Day Hiker to Solo Backpacker: Emily Zarnow Shares Her Hiking Experiences

Emily Zarnow (00:00)
I got to the point where I was like, I feel like I just need to get back out there and do this by myself. And I think growing up and kind of referencing back to the days that I would go back in my creek and I would just explore all by myself and no one knew where I was. Didn’t have a GPS tracker, didn’t have anything like that. But there was something really, really beautiful about that, just spending time with myself and kind of having those more reflective, quiet moments.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (00:15)
Mm-hmm.

now.

Emily Zarnow (00:29)
that I think I was just really hungry for again and realizing that I wanted something that was gonna kind of challenge myself and get myself out of my comfort zone.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (00:45)
This episode, I’m speaking with Emily Zarnow.

Emily shares her story about transitioning from day hiker to backpacker and then eventually solo backpacker. Emily has hiked all over California and she shares some of her favorite trails this episode. So let’s get into it.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:00)
hi Emily. Thank you for joining me today. I’m so glad to have you here to talk about backpacking and like solo backpacking specifically. How’s everything going?

Emily Zarnow (01:10)
Good, good, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for taking the time to have me on.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:15)
Yeah, I can’t wait. love talking about hiking, obviously. So, you know. So where are you located?

Emily Zarnow (01:17)
I know. What else is there?

Yeah, I’m actually in Los Angeles, California. Yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:26)
nice. Okay.

Do you do a lot of I guess there’s a lot of great hiking right there. I always see some really beautiful trails around the mountains there.

Emily Zarnow (01:32)
Yeah, yeah.

That’s the great thing I’ve come to really love about living in Los Angeles that I think was very unexpected to me when I moved here 15 years ago was just like you still have this very urban, you know, city life, but half hour from where I live, I can get up into the mountains and like Angeles National Forest and Big Bear and all that kind of stuff. So it’s really great place to be.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:58)
Now, growing up, were you an outdoorsy person? Did you guys get out hiking a lot or camping or things like that?

Emily Zarnow (02:05)
Yeah, I mean, it’s funny. I don’t think at the time when I was younger, I thought of myself as like particularly outdoorsy. I grew up in Ohio, where I live…

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:18)
It’s nice place though, lots of

good parks there.

Emily Zarnow (02:19)
Yeah, yeah, great.

Again, it’s like one of those things that you didn’t really realize that I had until I left. ⁓ And when I was younger, we lived in Atlanta, Georgia. So there was like lot of beautiful ⁓ Midwestern, Southern areas that like we could go out and get into the forests or lakes and things like that. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:35)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (02:36)
Um, I explored a lot, like by myself, we had a creek in our backyard in middle school and like, loved, yeah, it was amazing. I just loved going back there and I would always take my camera with me and I was always kind of shooting and, you know, making forts and like trying to catch fish and tadpoles with my hands. Just things like that, that I don’t think I was thinking of myself as like, I’m an outdoorsy person. was just me like, expressing my, yeah, imagination and all of that. But.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:42)
how fun is that?

Yeah, yeah. But naturally you just were. Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (03:04)
I was a camp counselor for about seven years at a YMCA camp down in Burlington, Kentucky, which is just like right over the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. Yeah. So, and again, it was one of those things where working at a camp, I don’t think I was like, this is outdoorsy. It was just a part of like every summer what I did. But I think it was definitely like a catalyst for things to come ⁓ in the future for sure.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (03:13)
Yeah.

Now you

did a lot of day hiking. That’s what I like to do. I like the day hiking because I like to come home and be in my nice comfy bed when I’m all done for the day. ⁓ And that’s kind of how you started out, right, with all your hiking. then you transition. Then you’re like, I’m going to try backpacking. And when did you start doing that then?

Emily Zarnow (03:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I did.

It was kind of a happy accident. And like I said, when I was a camp counselor, it’s so funny because it was all just nothing. We didn’t think twice about anything. We were just like, this is what we’re doing. And so when I was working at the summer camp, every week, once a week, we would take our kids out. Because it was like a weekly sort of segment with the kids. And we would take our kids out. There would always be an overnight camp trip.

⁓ And we wouldn’t like necessarily like load our packs up and carry our gear, but we would, you know, we would carry, literally like carrying our sleeping bags in our pillows, like in our hands or like shoving what we had. Yeah, yeah, wasn’t like miles and miles, but we would go out to a little bit more of like a secluded area of the camp. And we would literally just like cowboy camp.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (04:20)
Okay.

