Go Into the Forest and Come Out Completely Different
“You were annoyed you had a heart attack?” (Can you hear the incredulity in my voice?)
“Yeah,” he confirms. “So I was giving it the middle finger by doing that.”
He is Rory “Masshole” Mulvany Moore. And that is hiking—up a country, for two months straight. Starting from a small hill in Campo, California, that kisses the expanse of desert outside Jardines del Rincón, Baja, Mexico, Rory moved toward Oregon. He climbed from desert floor to mountain rim and through wilderness, letting the miles fall behind his feet, feeling his heart expand, and sleeping beneath the stars.
One of my favorite things about nomading is the people I’m sharing the road with. While circumstances can and do play a role, life without walls very often is or becomes a deliberate choice to live differently than the “norm.” And with that comes seeing differently.
A nomadic life is, of course, not the only way to think and live outside the box and, thus, gain the kind of fresh perspective I believe we need as much of as we can get, as the “way things are” seems increasingly less viable. But it sure can do the trick.
This year, I’ll bring to the page each quarter a few of the people I’ve crossed paths with on my explorations—people chiseling routes to their own brands of fulfillment and freedom, their own ways of showing up and meeting the world, life, and its challenges. I want to share them because what they’ve found along the way sparks wonder in me. Or it gets what-if connections firing in my brain. Or they’re super cool, goodhearted people building fires in their own hearts, and I want to boost their flames. Or all of the above. I’m curious to hear what their paths spark in you.
Today, that alternate life route takes the form of thru-hiking. To thru-hike is to walk a trail from end to end. Long-distance trails often extend across an entire country or more and can take months to complete, while shorter-distance trails may span a few hundred miles. Hikers mostly sleep in tents, going into towns to resupply or shower or hit up hiker boxes, where people leave and take food, the frequency depending on a given trail’s accessibility or remoteness. Some, like Rory, do this again and again, all over the globe; it’s the way they live. (Rory lives in a van when not on a trail. And the first time we met in person was in a parking lot, where we circled each other’s vans, peeking inside and hopping up on back tires to compare solar panels. More on that later.) But first, here’s Rory and me in conversation on thru-hiking.
HS. What was your first thru-hike? And what made you decide thru-hiking was something you wanted to do?
RM. That was the Appalachian Trail in 2012.
I’d left Boston and moved to New York City. I planned to stay for five years, save a bunch of money, and just do something crazy as far as traveling, like, I don’t know, move to Australia or go travel around Africa. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. And I’d done a lot of research. I got Netflix for the first time, and I was watching a bunch of travel documentaries and came across one on the Appalachian Trail. From that moment, I was like, That. I want to do that. I’d never heard of it. And I wasn’t a hiker. But I knew. That was it. I could get fit. I could travel through weird parts of the South I’d never been to. And it would be a challenge.
[The Eastern US Appalachian Trail (the AT) (there’s an International AT in Ireland) extends 2,200 miles through 14 US states. Its southern end is in Georgia, at Springer Mountain, and its northerly end is Maine’s Mount Katahdin. The AT passes through a number of towns, making it accessible at many points, highly popular, and a good starter thru-hike. It was on the AT that Rory picked up his trail name, Masshole. “It’s a Massachusetts thing,” he says.]
HS. Did you go by yourself? And, if so, did you consider asking anyone to go with you, at least the first time?
RM. I went solo. And no. When I started really geeking out and telling friends around New York about it, they just didn’t have a clue. They were like, “Man, why are you doing this? This is weird.” I’d be in a bar in Queens talking to my friends. And people would say, “Aren’t you worried about crazy people?” And I’d say, “I live in Queens. What are you talking about? You think all the crazy people are in the woods?” I didn’t know anybody who was into anything like that.
But it wasn’t like I was showing up by myself to hike across the country alone. Several thousand people are out there every year doing it (or attempting it. So many attempt it, and only so many make it, you know.) So I knew it wasn’t something I was tackling completely solo. That would have been really hardcore.
Since then, I’ve done things more similar to solo hiking for a change from the normal thru-hiking.
But there, you hike in and out of different groups, and you meet new people. I met four people, three at the beginning of the trail. We might have lost each other for a week or two at a time and then met back up. But for the most part, we stuck together. And two of us actually finished the trail together.
HS. Are you still in contact with those three?
RM. They’re friends for life.
You can hike with somebody for four days, and they’re your best friend. Out there, there are no social tiers. You’ll be hiking with a janitor, a brain surgeon, and a nurse. You’ll meet people from all walks of life, and you’re all on the same playing field. So because of that, you get to know each other really well. You’re all out there to do the same thing. It’s unlike anything I’d ever done before. I don’t know what you would compare it to—maybe war brothers or something. And you’re with people from all around the world too. That’s probably the coolest part of it.
HS. Was there a learning curve for that first one, in terms of preparation and gear?
