How the hiking dreams of YouTube
creators somehow became my own
Published October 15, 2025
PHOTO: Northern California / Photography by Emma Schicker
For the longest time, when I felt down or unwell, I would picture a house in the middle of a clearing in the woods. It was a space where I could just exist far from what I knew—and, mostly, from people who expected me to be. In this mental projection, what mattered was not so much the place itself but the distance with my everyday life. I needed an “elsewhere,” a recluse corner outside of the boundaries of my own identity. A place where I could feel free.
This general longing for an elsewhere laid a fertile ground. Inhabited by an undefined desire for something different, it made me permeable to other’s dreams and experiences.
I think this yearning set me up to be a perfect YouTube audience member. Growing up, I consumed routine vlogs and observed people’s day-to-day lives, projecting what life could be like if I’d step outside of myself and become someone different for a fleeting moment of time. As I inched closer to adulthood, though, the contours of my own identity and desires formed, and I became more demanding in my online escapism. I needed a space that was far enough away from myself to experience proxy freedom yet close enough for it to be realistically desirable.
In 2021, I discovered hiking videos and creators documenting their journey on the Pacific (aka the PCT). They filled this exact gap and defined my 2024.
I first heard about the PCT through my friend Avi. Hailing from San Francisco, Avi grew up with the trail in her backyard and dreamt of hiking it. I remember one day sitting on her couch, sharing our usual herbal tea. We must have been talking about the heaviness of everyday work. Avi hated her job at the time, and she wouldn’t shut up about this dream: hiking from the Mexican to the Canadian border, all along the West Coast of the United States.
Growing up between France and Switzerland, I had once hiked for two days in the Alps with friends. I loved nature, but sleeping overnight in a tent left me frozen, begging for a warm shower. The idea that people yearned to do this for days on end was equal parts ridiculous and fascinating.
That night, Avi sent me a link to a YouTube video accompanied by a minimalist text message: “You’ll understand.”
I clicked play.
The Sierra Mountains / Photography by Emma Schicker
In It is the people | A Pacific Crest Trail Film (released in 2019), videographer Elina Osborne describes her experience hiking the PCT. She later developed her footage into a nine-episode series on YouTube, which sparked her career as an outdoors creator.
The short film and nine-episode series are a masterpiece in storytelling. For my 2021 self, it marked the discovery of a new space on the Internet: people obsessing over hiking from border-to-border through the length of a country, aka “thru-hiking.” I relished in watching thru-hikers attempt something I found entertaining but separate from my own goals.
When bored at work or sitting with heavy feelings in my chest, I regularly returned to the video Avi sent me. I slowly began channeling Elina’s excitement every time I watched her start at the Southern Terminus, knowing the emotional peaks awaiting her in Canada months later. As someone who never reads or watches a book or a movie twice, I finally tapped into the comfort of consuming something known.
For me, thru-hiking videos struck the right balance between “near” and “far.” It hit the sweet spot of elsewhere, growing on some of my own interests while offering a peek into a different world. The nature of the American West Coast and the chain of the Sierras Mountains are just so perfectly different that—whilst I identify with the snow-capped horizons from growing up in the Alps—I know they’re not at all the same.
Another key hook is likely my obsession with movement. As a dancer, I want to understand what drives people to commit to their physical practices, too. Long-distance hiking, is essentially one long, repetitive movement. One step at a time: the folding of the knee, extension of the ankle, impact of the foot, and a sway within the hip joint. In thru-hiking videos, many creators show a first-person perspective; the camera bounces before them, and you can hear their every footstep. All you see is motion. I wonder how it feels to be in their bodies.
Looking to extend my watching options within this niche, I quickly realized that not all thru-hiking content could be my refuge. I avoided dramatic videos claiming to “embark on the journey of a lifetime” and attempting “the hardest thing” knowing that “very few people will make it to the end.” Only a handful of creators gave me the opportunity to dream alongside them on their hikes. I particularly connected with people of similar backgrounds with me: women in their late twenties, living in urban areas before their journeys.
The approach I enjoy is humble—“there is this very silly and privileged thing I decided to do. It was amazing but also very stupid and tiring. I felt a lot of things. You can tag along and watch me do it if you want to.”
So as I sit here, holding a cup of tea under my warm blanket in my city apartment, my eyes well up in front of the screen.
This general longing for an elsewhere laid a fertile ground. Inhabited by an undefined desire for something different, it made me permeable to other’s dreams and experiences.
I think this yearning set me up to be a perfect YouTube audience member. Growing up, I consumed routine vlogs and observed people’s day-to-day lives, projecting what life could be like if I’d step outside of myself and become someone different for a fleeting moment of time. As I inched closer to adulthood, though, the contours of my own identity and desires formed, and I became more demanding in my online escapism. I needed a space that was far enough away from myself to experience proxy freedom yet close enough for it to be realistically desirable.