Like you’re walking to your sleepover. ⁓

Emily Zarnow (04:44)
pitching a tent was not something that was like on our radars. It was just a funny experience and thinking about that in the same way as like now I’m like, wow, cowboy camping? Like that’s a whole other level that I still feel like I need to get back to. Yeah, yeah. We’d start a fire from scratch and we do all those things. And again, I don’t think it was something that I was really thinking about at the time, but that was definitely some good preparation for what was to come.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (04:54)
But what a fun experience for the kids too to do. yeah.

Emily Zarnow (05:11)
Like I think technically my first backpacking trip was probably, I was probably like not that long after I moved out here. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Hip Camp. They’re an app that you can find different like campsites and book campsites. Yeah, yeah. So they, when they were first getting off the ground, and I think they might still do this, but they were, they would hire field scout photographers. And so basically,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (05:24)
No.

yeah, no, yes. Okay,

Emily Zarnow (05:38)
what it was was a way to get people who were maybe in the creative field or in photography to go out to their different locations and take like a little bit more like aesthetic photos just to get the listings feeling a little bit more enticing. ⁓ And so one of my assignments was this place in Angeles National Forest, which I was mentioning earlier isn’t too far from here.

And it’s this cool, like, historic camp that’s located out there, but it’s a hike in. You have to take all of your stuff with you. And they have, little cabins, and they have, like, a mess hall and some other, like, fun things there on the, ⁓ on the location. But that was a first for me, especially in Los Angeles, like, in the real mountainscape, like, definitely different from, what I was doing, you know, growing up in Ohio. So, I, I was like, I really wanted

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (06:08)
Okay.

Emily Zarnow (06:31)
I really want to shoot this place. It’s like beautiful, but again, it’s like hiking four miles, I think up to the trail, up the trail to this location. But I didn’t have, I had like a 35 or like 40 liter backpack I had, and that was about it. Like I didn’t have any, I didn’t have any backpacking gear. But I was like, we can do this, it’s fine. And so naively, you know, just put everything we had into that backpack. And then as far as food, I wasn’t really savvy or like in the know about like,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (06:37)
Okay.

Okay.

But yeah.

Emily Zarnow (07:01)
dehydrated meals or lightweight gear, anything like that. And so I literally had my husband carry a cooler pack, basically. So I was like, we have put our food. And it was like fresh food. I was like, we’re going to bring zucchinis. We’re going to bring hamburger meat. it was all, yeah. We weren’t like, you know, it’s still pretty close to home. So if all else failed, like we could have failed very easily. I.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:02)
Mm-hmm.

At it was, you said it was just four miles, right? So, not bad.

Emily Zarnow (07:28)
Looking back on that, I’m like, oh my gosh, like the things that I was just like, we’re just going to do this. Like, it’s fine. I didn’t really think twice about it. But it was a really, really cool experience. And like, once we got up there, they had running water and they had like a communal fire pit and all this, all this neat stuff. it was just kind of a magical experience being able to like wake up out there and then hike out was something that I wasn’t used to being such a day hiker and exploring.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:55)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (07:56)
Los Angeles in particular on foot so much. So yeah, that was a really cool experience that kind of piqued my interest in like, wait, there could be more that we could be doing. it’s like, are there more areas in Angeles or in the Sierra or where can I go and kind of take this from here?

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (08:13)
I can see how that would do that though, because that does sound nice. Now, did you say you slept in a cabin or you did have a tent for that trip?

Emily Zarnow (08:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, so

we, yeah, we, didn’t have a tent and didn’t even have a backpacking tent at the time, so it wasn’t even possible, but. Yeah, exactly, Totally, so yeah, we, we’ve just brought some, I had a couple sleeping bags, but again, like not very heavy, like, so we just like stuffed them in the pack and they actually up there, they had like clean linens and things that you could put on these like thin mattresses that were on these.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (08:27)
Could have been like you were in camp, just carried along with you.

Yeah,

Emily Zarnow (08:48)
beds and

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (08:48)
yeah.

Emily Zarnow (08:49)
you know very very like summer camp style ⁓ but it was great yeah it was really it was really fun and that definitely got me thinking about like okay where else could I go what else could I do with this

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (08:52)
Gotcha, gotcha. That is some fun though.

what about that then really appealed to you? Was it the idea of trekking into a place that cars like most people can’t, don’t have access to? Was that it? Or was there something else about it that appealed to you that you wanted to do more?