RM. Oh yeah. I got 500 miles in and threw out all the gear I had and bought all different gear. You usually start off really heavy and then, as you go, you realize, you don’t need this; you don’t need that.
HS. What other trails have you done since?
RM. Let’s see. The Appalachian Trail twice. The Pacific Crest Trail one and a half times. The Continental Divide one and a half times. The Pinhoti Trail in Alabama. That’s a short one, 335 miles . I’ve done the Appalachian Trail in Ireland. I made up a route to traverse Iceland. I’ve hit some small trails like the Wonderland Trail [circumnavigating Mount Rainier in Washington] a few times. I’ve done the Lost Coast Trail in California and the Colorado Trail a couple of times.
HS. You mentioned hikes that were more isolated. Which was the most remote? And are there more you plan to check out?
RM. The most remote would have been sections of the Continental Divide Trail. And in Iceland, for sure. It might have been one of the shorter long-distance routes I’ve done. But in that time, you were really out there. And, yeah. I have a big list, both in other countries and in the States.
HS. Do you have any favorite wildlife sightings or interactions?
RM. I’ve had lots of bear interactions that have been really cool. Mostly black bears. I’m not too worried about those. Grizzly bears are another story.
Once, I was hiking through Yellowstone with my hiking partner at the time. We were walking on pavement to get to the trail and noticed a gravel road we could take instead. We got about 4 miles down that road and noticed a lot of grizzly bear activity, torn-up trees and scat and all sorts of other stuff. But we were in Yellowstone, so there were grizzlies. We got a few more miles in—saw more and more stuff and were really wondering what was going on—and we came across a sign saying scientists were studying grizzly bears here. This was the Yellowstone carcass dump. If you hit a deer or elk on the road, if other animals left a carcass behind, it would go to this spot. So biologists would come here to tag bears. We realized we were in danger, and we got out of there.
Wild horses. I almost got run over by a herd of them—these beautiful, calico-colored horses. And I’ve also walked around a lot of wild horses, especially in Wyoming. They’re really something.
I’ve seen cougars. I’ve been lucky; I’ve probably seen everything out there to see in terms of wildlife. But it’s not happening all the time like people think. They know we’re out there. We smell weird. They smell us from miles away. They get out of the way. But I obviously see them a lot more than people who aren’t doing that kind of stuff.
HS. Do you think it’s changed your relationship with nature?
RM. I didn’t grow up as an outdoorsy person. I was new to the whole thing. So I have a huge appreciation that I never had before. Before, I would drive by something pretty, and I’d go, “Wow, that’s beautiful.” But now I understand rock formations. I understand the absolute peace you can find in nature. You just look at everything differently.
I think being out there just changes people in a lot of ways. There are so many benefits. You can walk through different mental things. A lot of people are out there walking the war out them.
HS. Speaking of walking through stuff, was it a year ago you had some health issues?
RM. Just this last March, yeah. It just kind of popped up on me. I had a heart attack, which was pretty annoying because I had quit drinking and smoking about five years ago. But it’s a genetic thing.
And to be honest, for me—knock on wood—it really wasn’t that bad of an experience. I didn’t know I'd had a heart attack, and I had to go to the hospital two days later. I had two stents put in my heart, which took forty-five minutes. I was awake. And although I was terrified, in hindsight, it was just kind of like bing, bang, boom. I stayed in a hospital bed for a couple of nights. Then it was about a three-week recovery. Physically, it was really hard the first week. Then I got up and started walking. And it just kept getting better and better. I remember it was a Thursday to a Friday, I just snapped back to myself. It was really weird.
I asked the doctor about thru-hiking. I had put on some weight, and I didn't want to go back to work after a heart attack. I wanted to get back in shape and just be out in the wild again.
HS. So you went to the PCT, right?
RM. Yeah, it was the PCT again. It had been about ten years since I’d hiked it the first time. It was also the most accessible trail for that time of year in terms of weather. So I figured I’d go down to the Mexican border and just start walking north. I didn't know whether I’d be able to do it for a week or two or just a few days. I ended up being out there for a couple months.
[The Pacific Crest Trail extends from the US-Mexico border at Campo, CA, through California, Oregon, and Washington for 2,650 miles, ending at the US-Canada border in Manning Park, BC. On this second visit, Rory hiked 1,150 miles—the entire state of California, with the exception of the High Sierra mountain range. (He found out last minute he needed to wait six months after having stents to exceed elevations of 9,000 feet.) He also noted the PCT has gained a popularity people refer to as the Wild effect, referring to Cheryl Strayed’s memoir chronicling her PCT thru-hike.]
HS. Any funny or weird encounters?
RM. There have been peculiar situations. The Appalachian Trail, like I said, is very accessible. Anybody can just jump on the trail at certain points. So you’ll get some very colorful characters. I’m not saying they’re all bad. Not at all. But there’s for sure some eclectic people.
