April 29th, 2025
I’ve been reading alarming news on empty cargo ships at our ports and truckers seeing dramatic drops in the demand for their services. These are leading indicators which will then hit the store shelves in a few weeks. My goal with my writing isn’t to spread fear, but to warn you so that you can take actions to guard yourself against what’s coming. I recommend everyone stock up with a minimum of two weeks of food and water so that if civil unrest/martial law comes you can hunker down. See my full guide with lists of what to buy in the post pinned to my profile.
Unfortunately there’s really only so much that any of us can do to guard ourselves against a man-made disaster created by a tyrant. He told us exactly what he was going to do. He told us that Americans would experience pain. He told us folks, and so many of our countrymen flat out refused to believe the words coming out of his mouth. And now we will all have to suffer the pain imposed by a bitter and hateful man who is more interested in retribution against his enemies than helping to improve the lives of his countrymen.
U.S. agriculture isn’t nearing a trade war tariff crisis, it’s in a ‘full-blown crisis already,’ farmers say
At a recent stakeholder meeting at the Port of Oakland headquarters regarding tariff impacts, Port of Oakland Executive Director Kristi McKenney warned that a tariff-induced downturn in the port’s cargo volume — whether from import slowdowns or retaliatory export losses — ultimately could jeopardize job stability and the region’s economic health.
McKenney cited retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, as well as manufactured goods; both are essential exports that move through Oakland. Exports include almonds, beef, pork, dairy, and recycled materials, much of which is destined for Asia. China ranks as the port’s top import trading partner and third export partner, representing 29% of Oakland’s total trade volume.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/28/trade-war-tariffs-full-blown-crisis-us-farm-exporters-say.html
People always comment that we should buy gold and silver in preparation for the coming disaster. This feels as silly as stocking up on toilet paper(just buy a portable bidet you can attach to a water-bottle). What are you going to buy with your gold and silver if the store shelves are empty? How many calories does an ounce of gold have?
This reminds me of when I was sleeping in a shelter in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Appalachian Trail in 2016. It had been a cold and rainy day when a mother hiked into the shelter with her young daughter. I was already bundled up inside my sleeping bag on the upper platform of the double decker shelter even though it was still light outside.
The mother daughter duo unpacked and set-up their sleeping gear on the bottom bunk and then cooked dinner. The dozen hikers in the shelter made light conversation but for the most part were subdued. The weather had put a damper on everyone’s mood and the hikers mostly lay in their sleeping bags trying to stay warm.
“Hey, sorry to ask this, but do any of you have an extra candy bar or something? I’m happy to give you money for it.”
Oh nooo. The questions hikers dread. In an effort to stay lightweight, hikers carry just enough food to get by and often have to ration the last day or two before they make it to the next town. It puts everyone in an awkward position when someone runs out of food because you don’t want to leave a person to starve in the woods, but you also don’t want to give up your own precious calories.
“Sorry, we just didn’t plan right and my daughter is still hungry.”
There was an awkward pause of silence as hikers all the sudden became very interested in their phones and the insides of their sleeping bags.
An older hiker lying opposite me said with a deep southern accent accentuated with the gravely rasp of a long-time smoker, “Lady, your money ain’t no good here. I got an extra candy bar. You can take it. I won’t take your money.”
This man’s act of generosity opened the floodgates. “Here, I have some extra M&M’s, take these.” “I’m sick of Cliff bars anyway, take this one.” “I’m going to hitch into Gatlinburg tomorrow, you can have my ramen.”
Truly I have seen the best of humanity on my thru-hikes. Strangers are beyond excited to help your trip however they can once they learn that you’re walking across the country. I know many of the trail angels that have given me rides and let me sleep in their homes are deeply conservative, and a few years back that wouldn’t have bothered me. Now however it’s more than a difference in politics. Now, those who still support this regime are actively supporting a government that strips civil liberties and due process from innocent people. They are supporting a regime that sends people to concentration camps in El Salvador. These are traitorous actions, actions that support crimes against humanity, and I cannot abide them in anyone. No matter how kind they are to hikers.