Emily Zarnow (09:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think I loved exactly that. was like getting far enough into the mountains where it was like, it was very few and far between where we would see people. And just waking up and being out there. It was different than like just regular, you know, car camping. It felt like we had kind of achieved something too at the same time. There’s like a sense of accomplishment. And I…

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (09:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. definitely. Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (09:39)
I kind of love the chores that come along with backpacking. Like I love the process of, you know, getting things set up and like getting my pack all broken down and taking out, you know, everything and setting up my meals. Yeah. I think, I think it was a lot of that. And again, just being able to like stay out under the stars and not have to feel like I have to rush back or like, you know, be up so early that I’m, you know, wasting time. I just, I really enjoyed.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (09:50)
something meditative about that a little bit.

Emily Zarnow (10:08)
just being out there in kind of a way, in a way that I, especially in the proximity of Los Angeles, it feels like, how could I be, how could I be somewhere so quiet right now?

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:17)
somewhere like that

where it’s just mass chaos, people, traffic, everything. And then you found a magical spot where it’s quiet and you’re away from everybody. Yeah, I can understand why that’d be appealing to you.

Emily Zarnow (10:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Magic

will definitely sunset up for sure.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:30)
you were just saying you backpacked with your husband for that one trip, but you also started solo backpacking. What got you into that?

Emily Zarnow (10:36)
Yeah.

I, you know, so I love, you my husband obviously, but he does not have the same passion for back walking that I do. And I think, you know, me kind of throwing out ideas, he wasn’t as excited about going to these places or making the effort and like staying multiple nights. Like I think he enjoys like more of like a one night out and back, which I absolutely love as well.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (11:00)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (11:05)
But there were just those trips that I was like, really want to do this and our schedules weren’t aligning or he just wasn’t interested and I would bail because I was like, I don’t have anyone to go with. And I don’t have a lot of friends here in Los Angeles who are still like interested in that. a lot of, the point in my life, a lot of my friends have like moved back to where they grew up. it’s, and friends that I do have that like to backpack are like scattered throughout California. So we’re like all on different schedules and.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (11:24)
Okay.

Emily Zarnow (11:33)
I got to the point where I was like, I feel like I just need to get back out there and do this by myself. And I think growing up and kind of referencing back to the days that I would go back in my creek and I would just explore all by myself and no one knew where I was. Didn’t have a GPS tracker, didn’t have anything like that. But there was something really, really beautiful about that, just spending time with myself and kind of having those more reflective, quiet moments.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (11:48)
Mm-hmm.

now.

Emily Zarnow (12:02)
that I think I was just really hungry for again and realizing that I wanted something that was gonna kind of challenge myself and get myself out of my comfort zone.

Because I think, again, especially when you have a partner, you’re with them all the time and it’s amazing that you can be with someone like that in your day to day, but we were very dependent on each other. It’s also just a way of like, it’s okay that we have some different interests and it’s okay if I go do things by myself and you do things by yourself.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (12:13)
Definitely, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (12:32)
we can still be happily married. You know? Yeah, you need your own things. Yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (12:35)
⁓ yeah, no, you need that. You need that in a relationship. Yeah, definitely.

Where did you go for your first solo backpacking trip?

Emily Zarnow (12:42)
Yeah,

so I went, I did the Trans Catalina Trail, which was maybe a little bit of a bigger endeavor than I probably should have taken on as a first solo trip, because it’s a multi-night trip and it’s not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I ended up only doing two, but yeah, usually people do three. You can extend it to be four or five, which would be really nice. But in the timeframe that I had, and we had some really bad storms right before that that had washed out like the last

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (12:55)
Mm Is that what like two to three nights? Right. Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (13:12)
section of trail, you’re familiar, like Parsons Landing, this like the beautiful area at the end. So I was just like, I’m gonna do these two nights and it’s a lot of logistical preparation. So like you have to book all your campsites and you have to book a ferry because it’s, know, so many miles. Yeah, yeah. Which was really fun, but it was definitely a lot to undertake. It’s like, oh, doing this on my own. Yeah, yeah. But I had built up

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (13:29)
Because it’s an island.

Especially for a first trip.