It’s rare, but there can be, you know, the kind of characters you don’t want out there. On the PCT, there was a predator who was going after women. The story got out. We hitched the same ride, and I realized who he was. I texted the people in the van, as well as some people both ahead of and behind me on the trail. We got him pushed off the trail.
I do want to add that people are safe out there. Some powerful bonds are developed between hikers. And they know when something’s off, when someone’s there with bad intent. People are watching out for one another.
HS. What would you say to someone who was intrigued but nervous about doing something like thru-hiking?
RM. Well, I mean, it will change your life. You’ll walk in. And when you come out, you won’t be the same as you were before—in a lot of positive ways. For one, you have that nervousness of, you know, I gotta get hitched. I gotta get a job. I gotta get that house. And all that stuff—that whole rat race—completely goes away. Because, if you can put on a little backpack and hike across the United States, you can do anything. That’s why it was easy for me to transition into vanlife afterward.
Socially, you walk away with this epic brotherhood—or humanhood. You can hike with someone for two weeks and feel like you’ve known them for twenty years. And then you can hike with someone for a few days and not see them for twenty years. And if you run into each other, they would do anything for you, and you would do anything for them, all because of those few days you spent together in the middle of the wilderness somewhere.
HS. Do you think it’s because there’s a certain vulnerability to what you’re doing out there? Or a respect you gain?
RM. I think it’s both of those things. I also think it’s that you're both out there in the middle of nowhere doing a thing not very many people do. There's no way not to bond through that.
I want to add—and this is important—not very many other people share that. So it’s also hard after trail. A huge thing is that you can experience a major depression just going from the life where you had all this freedom to the “other world.” You’re not as free. You weren’t bound by things. Going from that into this world can be really tough. And it gets worse every time.
So if you do something like this, you’ll have this big fireball inside of you. And you won't have that in common with very many. You have to stay in touch with people who you were with, who you shared time with to stay sane. You get back after a hike, and all of your friends want to hear about it, and they're genuine. But that only lasts for so long. You need to talk about trail things. You need to get on the phone.
You can get to the point where you’re just doing what you can here to get back out there.
HS. Is that happening for you?
RM. Oh that is me. It’s easy for me because of the life I lead and the job I have here. [Rory lives in a van and lays brick as an independent contractor between hikes.] But most people quit their jobs, get rid of their apartments. Some people sell their house. And there’s so much stress to get there. But the minute they step into the woods, all that goes away. And at the same time, in that time that they’re hiking, they need to figure out the rest of their lives. It’s exciting to see them go from being strung out to being free.
HS. Anything else?
RM. When you’re out there in the wilderness for six months, after a couple months, you’ve changed immensely. Even after a couple of weeks, let’s say you hit a road and a car comes by, you feel like you’ve never seen a car before. You’re taken aback.
It gets the white noise out of your head. When you start a hike it probably takes three weeks. And then your senses enhance. Your hearing gets better. Your sense of smell gets better. Your eyesight gets better. You just have a sense of things. Like you could be sitting on a log in the middle of nowhere and go, Man, I feel like something is coming. And twenty minutes later, someone comes by. You didn’t hear them. You didn’t see them. You just had the sense of them.
I recommend it to anybody.
HS. It makes me think you have a sense of the way we were in some ancient past, something about our connection with the wild and with other people, something still in our DNA maybe.
RM. Yeah I think that’s right.
I had to stop myself from pulling more photos and quotes from Rory’s socials, where he chronicles these treks. (Though I think he should be sharing on Substack. Don’t you? He has so many stories, and he’s a natural storyteller.) Follow him on Facebook at Rory Mulvany Moore or Instagram at mamatried77.
But I’ll close by saying this. Rory is generous and open. Oozing curiosity, he’s at ease with everyone he meets. I “met” him when my cousin told him I was getting into vanlife. He sent me paragraphs of information on where to find resources, camping spots, and community. We met IRL when he agreed, refusing any payment, to help me cut a 14x14-inch hole in Ruby the van’s roof to install a much-needed fan. We did the installation in one of the worst rainstorms I’ve seen in Seattle, which is saying a lot, and had a grand time.
For the comments, what does the thru-hike way of living spark in you? Would you ever want to try a trail or a segment of one? Do you think Rory should share his photos and stories in a stack of his own?
Thank you for reading, liking, and commenting. I’d love for Rory’s adventures and connection with nature, himself, and others to be shared far and wide. Pretty please, if you dug this interview, restack it or share it with a link!
Thank you for this glimpse into the soul of an adventurer. I was particularly struck by his observations about the senses expanding on these mega-hikes.
I love that Rory knew the Appalachian Trail was what he wanted to do as soon as he saw it, like a hit of magic showing him his special path.
I also love that I live in a part of the world where someone mentioning they are going to do something like that would be seen as the most normal thing ever.
A brilliant interview, thank you Holly and Rory! I think many folks would love a Substack of Rory’s adventures.