'll find someone who did it to interview in your podcast :).
Thank you both, especially Appalachian Adventurista, for talking about depression, but also about the social aspects of the AT. I wonder if I could lobby for a bubble start date just for introverts….
Followed Ali the whole trail. I was so happy she discussed several different things throughout her blog that I had not watched on any other hiking channel. I will say that Summit Sam also fit into that category.
Appalachian State University is pronounced apple latch un. But, those mountains run up north, too, so pronounce it however you want. Loo a vul, pee can; keep all the fun varieties of language! Great video. Thanks!
I hiked 1,000 miles of the AT in 2003. I was so thrilled to stumble upon your channel today. It was the hardest, and coolest thing I've ever done. I did GA-Harpers Ferry. I was done at that point. 😂 I flew home back to Orlando, then drove up to NH a month later to meet my guy who kept hiking from HF. I will say hiking the Presidential Range and Mr. Washington was very hard, and humbling.
I’m a Vermonter too. I also say it like Kyle. It’s definitely regional. And you explained it well because Appalachia is a region of the country with a strong cultural identity and for those of us in Vermont it’s a mountain range/orogeny that extends into our neck of the woods and a trail that goes through our small state. Aly didn’t mention if she had gone to a counselor or sought professional help for her depression. I’m sure it’s something others have dealt with.
The pronunciation really is regional and neither is wrong. In the southern Appalachians there is a culture that doesn’t exist in the North. Sadly, many people who embrace it as a culture think that saying it App-a-lay-shun is a slight on them and some get very angry about it. I grew up in the Appalachian range, above the Mason/Dixon, so it is my home too and I say it App-a-lay-shun. I won’t correct others about how they pronounce the name of their home and I’ll thank others to not correct me on how I pronounce mine.
Great topics! Allie is so open ❤ take care hun! Kyle, heavens you rambled! Pause, formulate the question or sentence in your mind and then say it. We all know she is a very pretty girl… 💕😄
I grew up in Maryland and it was App uh lay shun. I moved away and after 25 years moved to North East West Virginia and found out it’s App uh latchun. It was almost easier to learn to pronounce new words in Hawaii.
When I moved to Maryland, I became friends with West Virginia folks, so I picked up the West Virginia pronunciation. I still have no idea what the "right" way to say it is
I do think it is interesting that the pronunciation is so different from region to region, here in southern Ohio I find most people are with Kyle, but as soon as I cross into Kentucky with some of my “southern” friends, they look at you like you’re crazy. Especially because I technically live in the Appalachia
21:35 here in NC we say Appalachian, with the "l-a" being pronounced like the "l-a" in "laugh" or "lacquer", but there's a town in NY spelled Appalachin and for some reason they pronounce it "Appalakin", which makes absolutely no sense to me lol
I’m from TN 24:57 and I say it with the ch like chuck, either way it is said, as long as we know what your saying, how it is said isn’t important. IMHO
I’m From CA., near Yosemite and went to AT trail days in 2023 and backpacked a teeny part of the trail., etc., for 1st time and learned about the IMPORTANCE of saying Appalachia correctly…depending. I understand a bit about this: San Francisco for instance if coming from Southern CA., you say, frisco or San Fran. In Northern CA., they’d tease you and say Bay Area and closer in you’d just say the city. I live in Tuolumne County. Pronounce that? 😊 I won’t judge.
New to the channel I have watched a few episodes, I like the content. Constructive criticism, don't ask a question to your guest then go straight into your own story on it let them talk.
To be fair, Ive heard it discussed that the Apalachee people for whom the mountains are named, don't have a hard "a" sound in their language. Therefore, the correct pronunciation would be a soft "a" Also, its a ''ch'', not a ''sh"' like some folks use.
For myself, as I aged I learned to handle depression. Old people always say "I wish I was young again", but you will never hear me say that! Once I went through a couple real traumas I got way better at handling my depression. To be honest , what helped me was to realize my whole world revolved around how I felt. When all that really mattered ( to me) was how others felt, and how my depression effected them. I play the "what am I thankful for game" this truly helped me, I may feel a bit low, but I have not suffered clinical, I want to kill myself, depression in almost 20 years. I live one day at a time. I swear by my little game. I eat healthy and get help for my insomnia. All of that really helps.
This was a great interview! You guys are great!! Just wondering if anybody has heard from badbat hikes? I'm binge watching her journey now, a year later. Such a bright spirit. Yea.. I'm just hoping she's ok.