Emily Zarnow (13:41)
And I was trying, like the year before that, I knew I wanted to make it a goal. And it was actually really recently. It was only in 2024 that I had taken that first trip by myself. So in 2023, I purposefully like planned some group backpacking trips up in the Sierra. And I did like a half dome trip with a group, a guided group, because I just wanted to like feel like I had someone that I could lean on for questions and.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (14:09)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (14:10)
and just making sure that I felt really comfortable. And I think after doing those trips, I was like, okay, like I can do this by myself. ⁓ the beautiful thing about Catalina, it was just that there are these, there is infrastructure there and there’s roads and there’s bathrooms and there’s potable water at different ⁓ campsites and things like that. So you’re not, it’s completely like isolated.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (14:34)
That’s good, yeah. Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (14:37)
And a lot of people are out there doing it. And there’s also people on the island who are just recreating their bike riding, they’re doing other things. So I think there was like a sense of safety, I think in it for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still see from where I was. Yeah. So there was something about that. Yeah, yeah, I could like, yeah, was, there was, there was something just nice about like that. And also, you know, I will say like at one point that was

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (14:46)
Mm-hmm. You knew you weren’t out in the wilderness like miles away from civilization. Yeah. Still had cell phone service. No.

Emily Zarnow (15:07)
that was difficult was I unexpectedly got my period while I was out there. Yeah, and being by myself was like, my God, like it was, it did feel like it was one of those trips where half the time I was like, how did I get myself into like the ferry ride was incredibly bumpy because we had a really big swell and a big storm like two days earlier. Everyone on the boat was like, ⁓ And then I got off and I like texted my mom and I was like, I.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (15:12)
no, yeah.

⁓

⁓ I know what that can be like, yes? ⁓

Emily Zarnow (15:37)
don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing. She’s like, just go, you’re fine. But that day with the first day of that trail is definitely a tough one. Like, you question yourself a lot, I think, and being alone was definitely making it harder because I had to like really push down those thoughts of like, just turn back. Like, you don’t need to do this. But yeah, after that first night, I fell asleep and I was like so happy to be asleep after such a long day. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I was like,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (15:38)
⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (16:07)
my God, started my period and I had the worst cramps and I was just like, this is not, yeah, let’s go. And I wasn’t expecting it, so I had like nothing, like no feminine hygiene products with me. was just, so that’s why I was really grateful again to like have facilities nearby and there’s like the airport gift shop there on the island and of course I went there and they didn’t have anything, but I was able to at least like, the guy for some things to go.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:11)
You’re like, what great timing.

Ugh.

gonna say at least like some toilet

paper.

Emily Zarnow (16:34)
Yeah, was just like wanting to, was just like, get as much toilet

paper to stick it with you, like whatever you can do. But it was, again, it was like frustrating in the moment, but looking back on it, I was like, those were really great moments of like being, being by myself, having to rely on myself to kind of problem solve and figure out like, yeah, yeah, how I can get through this.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:48)
You know what you can accomplish on your own. Yeah. And you know what you’re capable

of, you know, and what you can, what you can tolerate, what you can do.

Emily Zarnow (16:53)
Yeah. Yeah. And that

trail’s beautiful. ⁓ And like you said, it didn’t feel like I was up in the Sierras or the Rockies, like really out there. The biggest thing I was actually worried about were the bison. I was more afraid of that. I think still I’m more afraid of that than like, I didn’t see the single one. I know everyone sees them. I didn’t see one. I just saw a lot of bison poo. I know. I was like, I wanted to see one from afar.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (17:08)
Mm hmm. I heard about the bison. I’m like bison in California.

That’s so disappointing.

Yeah,

Emily Zarnow (17:23)
Yeah, but.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (17:24)
that’s like I’ve been not the same thing, but I’ve been down in like southern Florida or like on the Gulf of Florida many times and I’ve yet to see a manatee in real life and I’m just so mad about that. So I feel yeah about getting mad about not seeing the bison. Yeah, so where are they? Come on. But that sounds that sounds like a great like first solo backpacking trip. So ⁓

Emily Zarnow (17:31)
Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, you want to see the wild ones. Like, was promised bison. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (17:51)
Where, I guess, what are some of the ones that you’ve done solo that you’ve really enjoyed that you would recommend to other people as a good solo backpacking trip?

Emily Zarnow (18:00)
Yeah, so since then, ⁓ again, I think that was like, that was a great like test for me that really made me feel a lot more confident. I was like, okay, I can do this. So then getting up to ⁓ the Sierras and that’s like my home, my home like big range. ⁓ So I absolutely love the Eastern Sierra up there. I, my first solo of…

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (18:09)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (18:22)
there was ⁓ the Sabrina basin and I think I camped at Blue Lake and then just did some exploring around ⁓ some of the higher elevation lakes and things in the area and that was really great and I kind of planned that strategically too since that was my first

solo backpacking trip in the Sierra, I was like, okay, I’m gonna go to a trail that I’ve done before. So I know where I’m going. I feel like comfortable on the trail. know how to park. I know where to go. There was no anxiety. Yeah, the only thing I had to worry about was just like hiking. ⁓ So I definitely recommend that for people who are considering like, it is nice to have a little bit of like reconnaissance ahead of time. ⁓ But I think now that I feel a little bit more comfortable,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (18:48)
That makes sense.

