5 Ways to Manage Post-Trail Depression

People talk a lot about preparing for a thru-hike.

We talk about gear. Training. Resupply. Money. Mileage. Shoes. Base weight.

We don’t talk nearly enough about preparing for what happens when it’s over.

Post-trail depression is something many long-distance hikers experience, myself included. We need to get better at talking about it before hikers find themselves sitting at home, wondering why accomplishing one of the biggest things they’ve ever done doesn’t feel the way they expected it to.

Think about what you just asked your body and brain to do.

For somewhere between one and six months, you woke up almost every morning, packed nearly everything you owned onto your back and started walking.

You walked for hours.

Your problems became incredibly immediate.

Where is the next water?

Where am I sleeping?

How much food do I have?

What’s the weather doing?

How far am I going today?

You spent enormous amounts of time outside. You exercised for hours every day. You developed relationships with people who understood exactly what you were experiencing because they were experiencing it too.

Then, one day, it stops.

Of course that transition can be difficult.

A thru-hike doesn’t just change what you do.

It changes what normal feels like.

I’ve dealt with that transition myself. These are five things that have helped me over the years.

1. Go Outside and Move

This sounds almost insultingly simple.

Go for a walk.

Not 20 miles. You don’t need a backpack. You don’t need to be training for anything.

Just get outside and physically move your body.

Even years after my thru-hikes, I notice that I have a difficult time spending an entire day indoors or staying in one place all day.

That makes sense to me.

Spend five months packing everything you own every morning and walking somewhere new, and suddenly sitting in the same building all day is a dramatic lifestyle change.

Exercise isn’t a replacement for the trail. Neither is walking around your neighborhood.

But movement and time outside can preserve two enormous pieces of your trail life instead of eliminating both overnight.

2. Actually Talk to Your Trail Family

Following someone’s Instagram account isn’t the same thing as talking to them.

Call them.

Text them.

Ask them what they’re doing next.

Ask them how they’re doing.

Five of us from my 2016 Appalachian Trail thru-hike have maintained a group chat since we summited Katahdin. A decade later, that conversation still exists.

These are people who became family by choice rather than birth.

Those relationships matter immediately after a thru-hike because they’re probably going through some version of the same transition you are.

They understand why you’re having trouble explaining the experience to somebody who wasn’t there.

They understand why you miss it.

They understand why being home can simultaneously feel wonderful and completely wrong.

Staying connected isn’t only good for you.

Check on them too.

3. Put Something on the Calendar

For months, you always had something ahead of you.

The next town.

The next state.

The next mountain.

The next resupply.

The next trail-family reunion 20 miles up the trail.

Eventually, the terminus.

Then you finish, and suddenly the giant thing you’ve been moving toward every day is behind you.

Give yourself something else to anticipate.

One of the first things our group did after the AT was plan a reunion.

Eventually, trail magic became part of that tradition.

With very few exceptions, we’ve returned every year for a trail-magic weekend. It’s a lot of work. It’s occasionally frustrating. And it’s worth it every single time.

The hikers coming through probably think we’re doing it for them.

We are.

But I suspect we get more out of that weekend than they do.

For a few days, we’re together again. We’re outside. We’re part of the trail community. And every year, we know there’s another weekend coming.

Put something on your calendar.

It doesn’t have to be another thru-hike.

Just give yourself something worth looking forward to.

4. Find Another Way to Belong

One of the things we may misunderstand about post-trail depression is exactly what we’re missing.

Maybe you don’t actually miss being wet for four consecutive days.

Maybe you don’t miss ramen.

Maybe you don’t miss sleeping on the ground.

Maybe you miss belonging.

Thru-hiking gives you an instant community built around a shared experience. You can meet someone at a shelter, walk together for three days and somehow know more about that person than somebody you’ve worked beside for three years.

Going home can abruptly remove that community.

Find ways to stay involved.

Volunteer for trail maintenance. Join a local trail organization. Do trail magic. Help a hiking nonprofit. Mentor somebody preparing for a first long-distance hike. Donate your time or money. Attend hiking events.

Some people journal. Some make videos. Some start podcasts. I tried that. It had some success, but ultimately it wasn’t really my thing.

The specific activity isn’t important.

The connection is.

Find a way to remain part of the community without requiring yourself to perpetually live on trail.

5. Decide What Comes Next

You just spent months pursuing an enormous goal.

Maybe you completed it.

Maybe you didn’t.

Either way, starting a thru-hike required you to dramatically rearrange your life around something that mattered to you.

Then you come home.

Now what?

That’s a harder question than it sounds.

For some people, the answer is another hike. Great.

But the next thing doesn’t have to involve another 2,000-mile trail.

It could be a career goal.

A relationship.

A creative project.

A business.

A 50-mile hike.

Learning something completely unrelated to hiking.

Volunteering.

Whatever it is, find another direction to move toward.

Because perhaps one of the hardest parts of finishing a thru-hike isn’t that you stopped walking.

It’s that for months, you knew exactly where you were going.

Then suddenly, you don’t.

The Finish Line Isn’t the End of the Experience

We spend months preparing people to begin long-distance trails.

Maybe we should spend a little more time preparing them to come home from one.

Your appetite won’t immediately understand that you’re no longer burning thousands of calories by walking all day. Your body won’t immediately understand why you’ve stopped moving. Your relationships have changed. Your routines have changed. Your priorities may have changed.

And you may have changed too.

That’s not something that needs to be solved the morning after you finish.

But it deserves to be taken seriously.

Get outside.

Move your body.

Call your trail family.

Put something on the calendar.

Stay involved with the community.

Find something else worth moving toward.

If what you’re experiencing feels severe, persistent or unsafe, talking with a mental-health professional is not an overreaction. It’s another way of taking the transition seriously.

Because maybe the goal after a thru-hike isn’t figuring out how to become exactly the person you were before you left.

Maybe it’s figuring out what to do with the person who came back.