I grew up calling it Appalachia (big "A" sound)... then I found an area in Florida called Apalachicola (Little "a/e" sound)... now, I go back and forth depending on who I'm talking to.. but I secretly know that it is the latter that is correct.
That latter is correct because that word is an AmerIndian Muskogean dialect and as far as I can tell they did not use long "A"s. It's an agglutinative language so all those morphenes have individual meanings Apalachicola means something like "people on the other side" and you could correlate each one of those sounds ie A pa la cha to the meaning of those English words.. I suspect some academic gave Appalachian a Latinized pronunciation to fit in with other scientific naming of things. He who writes the books can choose the names.
I think that both are fine, but when I learned that locals say it with the short A I figured they get to decide what the right way to say it. I mean, that is kinda how it goes. Say however you want, but don’t correct the folks who live there. And don’t make fun of how they say it. If they correct you, don’t argue, just smile and go on with your day.
So as someone who suspects they may have the capital D Depression..i see you stumbling over, and being careful with that word. And its something ive struggled with too, but really what I believe is happening is that there are different applications for this word, when it comes to mood One is the common, short term depression. you get this when youre grieving or going through a difficult transition. This is depression. But it occurs as a matter of circumstance, and I personally would not say that its any less difficult when youre in the thick of it ...and then you have what you called 'actual' depression, also known as Clinical Depression...which, you know...is the form thats NOT temporary and not brought about only through circumstance. The kind that brough about through brain chemistry and is life long. So, similar feelings but one is a temporary state while the other is a medically chronic state. and again, i appreciate how careful youre being. I just want to affirm that both versions are 'actual' and real depression.
I don’t know why this book didn’t gain traction like say, Wild, but though it is PCT based, the book, “the cactus eater” is an excellent read for anyone who hikes, backpacked, has thru hiked or attempted. Thru hike.
As a kid I an Appalachian story teller came to my school. Once I grew up and had kids of my own they also heard the same story teller perform. She always started every performance telling the audience that Appalachia is pronounced like "throw an 'apple at-cha'". I feel like I'd be letting Kathy Coleman down if I pronounced it any other way.
Pecan broke me. 😀 Kidding, not kidding. Everyone knows how to say it but everyone knows something different. And they are so passionate. So now I don't care about any of that. Mostly.
I’ve definitely heard the word adventurista before. Not sure where I first heard it but surely somewhere on social media. There are a bunch of Instagram handles with that word in it. One is from 2013. Not sure if that one was the first though. It’s so funny how mad people can get about the pronunciation of Appalachian. It’s totally a regional thing. I used to use the long A before I researched the origin of the name, and now I use the short A.
I see the word "turista" in there which is Spanish for tourist (sort of) so a little word play to be sure but it makes sense, a person who engages in adventure touring.
I say App-ah-LATCH-a (you’ve probably heard the “throw an ‘apple at ya’” phrase) and I’m from western NC. I do think that some people from the southern end of the mountains do have far too much experience with negative stigma based on assumptions and stereotypes of the region and so to be told that you’re pronouncing the name of the land you know and love intimately “incorrectly” is one insult too many. I love regionalisms and I have no problem with how anyone says it…assuming they are respectful in return. It’s like someone having the nerve to correct the way you say your own name. It’s that presumption, and the stink of judgement that comes with it, of someone feeling they are entitled to correct you. Btw, in all your shows I’ve seen or heard, you are respectful and I love hearing the perspective of someone who knows the other end of the mountain range. If you ever look into folk traditions in the Appalachians, it is fascinating to discover that they can vary from one side of a single mountain to the other, or from one valley to another. Many people underestimate the complexity of Appalachian history.
Appalayshin north of the Mason/Dixon. Appalahchin south of the Mason/Dixon. General speaking. Mostly everyone in the world says Appalayshin except the few southern states that were of the original 13 😉 I'm Canadian, from Ontario. I knew of the Appalchian mountain range pretty much my whole life, and always pronounced it Appalayshin. Then I moved to the foothills of North Carolina in 2003, where they say Appalahchin, and I think my head just about spun off my shoulders like Linda Blair in the Exorcist 😂 They sure pronounce A LOT of things differently than folks do everywhere else! It's like a whole different language. I lived there 7 years and became quite fluent and had to re-learn my native Canadian when I moved back home 😂 Pronounce it however you want. We all know what you're talking about. 😁
Reading her perspectives was definitely a treat!!! Not sure I should tag her site here, but if you’re lucky enough to find them… 💗💗💗 She’s a pretty rad human.