In 2021, I discovered hiking videos and creators documenting their journey on the Pacific (aka the PCT). They filled this exact gap and defined my 2024.
Growing up between France and Switzerland, I had once hiked for two days in the Alps with friends. I loved nature, but sleeping overnight in a tent left me frozen, begging for a warm shower. The idea that people yearned to do this for days on end was equal parts ridiculous and fascinating.
That night, Avi sent me a link to a YouTube video accompanied by a minimalist text message: “You’ll understand.”
I clicked play.
In It is the people | A Pacific Crest Trail Film (released in 2019), videographer Elina Osborne describes her experience hiking the PCT. She later developed her footage into a nine-episode series on YouTube, which sparked her career as an outdoors creator.
The short film and nine-episode series are a masterpiece in storytelling. For my 2021 self, it marked the discovery of a new space on the Internet: people obsessing over hiking from border-to-border through the length of a country, aka “thru-hiking.” I relished in watching thru-hikers attempt something I found entertaining but separate from my own goals.
When bored at work or sitting with heavy feelings in my chest, I regularly returned to the video Avi sent me. I slowly began channeling Elina’s excitement every time I watched her start at the Southern Terminus, knowing the emotional peaks awaiting her in Canada months later. As someone who never reads or watches a book or a movie twice, I finally tapped into the comfort of consuming something known.
For me, thru-hiking videos struck the right balance between “near” and “far.” It hit the sweet spot of elsewhere, growing on some of my own interests while offering a peek into a different world. The nature of the American West Coast and the chain of the Sierras Mountains are just so perfectly different that—whilst I identify with the snow-capped horizons from growing up in the Alps—I know they’re not at all the same.
Another key hook is likely my obsession with movement. As a dancer, I want to understand what drives people to commit to their physical practices, too. Long-distance hiking, is essentially one long, repetitive movement. One step at a time: the folding of the knee, extension of the ankle, impact of the foot, and a sway within the hip joint. In thru-hiking videos, many creators show a first-person perspective; the camera bounces before them, and you can hear their every footstep. All you see is motion. I wonder how it feels to be in their bodies.
Looking to extend my watching options within this niche, I quickly realized that not all thru-hiking content could be my refuge. I avoided dramatic videos claiming to “embark on the journey of a lifetime” and attempting “the hardest thing” knowing that “very few people will make it to the end.” Only a handful of creators gave me the opportunity to dream alongside them on their hikes. I particularly connected with people of similar backgrounds with me: women in their late twenties, living in urban areas before their journeys.
The approach I enjoy is humble—“there is this very silly and privileged thing I decided to do. It was amazing but also very stupid and tiring. I felt a lot of things. You can tag along and watch me do it if you want to.”
So as I sit here, holding a cup of tea under my warm blanket in my city apartment, my eyes well up in front of the screen.
[From It is the people] I have watched this way too many times. Every time I’m filled with nostalgia for something I haven’t even experienced. That’s how good this film is.
Most hikers edit their videos months after finishing their adventures, and the nostalgia they narrate resonates with my own longing for an elsewhere that never existed.
What grows from longing?
Watered in all and due form, the seeds of another’s dreams ended up rooting and somehow becoming mine.
In 2023, two years after I first clicked on Elina’s video, many things turned upside down. For the first time in my life, I had the courage to step aside from an office job to pursue a full-time dance education. Following destructive external events, however, I decided to move away from the context, and I quit training. I suddenly found myself with lots of time on my hands, the luxury of being able to afford not working for an extra few months—and no desire whatsoever to step away from my newly acquired freedom.
I found myself in the exact limbo I had hoped for so many times. I had subverted what was “expected of me” and, facing a blank new canvas, I needed to know what to paint on it. I wanted time to process and reflect whilst maintaining a sense of direction.
There was one long way—one with a set path, beginning, and end goal that could serve as the perfect transition.
What grows from longing?
Watered in all and due form, the seeds of another’s dreams ended up rooting and somehow becoming mine.
In 2023, two years after I first clicked on Elina’s video, many things turned upside down. For the first time in my life, I had the courage to step aside from an office job to pursue a full-time dance education. Following destructive external events, however, I decided to move away from the context, and I quit training. I suddenly found myself with lots of time on my hands, the luxury of being able to afford not working for an extra few months—and no desire whatsoever to step away from my newly acquired freedom.
I found myself in the exact limbo I had hoped for so many times. I had subverted what was “expected of me” and, facing a blank new canvas, I needed to know what to paint on it. I wanted time to process and reflect whilst maintaining a sense of direction.
There was one long way—one with a set path, beginning, and end goal that could serve as the perfect transition.