Mm-hmm. Parking’s always the big thing, yes.

Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (19:10)
I’ve been more open to just kind of getting out and exploring places I haven’t been before at all. ⁓ This last year I did, Paiute Pass, again, up in the Eastern Sierra, and that was great, and I was supposed to do like two, three nights up there. I was gonna hike over the pass and ⁓ camp up in the basin up there, but it ended up being this like,

crazy windstorm and it wasn’t forecasted. was, yeah, so I was like hiking along. I was feeling really good. And then it was just like crazy wind. And I was like, okay, we’re just gonna do it one night. We’re gonna stay down at Paiute Lake and just take it easy. But that was a rough one. And that was definitely another one of those like learning experiences, especially by yourself where like mentally it was very challenging to just not give up or like give in to.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (19:34)
⁓ no. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Emily Zarnow (20:00)
to the elements, I guess.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (20:02)
I want to shift gears a little bit about, ⁓ still talking about backpacking, but I was looking on your website, which we’ll also talk about, ⁓ and I was reading the story about how you and your brother did Mount Whitney, and I would love to hear about that, because that is a crazy awesome accomplishment.

Emily Zarnow (20:15)
Yeah.

Yeah,

that was like one of the highlights, think. Funny, it’s like one of the highlights of my life, think, so far. It was really, a really amazing experience. Yeah, it was beautiful. But I think it was funny because I, was, that was my first backpacking trip in the Eastern Sierra. And I think I was very naive about what I was getting into. I’d kind of like done some day hiking in the area, but I hadn’t, I never hiked above 11,000 feet.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (20:28)
I would say so.

Okay.

You know, yeah.

Emily Zarnow (20:50)
Yeah, like

I was just kind of in in over my head, but I think my night like my naivete was actually working as an advantage for me. Because I wasn’t worrying about these things But yeah, I in 20s, I think it was like 2017, I had been out in Sequoia on a camping trip with some of my girlfriends and we were we had like learned some things when we were there about the mountains and I like.

I don’t know how it taken me this long living in California to realize that the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States are 80 miles from each other. And Mount Whitney was just such an interesting, it peaked to me. I just really wanted to set it as a goal ⁓ and a bucket list thing for myself. But I kind of went, I think I went back to Ohio for the holidays. My brother was there and.

we were just kind of teasing each other about hiking and whatever. And he was talking about how he climbed all these 14ers in Colorado. And I was like, well, if you want to climb the biggest, you have to come to California. And he was like, let’s do it. Yeah, exactly. ⁓ But I kind of just threw it out there in jest. Like, you know, we were just we were just kind of chit chatting about that. But it it stuck. then

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (21:53)
Mm-hmm.

And he said, challenge accepted.

Emily Zarnow (22:12)
I kind of put it out of my mind. I wasn’t really thinking about it. And I think it was either, it was either March or April when the, when it opens back up for the second time. ⁓ My brother texted me and he was like, ⁓ I got overnight permits for Mount Whitney, the end of June or the beginning of July, something like that. And I was like, what? Like, we’re doing this. yeah. But I was glad, like I was glad, it was great to have somebody just to like,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (22:32)
I’m like, hold on, I didn’t agree to anything.

Emily Zarnow (22:41)
push you and be like, doing this. Like we’ve got each other. ⁓ and you know, my brother is definitely, ⁓ he likes to push his fitness in a different way than I do. He’s like very, very meticulous about it. So he’s definitely at a different, like level than I am athletically, but, ⁓ we made a pact. we got there that day and like, we made a pact. Like what we were going to do is like every 500 feet, we’ll take a little break. And every thousand feet of elevation, we will take.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (22:52)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (23:10)
a longer break, take our packs off, but I had never carried a pack that heavy before. I think I was like, yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (23:17)
Yeah, that’s especially that much

elevation gain too over that.

Emily Zarnow (23:22)
Yeah, because before

that, I think the, before that, my last backpacking trip before that was my Angeles trip where I was like hiking with a…

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (23:28)
Where your husband

was carrying all the food, right?