Thinking abt the pronunciation it's weird i pronounce it the northern way as it applies to the trail but the southern way when describing yhe people who live there...
I live in the Appalachian Mountains in the South. Basically people that live here in the mountains pronounce it. “Appa-latchin”. I have noticed outsiders and Yankees pronounce it Appalachian. Either way is fine though. Just depends on your culture.
A) Spelling is a relatively new invention. B) The two p's in Appalachain would indicate to me a deliberate attempt to break up the affect of the a's in the pronunciation. To me, the Southern pronunciation seems to be what is written. C) Language is an ever shifting construct that will always be a matter of politics, loyalties, and tribes. Which isn't to say that cultural erasure, or the passing of a language into the land of the dead, is not a tragedy. However, to imagine that language can continue without the pollution of power struggles, must be taken as a very fond, very idealized, dream, most often encouraged as a power play, or as a sweet display of loyalty to the same political ends, and not as an innocent reflection of base reality. D) Why is it important that we police the structure of words as others speak them, when the chief characteristic of note is a kind of mood evoked by the way of telling? What is it about words that has the power to feel like a spell cast upon all and sundry, when spoken? Why is the instinctive response to deviation so often some form of rule making?
It's an AmerIndian agglutinative word, that is, each syllable used to be it's own word - or still is if you speak the language - Apalachicola basically means "other side of the river" and each one of those syllables/words means something equivalent in the English.
AppalAchian (long “A” sound like “ate”) has always been my preference because it’s just easier to say. It rolls off the tongue. AppaLATCHian is almost a struggle to say and feels like it adds another syllable in a barely perceptible pause after the “tcha” sound. And I don’t care how other people say it, but will get defensive if someone comes at me over my own pronunciation - ya want to say it a certain way, don’t make that pronunciation so unintuitive.
I don’t care about the pronunciation of Appalachian but for some reason it bothers me when people pronounce cairn like Karen. Cairn is one syllable not two.
Cairn is 1 syllable and the Appalachian mountains were named after a NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBE-The Appalachee. It’s incredibly disrespectful to their language and people not to pronounce it correctly.
This one's easy. Go ask members of the Apalachee First Nation (Wikipedia says they live in the Central Florida Panhandle, 400 miles south of the Apalachian Mountains) how _they_ pronounce "Apalachian"! It sure would be funny if neither (is that neether or is that niither?!) of the AT pronunciation fanatics are right!
Hahaha, AppaLATCHian vs AppalaCHIAN. Our channel is still new, but I’ve gotten a number of comments on the way I’ve always said it. I’ve tried to correct it so it’s said “right,” 😂 I don’t know what to do. I’m realizing I can’t please everyone. 🤪
i came into a shelter outside hanover, that was full of the dartmouth lesbian club, they where not happy i was there but i tryed to be nice and mind my own business by the snippy comments where always out loud
They don’t tell you how vain RU-vid vloggers can be. I guess, once they get over the celebrity of each other, they’ll get on with “Things they don’t tell you about the Appalachian Trail”. The one thing, the elephant, no one says it, although it’s implied everywhere…. No matter how dialed in your gear, no matter how you’ve bowed to the god of ultralight, no matter the quality of gear, no matter how well you pack, you have to CARRY IT ALL, on your back. This includes your body weight. Yep, even if you lose a lot of weight during the hike, you still have to CARRY IT ALL. Carrying all that gear, for 10 or more hours, everyday, for months without end, is not what we do. You will have to sleep, eat, eliminate waste, wash and dry, walk, rest, lounge/relax, get used to the weather, the hot, the cold, uninterrupted days of dry, the uninterrupted days of wet, the windy, EVERYDAY OUTDOORS.
Im that guy. 4 am, at work by 430-445, humping granite slabs uphill bothways, in 2ft of snow, with both my hands broke....yall are pussies 😉. I kid. Well....about the broken hands part, and the uphill BOTH ways part. Im still amazed by thru hikers. Wish i could someday. Fornow im religated to day hikes after work or weekends, or a couple multiday trips on holidays. Id love the test of will. I love everything survival based and try to spend as much time as i can honing skills for that day i finally get to make a big trip. One thing im unsure of if id like it or not, is the social aspect. I live in northern maine and MOST of the trails (though alot of times i go off trail as its an area im very familiar with) are secluded in that thers not a ton of hikers MOST of the year (most. Excluding down south where tourism is crazy) and honestly that suits me. I veeeeery much prefer isolation. So i think getting used to the fact theres more hikers than id expect would be weird for me.