[From It is the people] Laid in bed watching this and I cried. Wow. I’m currently going through a quarter life crisis and I’m not sure why, but this made me feel like I need to do something, make a change, explore, do something big.
A profile shot of a woman walking.
CUT TO: repeated shots of the same woman, but the background flashes from a desert with rocky hills, to Joshua trees and blazing heat, snowy mountains, deep forest, alpine lakes.
Finally, the camera faces her. “WE DID IT!” she shouts and bursts out laughing, followed by her three friends, waving a Canadian flag.
I want this. These same snippets are no longer highlighting this funny or faraway possibility. Instead—with a somehow embellished truth—I’m gifted a roadmap to hike through the PCT myself.
YouTube videos create ideals, but unlike other mediums, the platform makes them feel more tangible. Alongside the personal stories shared in their documentaries, both Courtney Eve White and Elina Osborne put effort into making the PCT accessible to others. They created websites with their gear and guides on what to take and how to pack.
Their work made me feel prepared and empowered. Without this extra content (and a peek behind the curtain), I doubt I would’ve connected so vividly with the emotions of their cinematic thru-hiking journeys if I didn’t feel as if I could do the same. I felt closer to the beauty and the hardship of the trail. I learned about post-trail depression, the possibility of failure, and even how incredibly addictive such hikes and lifestyles can become.
[From courtney— i first came across this film as a 17-year-old, fresh out of high school and in the workforce, sad and disillusioned with life and wondering if it was all life would ever be. the magic that you captured in an hour of film caught hold of me and worked its way into my heart...and the dreaming started. two years later and...i cross the bridge into washington today...
PHOTOS: 1. Emma (top) with hikers at the PCT’s Southern Terminus in Campo, California / 2. Washington’s Snoqualmie Pass / 3. a desert / 4. Mount Whitney / Photography by “Analog,” Emma Schicker, and “Leo”
This time, it was really over. The trail ahead was messy and interrupted by fire closures.
I said goodbye to my trail companion—he planned to make it to the Canadian border solo via a detour through whatever trails remained open.
I hopped on a bus to Seattle to meet with my brother and the rest of my family in town.
I put on fresh jeans, a cotton T-shirt, and normal shoes.
I said goodbye to my trail companion—he planned to make it to the Canadian border solo via a detour through whatever trails remained open.
I hopped on a bus to Seattle to meet with my brother and the rest of my family in town.
I put on fresh jeans, a cotton T-shirt, and normal shoes.
We met at a sushi restaurant—fresh fish after weeks of cup noodles. I shared stories from the past few months, the trail family I found, and when it came to the end, how I’d left my hiking buddy as he trudged onward.
My mom looked up at me. Go back.
To this day, I’m not sure what it was. Something in her face, her eyes, made me realize that it was real. This thing that I thought was a thing they did, that had for so long been an online proxy experience had become my life.
She told me, “Go back. I can tell you have something to prove to yourself, and even though you’re tired and you just want it to be over, you will forever regret not hiking these extra two weeks to reach the Canadian border.”
For my family, I had become the role model, their equivalent of what Courtney and Elina had been to me.
When did someone else’s challenge become mine? When did this online odyssey turn to my own life? When did I start wanting my own “We did it!” moment with my picture at the Northern Terminus monument?
My mom looked up at me. Go back.
To this day, I’m not sure what it was. Something in her face, her eyes, made me realize that it was real. This thing that I thought was a thing they did, that had for so long been an online proxy experience had become my life.
She told me, “Go back. I can tell you have something to prove to yourself, and even though you’re tired and you just want it to be over, you will forever regret not hiking these extra two weeks to reach the Canadian border.”
For my family, I had become the role model, their equivalent of what Courtney and Elina had been to me.
When did someone else’s challenge become mine? When did this online odyssey turn to my own life? When did I start wanting my own “We did it!” moment with my picture at the Northern Terminus monument?
With my family, I rested for one week, and then returned to trail.
I quit on quitting.
On the morning of September 7, 2024, I walked the last mile to the Northern monument and reached the Canadian border. My new reality superimposed on the videos I used to replay: our group popped the champagne, we signed the log book, took our pictures and shouted.
I finally believed: me too. What I had seen in them, what had impressed me about the thru-hikers I’d admired, was in me too. I just did it.
Three years after opening the URL my friend Avi had texted, I understood. I realized the impact of role models and the meaning of being inspired. This is how an online narrative can plant a dormant seed for years before sprouting to become one’s own version of their story.
When people ask me what I gained from hiking the PCT, I reply: “I learned that whatever happens in my life, I can now quit. I can walk off, carrying only a backpack, and I know that everything will be fine. It will not be easy, but it will be fine.”
The elsewhere of online content is just outside, and I can step into it anytime.
—Emma, aka “Marmot”
(NEWSLETTER, IG) @thelmanvr
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