Emily Zarnow (23:34)
So

at this point in time, I finally accumulated a better pack and I had some lighter gear, but my gear was still pretty heavy. I was using the REI Starter pack. Everything was definitely, I hadn’t narrowed in on sort of my, what fits for me really. And so that was definitely a wake up call, getting on the trail with a 30, 32 pound pack. was like, whoa.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (23:43)
Still pretty heavy, yeah.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (24:03)
This is hard, this is really hard. that’s, yeah, especially on that climb because it has so much elevation gain and especially in that first, that like first couple of miles before you get to Lone Pine Lake. But once we got past Lone Pine Lake, ⁓ I felt like the views just opened up there and it’s just like stunning all the way. And that was kind of what made me fall in love with the Eastern Sierra. just like, it’s so beautiful up there and it definitely made hiking with that.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:05)
That’s a lot to carry up for sure, yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (24:33)
pack much easier. But yeah, that was like my first real big back country overnight, ⁓ which was really amazing because we got to split it up over two days. We didn’t have to rush to try to get to the top in a day and which I think is an amazing achievement in and of itself. But I like to take pictures. I like to take my time, you know. yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:54)
Mm definitely a slower hiker when it comes to that, because I’m like,

⁓ let me let me take. I’m like, Wait, so if this was like your first kind of like real big backpacking as opposed to the one that you did in Angeles. ⁓

Emily Zarnow (24:57)
Me too! Yeah, like, we need to take pictures, I need

Yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (25:10)
What did you do to then to prepare, especially because of that elevation change and how high it was in elevation? Like, what did you do to prepare for that?

Emily Zarnow (25:14)
Yeah.

I trained, quote unquote, trained. ⁓ Did not train enough. ⁓ But I tried to work in, there’s a lot of really great information out there, especially here in Southern California to train for that particular hike, which is cool. So there’s a lot of big peaks down here. There’s like the six pack ⁓ peak of challenge or something like that.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (25:23)
Mm-hmm.

Okay, yeah.

Emily Zarnow (25:48)
And they all have really, really great elevation gain that can get you kind of prepared. So I kind of tried to work my way up, starting with like Mount Baden Powell. And then we did ⁓ San Jacinto and a few others in the area that just had like a lot of elevation gain leading up to that. then ⁓ like Mount Baden Powell in particular. There, so it ranges from, I want to say around like nine.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (26:10)
Now, and how tall are those mountains?

Emily Zarnow (26:18)
Like 9,800 to, I want to say Jacinto is 11 something. Or maybe 10 something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don’t know exactly, but they’re not at that same level of elevation. And that was definitely something that I would recommend preparing for more, like acclimating a little bit more, because we drove up there and we went right into the hike.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (26:23)
Okay, so still pretty high where you’ll feel the impact of that.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (26:47)
And coming from sea level, that’s intense for sure. Yeah, but we took, I think we took some Advil ahead of time and we just kind of, again, paced ourselves really well and having that night to sleep at trail camp before actually making our like push for the peak was definitely like so helpful. Cause I saw a lot of people out there who were just like, I think it doesn’t, it’s such a straightforward trail that I think a lot of people.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (26:50)
Mm-hmm, for sure, yeah.

I’m sure.

Emily Zarnow (27:17)
or just, you know, it’s an easy access. So a lot of people go out there and they’re like, I can do this in a day and it’s, it’s not going to affect me, but the elevation gain is, is wild. And I remember seeing people who were just like so out of it and like being like, are you okay? Like, do you need anything? Do you need to go back down? Like, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s intense. And ⁓ there’s a lot of accidents up there every year. So it is, it is, yeah, definitely a serious hike. And we were worried the whole time about ⁓ there’s a section of trail where

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (27:31)
Like, do you need water? Do you need, yeah.

I’m sure.

Emily Zarnow (27:46)
there’s like a railing, but the railing has completely pushed over basically by all of the snowpack and ice that accumulates there every year. Yeah. Like more of like, it’s probably more of an obstacle at this point than anything. The ice and snow wasn’t really melting from that point. And that is like a crucial point in the 99 switchbacks that allows you to get through. if you can’t get through that section, you have to take the shoot, which

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (27:54)
So it’s more just decoration at this point.

Yeah. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (28:14)
I and my brother both were like, we don’t have mountaineering experience in that way. We’d want to be comfortable glissading and using an ice axe and all of that. And I was just, I was having like dreams about this section of trail. We got there and it was completely melted and it was fine. And it was, yeah, it was great. But it was, there were definitely like pieces of the.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (28:19)
Yeah.

Nightmares.

that’s good.

