By age 25, Heather Anderson had hiked what is known as the «Triple Crown» of backpacking: the Appalachian Trail (AT), Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and Continental Divide Trail (CDT)—a combined distance of 7,900 miles with a vertical gain of more than one million feet. A few years later, she left her job, her marriage, and a dissatisfied life and walked back into those mountains.<br><br> In her new memoir, <i>Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home</i>, Heather, whose trail name is...
Despite her success setting a self-supported Fastest Known Time record on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013, Heather “Anish” Anderson still had such deep-seated insecurities that she became convinced her feat had been a fluke. So two years later she set out again, this time hiking through mud, rocks, and mountain blazes to crush her constant self-doubt and seek the true source of her strength and purpose.<br><br> The 2,180 miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia, did not...