Backpacking Routes has been live for almost five months, and we are beyond thrilled at the response from writers and the community. Thank you all for tuning in and engaging in this project that we built because A) we wanted it to exist and B) we thought other people might want it too.
In a nutshell, the BPR mission is to assist readers in planning backpacking trips by providing route information searchable by season, difficulty, region, length, and more. We want to make the outdoors more equitable by removing barriers to entry in our sport. We want to pay each writer for their work, and our long-term goal is to help small trail organizations with publicity and trail maintenance. We have big plans. Pandemics give you lots of time to think.
The people behind BPR are all backpackers and writers who have a passion for spreading information and helping people get outdoors. We spend as much time in the woods and mountains as possible, we love our cats, and some of us work from our couches so much we leave a butt imprint in the cushion. Here’s a little bit about who we are, in both our hiking and writing lives. You can also stay updated with our biweekly newsletter. We also pay our writers through route sponsorships. If you’d like to assist in this worthy cause, shoot us an email.
Andrew Marshall: Co-Founder
Favorite Trail: Smokies Section of the AT
Top BPR Post: Tahoe Rim Trail Profile
I grew up within spitting distance of the AT’s southern terminus, and can’t remember a time I didn’t want to hike it. After losing my job in 2012 I set out on a SOBO thru-hike and never looked back. I’ve walked across Scotland with my wife, contracted a nasty case of giardia on the Colorado Trail, and completed technical off-trail routes in Wyoming and Montana among other adventures. I’ve decided to call my memoir “Pissing in Beautiful Places.”
Recently I turned myself into an ultrarunner more by force of will than any natural predilection toward the sport. In the summer I hurl myself downhill on a mountain bike, and in the winter I downhill ski. I’ve no real skill at either activity, so I’m always hoping that gravity doesn’t notice what I’m up to. I also enjoy paddle sports despite being perhaps the world’s poorest natural swimmer and possessing a fear of deep water that only someone who’s shorter than 5 feet, 7 inches could understand.
My degree is in Film and Television, and I tried my hand at filmmaking, graphic arts, event photography, and education before landing on writing as a career—mostly because it allows me to do my job hunched over a glowing screen in an empty house with a grumpy cat and a rapidly cooling cup of coffee, just as nature intended. My goal as an outdoor writer is to weave together history and sense of place with adventure and humor. I also try to take an unflinching, unromantic view of outdoor culture.
I hate the word “stoked.”
When I’m not working on Backpacking Routes, I’m the managing editor and podcast producer of Backpacking Light. My essays, photographs, illustrations, and paintings have appeared everywhere from niche internet publications to prestigious literary journals. I’m a published poet and was even paid $10 for a poem once, which is more than most poets can say.
Maggie Slepian: Co-Founder
Favorite Trail: Beaten Path, Montana
Top BPR Post: Ouachita Trail Profile
I grew up in New Hampshire, and didn’t care for physical activity. In fact, I avoided it like the plague. I was recently asked to procure photos of myself hiking as a child, and after digging through a dozen photo albums, my mother called me in defeat and said, “I don’t know what to tell you, you hated being outside.”
At some point this changed, and I started hiking and backpacking in the White Mountains. I started ticking off the 48 4,000-footers, and venturing on longer and longer trips to the mountains. I moved out west after graduating college, and got into backpacking in earnest. I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2015, and since then have spent as much time outdoors as possible, including mountain biking, kayaking, climbing, archery hunting, bikepacking, skiing, and lots of backpacking miles. I consider myself a very average athlete who is willing to suffer and work hard.
Freelance writing and editing is my full-time job. I have an English degree, and worked as the Managing Editor for a backpacking media company for five years. When I lost that job (thanks, COVID!), I started brainstorming what resources were missing in the backpacking world. Jeff, Andrew, and I came up with the idea for Backpacking Routes as a streamlined, easily sortable resource. I also love working with writers, and BPR provides that outlet.
When I’m not obsessively working on Backpacking Routes, I’m writing essays for Backpacking Light, advice articles for Garage Grown Gear, gear posts for Section Hiker, and helping on the editorial side for several other backpacking companies. I have a recent feature with Sawyer, and upcoming pieces with REI Co-Op Journal, Backpacker, and Outside. I work from my couch in a sweatsuit and dress my cat in clothing every day so he can look fashionable for the mailman. I try to blend personal anecdotes with real advice about backcountry travel, and to never take myself too seriously.