Emily Zarnow (28:38)
of the trail that I think I was more worried about than I was actually of like the elevation or ⁓ like the altitude sickness or anything like that. I was more concerned about the trail itself, which didn’t end up being really an issue at all. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (28:53)
Now, did you like considering that there might be like snow and ice on the trail? Did you bring gear for that just in case or?

Emily Zarnow (29:00)
We, did bring, I think we did bring, both bring micro spikes. We definitely both overpacked. My brother definitely brought an ice axe. So we had things with us, but yeah, I think, I think for us.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:12)
just in case, yeah. I forget that

being up that high, even in July, you can encounter ice and everything.

Emily Zarnow (29:18)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the

shoot still had a lot of snow on it and some people were still taking it. So it was, yeah, it was something that we probably could have done better job of like, I remember looking at the weather and trying to track things and all of that, but just having a good understanding of like what the trail was going to be like, because we probably could have just left all that behind and saved ourselves a couple pounds. I’d always rather have those things than not.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:40)
pounds yeah yeah especially like the ice axe I can’t imagine.

I

know, I know it is like that, that like, it’s like, is it better? Like is the is having the weight worse than not having the item? Right. Yeah. But now, did you did you have any like big takeaways from the hike that you learned? Obviously, you just said like, you know, learning like tracking, like the weather and stuff like that. Anything else that you that you learned on that, that that trip that you now continue to use on your backpacking trips?

Emily Zarnow (29:50)
Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah,

think that for me was definitely like a great learning experience around like packing the essentials and really like trying to kind of hone in on what works for me and realizing and I still like I still do this every time I go out and come back but it’s like what didn’t I use and there were a lot of things that I didn’t use like I brought like

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (30:22)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (30:36)
notebook and I brought my Kindle and I brought like all these things I brought like another pair of a change of clothes like a completely separate change of clothes and then something to sleep in and then and for me I’ve realized that like I can wear especially on like a one night trip like I’ll just wear the same thing I don’t yeah and then just have something fresh to sleep in so I think that trip really opened my eyes to like the hike will be a lot more enjoyable if you’re not carrying too much

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (30:47)
Yeah.

Emily Zarnow (31:04)
⁓ And I’m still not like a super ultra light backpacker by any means. I’m still within like the 25 to 28 pound range. ⁓ But those pounds, every ounce, every pound is so crucial.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (31:12)
Mm-hmm.

And it

it starts to to you can feel it more and more every mile that you are hiking. That’s a good.

Emily Zarnow (31:23)
Yeah, yeah, the longer you go, it’s like, okay, yeah. So I think that was definitely a big learning experience for me.

Yeah, again, it was just one of those things where it was like a milestone and a moment, you know, my brother and I, it was great having a companion on that trail and like somebody that we could, you know, kind of lift each other up as we were going and keep each other motivated.

But we had moments to ourselves as well. And so it was just, it was a nice kind of reminder that like I can do hard things. ⁓ I think it was like right before my, either like my 29th or 30th birthday. So I was feeling like I need to do something to like prove I can still do, you know, these hard things at this age. So yeah. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (32:06)
That’s awesome.

I was reading it, I was like, my goodness, what a great experience. So thank you for sharing that. ⁓ Well, speaking of reading it, I was reading it on your website. And so I would love you to share about your website because you have a lot of really good information on there.

Emily Zarnow (32:12)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I you know, I started hikeology gosh, it was like 2014 and at the time I I think I was a little frustrated especially here in Los Angeles with like trying to track down information about Trails and at the time all trails didn’t exist and or not I wasn’t aware of it. I don’t think it is now it might have been just like a website or and

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (32:39)
Mm-hmm.

Maybe not to the extent, yeah.

Emily Zarnow (32:52)
I was reading blogs and what I would basically do is like, I’d have to screenshot blog posts about these trails because I wouldn’t have service. And then I, you know, so I had all these like photos of these blogs on my phone. And a lot of the times the pictures weren’t great. And most of the people who were creating content were men. And there was a lot of really condescending language out there around like amateur hikers or like women wearing yoga pants.

It just frustrated me because I was like, I wear yoga pants and I wear them because they’re comfortable and they’re easy for me in these conditions. Like, I don’t think we should be made fun of for the clothes that we wear. Women don’t have access to as much clothing in this space at the time as men did. So that was a little frustrating. And I was like, I’m gonna start my own blog. And I’m a photographer and I’m gonna get out there and I’m gonna take pictures and make this like a really beautiful experience for people.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (33:24)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Zarnow (33:52)
It lasted for maybe like a month or two, me like consistently getting out there and taking pictures, because I was like taking my phone with so much work. And I give everyone who does it more consistently like so much credit. And there’s some really great ⁓ blogs out there. think like HikeSpeak is one that ⁓ I often refer to, and there’s so much content in there. don’t know if it’s specifically for just… ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (33:59)
It’s a lot of work.

