Lauren Mullen

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This time last year, I was planning for my 2025 Appalachian Trail thru hike. After completing a thru hike of the Colorado Trail in 2023 with some thrifted random gear, I was obsessed with picking my gear for the AT. Overall, I was pretty happy with all of the gear I brought along. I made a gear list of everything I was bringing back in March, and in this article, I reflect on everything I brought as candidly as possible for next year’s perspective hikers.

There are moments in life when the weight of every step taken, every storm weathered, and every mile endured gathers into a single point of light, and you realize you have arrived exactly where you were always meant to be. The Appalachian Trail is not just a path through the mountains, it is a passage through self, through community, through the endless dialogue between struggle and grace.