Jeff Garmire: Co-Founder
Favorite Trail: Sawtooth Wilderness Loop, Idaho
Top BPR Post: Favorite 2020 Backpacking Gear
I grew up backpacking with my family in the Pacific Northwest. A few weekends a year we would load up 50 pounds in each of our backpacks and hike 3 miles to a lake to set up camp for the next couple of days. At 2 years old I got giardia on one of these trips and on another I had so many mosquito bites my daycare thought I had chicken pox. Backpacking went right along with fishing, building log rafts, and catching crawdads in my childhood. I didn’t know about thru-hiking, fastpacking, or long-distance trails.
In the middle of college, I decided to take a term off and hike the Pacific Crest Trail. On one of our ultra-heavy backpacking trips we had met thru-hikers on the PCT, and the idea never left my mind. In 2011 I made a thru-hike a reality. From there the obsession grew, now totaling over 30,000 miles of long-distance hiking, 15 trail records, and a love of building my own routes. Beyond the backpack, I am a skier, runner, author, and satirical videographer. My favorite adventures have been the Calendar Year Triple Crown (8,000 miles) and the Great Western Loop (7,000 miles).
Hugh Owen: Editor, Writer
Favorite Trail: Long Trail, Vermont
Top BPR Post: The AT is a Refuge from Climate Change
I kicked around the summer after graduating from college in 1975, not ready to get going on a full-time career. Then I hit on a great idea: Why don’t I hike the Appalachian Trail, starting at Katahdin and hiking south until I’m ready to go home? I had little money and was minimally prepared for what lay ahead, but I lived cheaply on trail and learned as I went. By the time I left the trail in Vermont with a case of giardia, I was hooked. Over the years after that I hiked and backpacked with my children, dragged friends along on multiday trips to the White Mountains, and eventually began solo hiking on longer trips. Gear has changed a lot since my AT adventure, and the trail is much more crowded. But what hasn’t changed is the camaraderie on trail, and the joy of being in the woods.
I’ve been writing all my life; creatively when I was younger, then news writing and editing for a living until I retired in 2017. It was an adrenaline-driven career with hourly deadlines day after day, and heading to the mountains was always a welcome respite. I’m sad to see the newspaper that I worked for just a shell of itself these days. Some of those changes are due to corporate greed, others to a changing world that newspapers didn’t adjust to when they needed to. But I haven’t turned my back on writing, and am happy for the outlet that BPR is giving me to spread my wings as a creative writer once again. I’ve been working with Maggie for three years now and am thrilled to be embarking on this new adventure with her.
Rebecca Sperry: Writer
Favorite Trail: Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, NH
Top BPR Post: Social Media Impact on Hiking Trails
Growing up less than two hours from the Whites, I spent my youth reading, playing bass guitar, and collecting college degrees. I didn’t get into hiking until 2015, when I decided to take a solo trek up a small mountain and was instantly hooked. Since that fateful day, I’ve hiked over 3,000 miles in New England exclusively, with over 99% of that mileage done solo. I like to think of myself as an unapologetic day hiker, working full time and still managing to rack up a decent amount of trail miles. In 2019, when my day job was causing me an exorbitant amount of stress, I found myself seeking peace in not only hiking but in planning out routes.
My passion for planning using just a map and guidebook, led to me planning out over 200 day hikes, which encompass all of the trails in the White Mountain Guide. I took on the title of “redliner” and spent 2020 attempting to redline all of the trails in the White Mountain Guide in a calendar year. COVID ended my first attempt at redlining in a calendar year, and a breast cancer diagnosis ended my second attempt. Now, upping the ante, I’m in the process of planning day hikes for all the trails in the Southern New Hampshire guidebook, Vermont guidebooks, and Maine guidebook, along with a few shorter backpacking trips.
If I’m not out hiking, I’m planning my next adventure, or attending school as I pursue another graduate degree. I’ve spent my entire life with my face in a book, writing for fun or scholarly articles for school. I never considered myself a writer until I started blogging for an outdoors website back in 2017. This opportunity to write about a thru-hike that never ended up happening is what reignited my passion for the written word and I’ve spent the last three years building a portfolio of published pieces on my own website and on a handful of outdoors sites. I’ve recently begun a new journey, leaving my decade-long career as a K-12 Special Educator, to attend college full time in the hopes of earning a PhD in Composition. While writing narrative nonfiction and inspirational pieces will always be a passion of mine, I still feel called to teach and am hopeful that my research can better prepare future educators for their roles in the writing classroom, working with students with disabilities and second/third language learners, in particular.