Emily Zarnow (34:18)
California, but there’s also like the hiking guy and like he is amazing at that kind of content. But I was just, I was just feeling like there was like not a lot of female presence ⁓ in the space. And I wanted to try to make the space a little bit more inclusive for myself and for others. And just, it was a really good way to also force myself to like get out and see parts of Los Angeles that I’d never seen before and explore trails. was like every weekend, it was like, okay, we’re gonna do this one this week.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (34:40)
Yeah, yeah.

Emily Zarnow (34:47)
Planning that was really fun. So it fell off for a little while, but then I continued to just keep up with hikeology But I never really put my face behind it. I always kind of kept it as this sort of know, trail stats and trail blog. And finally, one day I work at a branding agency and one of my colleagues was like,

you need to show your face more and you need to be like a part of your Instagram more because it’s like it’s so much more ⁓ it’s just so much more engaging for people. So I was like maybe I need to kind of change the my like perspective and start blogging a little bit more but also just like giving the trail stats but also giving the story that I had behind the trail. ⁓ And so that’s what the the website has kind of turned into. more of

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (35:36)
I love it. I thought it was great going through

your posts and learning a little bit more about you, but also the trails and everything. So I thought it was great. So I think you’re doing, yeah.

Emily Zarnow (35:44)
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I’m

just like trying not to have like put so much pressure on it. It’s like if I can get out, I can get out. And if I can pay attention to my blog one weekend and actually update it, then I can. But I would love to be more consistent with it. But it’s, you know, like you said, it’s a lot of work.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (36:02)
It is

a lot of work, especially when you’re working full time and you got other things going on. ⁓ So in addition to your website then, you also have social media. So what are your social media handles so everyone can find you?

Emily Zarnow (36:05)
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm, yeah.

Yeah,

⁓ I go, this is part of the like non-personal side of it, but I go by Hikeology. I’m mostly on Instagram. have a TikTok. I think I have like three posts on my TikTok. ⁓ But I recently, this year I started ⁓ using YouTube as well to kind of be a piece of the story. And ⁓ that’s been really fun because I think getting into video and like long form video. I remember when Reels came out, I was like, no.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (36:28)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, that is fun, yeah.

Emily Zarnow (36:46)
Like I am a photographer, I do static photos only. This is not gonna work for me. And now I actually really enjoy creating video content. It’s kind of fun. And I’ve been doing it a lot more in my job as well. It’s just like the way the world is going. So I was like, I think I wanna start playing around on YouTube. So I have a YouTube channel as well. Same handle, try to keep things consistent. Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (37:01)
It is, yeah.

Yeah, that’s good. But that’s

great. So people can can follow along with your with your California adventures and everything and everywhere else you’re out there. ⁓ Before well, I do appreciate your time. I think you it’s been fantastic chatting with you before I let you go. I always like to ask everyone this question. And I know it’s funny because, you know, on the East Coast, like this is like the two things that you’re going to hike to. So I know it’s

Emily Zarnow (37:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I thank you. appreciate yours as well. This has been fun.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (37:36)
pretty like other people are like, wait, could I have another answer? But if you only have one ⁓ one kind of hike that you can do for the rest of your life, would you hike to somewhere with a gorgeous view or would you hike somewhere with like a waterfall?

Emily Zarnow (37:39)
Yeah.

I a view for me. love waterfalls, but I’ve been like, think burned by too many waterfalls here in Los Angeles. You hike to a waterfall and half the time it’s dry.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (38:09)
We have a waterfall not far from where I live and it’s like one of the closest ones and I’m gonna put waterfall in quotes because it’s like really, really pitiful. But like the last two times I was there, it literally looked like someone just like left the hose on in their backyard. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Emily Zarnow (38:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s basically how it is in LA half the time. which I mean, so

we get really excited about waterfalls here, but ⁓ I love a big view. Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (38:32)
Yeah, a view. Yeah, especially up in you, you know, the Sierras

there, you got the Alpine lakes and whatnot, you get you got great views. So but well, Emily, again, thank you so much for hanging out with me. I’ve had great time chatting with you and looking forward to following more about your adventures online and on your on your website and read more of your stories. So

Emily Zarnow (38:38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Thank you.

It’s been a blast.