Thru-hiking talk with dirt, jokes, and detours.
Backpacker Radio treats thru-hiking as both a serious craft and a ridiculous social world. Episodes move from Appalachian Trail history and safety advice to ice cream challenges, dangerous animals, family logistics, and whatever tangent survives the banter.
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Backpacker Radio is a trail-culture hangout disguised as a long-distance hiking show. The subject matter is concrete: Appalachian Trail sections, Pacific Crest Trail fires, national scenic trail trivia, dangerous animals, food storage, hydration, gear annoyances, and the strange rituals that develop around big miles. The delivery is messier and warmer than a field guide. Episodes often start with sponsor copy, housekeeping, or a wandering setup before the real subject clicks into place. Then the show runs on interruption, correction, and momentum. A segment about the future of trails can slide from wildfire risk to reroutes in Virginia to the unsettling fact that favorite places do not stay fixed forever. A trivia bit can turn into a miniature argument about cheating, trail distances, and who gets to sit in the chair. The interviews give the show its backbone. Julia Sheehan, known on trail as Rocket, talks about social media, health issues, leaving a thru-hike, and self-publishing a memoir. Chris Brunton, aka Trail Boss, brings the kind of trail memory that turns a hard section of the Appalachian Trail into a story about land, access, surveying, and maintenance. Nikki DiGiattano, known on trail as Phoenix, expands the frame with work as a death doula and conversations about death anxiety. Even then, Backpacker Radio keeps one foot in the absurd. Ice cream challenges, last-meal orders, dangerous animals, listener hacks, and backpack hypotheticals keep the show from becoming solemn. It can be blunt about bodies, fear, parenting, trail responsibility, and bad decisions. It can also be very funny about the least dignified parts of outdoor life. The result is not polished outdoor inspiration. It is closer to overhearing experienced hikers process the trail in real time, complete with detours, jokes, and half-checked facts that get tightened as they go. Backpacker Radio works because it understands that thru-hiking is logistics, landscape, community, discomfort, ego, luck, and snack math all at once.
Made for: Best suited to long-distance hikers, backpacking-curious outdoor people, and trail-culture obsessives who like practical detail with loose conversation. It especially fits anyone interested in the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, gear habits, hiking food, and the social oddities of life on trail.
What sets it apart: Backpacker Radio stands apart by treating trail life as a whole messy ecosystem, not just routes, gear, or achievement. The show can handle maintenance history and death anxiety, then pivot to trivia, ice cream, ticks, or a listener hydration hack without losing its center.
From the Appalachian Trail to the Pacific Crest and everything in between. Backpacker Radio is a show all about the wonderful world that is thru-hiking and long distance backpacking. Co-hosts, Zach "Badger" Davis and Juliana "Chaunce" Chauncey muse on the backpacking life and the latest from the trail every other week. Topics include but are not limited to news, trail culture, interviews, gear, advice, and all you can eat buffets.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Backpacker Radio makes long-distance hiking's bodily demands, social pressures and land-management realities unusually clear without sanding away the trail culture.
Backpacker Radio treats long-distance hiking as a life lived through the body and the landscape around it. Zach "Badger" Davis and Juliana "Chaunce" Chauncey pair interviews with candid studio conversation, moving from trail construction and conservation to illness, food and the…
Trail history meets poop science, and you get the detours polite hiking guides quietly bury.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
PCT fires, a rerouted Virginia trail and studio chaos make for a loose reflection on how familiar routes change.
Backpacker Radio looks at how quickly a familiar trail can change. The hosts remember fires being rare concerns during their first seven years around thru-hiking, then describe avoiding them on the PCT since 2017 as unusually fortunate.
A candid trail conversation about health limits, public image, and the messiness behind a thru-hike.
Julia Sheehan gives Backpacker Radio a focused health-and-hiking story, tracing how a thru-hiker known on trail as Rocket moved from impulsive trail decisions to the health problems that pulled her off trail, then into the backlash that came when she shared non-hiking content…
A candid trail story about health, scrutiny, and life after a thru-hike.
Julia Sheehan, known on trail as Rocket, gives Backpacker Radio a grounded account of how thru-hiking collided with health, recovery, and online attention.
A candid, funny look at the research and trail logistics behind pooping responsibly in the backcountry.
Backcountry sanitation gets a frank, trail-level treatment, moving from when wag bags make sense to when burying human waste is framed as acceptable.
A grounded trail-maintainer story about the land, labor, and commitment behind part of the Appalachian Trail.
Backpacker Radio Pacific's conversation with Chris Brunton, known as Trail Boss, looks at Virginia's Roller Coaster stretch of the Appalachian Trail through land, maintenance, and long-term care.
A long-trail dream runs into parenting, partnership, and one badly timed trivia cheat.
The episode frames long-distance hiking as both a practical puzzle and an emotional test, starting with a backpacking trivia challenge and a shaky attempt to cheat before moving into the harder question: what it means for a parent to leave a child behind for a long trail.
Reported stories of responsibility and its consequences.
Researchers, doctors and coaches, translated into everyday health stakes.
Chris Brunton, known as Trail Boss on Backpacker Radio and the Appalachian Trail, describes how a single PATC maintenance day near Front Royal led to years of trail work.
Julia "Rocket" Sheehan describes how an AT gear photo, a Trek share, and early Instagram growth turned her into a visible thru-hiker with about 10,000 followers in 100 days.
Jared "Snackbox" Champion hiked the Colorado Trail in 2025's 50th-anniversary spirit with gear from 1974, including a JanSport D3 pack said in period ads to "easily carry" over 90 pounds.
Zach 'Badger' Davis and Juliana 'Chaunce' Chauncey start with a trivia question about the longest national scenic trail in one state.
Backpacker Radio hosts Zach and Juliana interview Sherry Edelson, a PhD student and thru-hiker researching human waste management in wilderness areas.
Trail Goss examines The Last Hike's invented hiking-death stories, including a purported Grand Canyon fatality.
Chance introduces a new bonus segment for the podcast, explaining that it will be released on Wednesdays as a shorter, standalone version of the show's segments.
A backpacking-themed podcast episode featuring a trivia question about the longest national scenic trail in one state, with playful banter and a promise of psychoanalysis.
Julia 'Rocket' Sheehan discusses her thru-hiking journey, social media backlash, and self-publishing her memoir on the Appalachian Trail.
Chris 'Trailboss' Brunton discusses his lifelong dedication to maintaining the Appalachian Trail, including building the Rollercoaster section, and the episode also covers electrolyte supplementation for backpackers.
Nikki DiGaetano, known on trail as Phoenix, explains how death-doula work provides emotional, logistical, and practical support before, during, and after death.