Olivia Strittmatter - Dixie to Maine!

 Blog Post 10 - Topic of my Choosing 2


This blog post is going to be about a Thru-hike Appalachian Trail documentary. It’s on youtube by Homemade Wanderlust and it’s called Appalachian Trail Documentary: Dixie To Maine. I’ll leave the link at the bottom of this post if you want to watch it.

Dixie is her trail name, and she was given it because she has a very strong southern accent. When Dixie decided to hike the AT she had never backpacked a day in her life. She had never even tested her gear before she set out on the trail. She had just decided that she needed a change in pace in her life. Throughout the documentary you can really see how much Dixie grows as a person. She goes from being unsure of what she’s doing to being confident in herself and her decisions. Which I wrote about in my research paper is a great sign of personal growth!

She talks a lot about the successes that she had out on the tail, such as passing each 500 mile marker and the state borders. Dixie also talks about the trail families that people make, and all the friends that you make along the way. 

Throughout the documentary you also see her struggle with some personal hardships. The biggest one was that her dog got very sick and went into liver failure while she was out on the trail. So Dixie had to take a few days off of the trail to go home and be there for her dog when it died. She did get back out on the trail though after that and completed the hike!

Her documentary is my favorite AT documentary that I’ve seen. She really has a lot of personality and is very honest about her experiences on and off the trail. She doesn’t sugarcoat it or romanticise the trail. As her and her friends said: “embrace the suck.” She talks very highly of all the good experiences, but also is very honest about the negative aspects. Though she does emphasize that the negative experiences are worth it in the long-run, especially if you complete the hike.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzXP5PjRHjM



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