I love thru-hiking because it removes and insulates you a bit from our hyper capitalistic society. Don’t get me wrong, capitalism is still very much present in the hiking world, look at all the gear companies and big stores raking it in from hikers. The Appalachian Trail is overrun with shuttle drivers now looking to make money by shuttling hikers. Many thru-hikers in recent years will go their entire six month hike without having once stuck out their thumb on the side of a road to hitch a ride. Hostels now run $40-$70 per bunk. I spent $800 just in Maine alone last year on the AT. Much of the magic and pureness of OG trail angels and hostel owners who just wanted to be a part of the trail and help hikers is gone now, replaced by people who see a business opportunity in the thousands of hikers walking through their towns each year.
I don’t really blame them. At a certain point you simply need the more formal structures of a real business if you want to serve thousands of people and still maintain your sanity. Still though, it’s sad to see the trail lose some of its heart and soul to the greed inherent in capitalism.
US Marshall’s Hold Hikers at Gunpoint
I’m reminded of Colin “Zen” Gooder. He ran Gooder Grove in Franklin, NC. I first met him in 2016 and would spend three nights at his hostel that year. Zen had just started it up after his mother had passed and left him her house the year before. He’d already filled the tree in his front-yard with the discarded shoes of hikers by the time I arrived in late May.
Zen picked me up along with three other hikers from the road in his beat-up Honda Civic and drove us into town. “What’s up dude, I’m Zen, nice to meet you.” Zen spoke like a California surfer dude. Very mellow. Very chill. Very much high on weed night and day. We arrived at his house, the lawn filled with a random mix of lawn gnomes and Buddha statues. “It’s all good guys, come on in. Welcome to Gooder Grove.”
Despite Zen’s trail name he was not very Zen. I found him to be quite chaotic, high-strung, and manic. Every morning he would fly through the house in a panic, searching for his keys and his coat, late to pick-up hikers, muttering under his breath the whole time. He liked to spend the nights getting super high with hikers and recounting far-out stories. About the only time I’d seen him truly calm was after he’d smoked two bowls.
He recounted to me a story of how he’d had a break with reality the year before when his dead father had visited him. I couldn’t ever quite figure out if this was a psychedelic experience, a dream, or just something that happened to him in his normal waking consciousness. Zen liked to pull out the Tao Te Ching and hold hikers verbally hostage as he read random passages from the book. In the years that passed Zen developed a controversial reputation on trail. Some hikers loved him and had great experiences. Many other hikers fought with him and got into verbal and physical confrontations with Zen and were unceremoniously booted from his hostel.
I think Zen suffered from mental health issues exacerbated by the fact that he wasn’t really equipped to run a hostel. This is a case where he would’ve done much better to charge a higher rate and run his hostel like a business. Zen had a good heart and couldn’t turn people away and couldn’t stomach the thought of overcharging for his services. Thus, he couldn’t ever really afford employees and his erratic behaviors drove off what few employees he did manage to hire.
Two weeks after I hiked on from Gooder Grove in 2016 I heard that the US Marshall’s raided the hostel. The Marshall’s held hikers at gunpoint while they arrested a felon who had absconded his probation. The felon had been hiding out at Gooder Grove pretending to be a hiker. I’d met him! He claimed his trail name was Pippin because he liked to smoke the pipe. We all got a weird vibe from Pippin and his story didn’t add up. His gear was a mishmash of random things that no thru-hiker would use, and he’d been staying at the hostel for over a month doing random jobs for Zen to pay for his bunk.
It turns out that Pippin was a convicted child molestor and had absconded his probation and left the state. He’d been found by the Marshalls because he’d used his cell phone to contact his ex. Truly, my friend Fritz from Montana was right. The worst crime any criminal ever commits is the crime of being stupid.
Zen would kidnap me off the trail in 2022 during my Calendar Year Triple Crown. He’d messaged me offering to let me stay in his hostel a week before, but I’d planned to skip Franklin. I didn’t need to stop there and wanted to keep making good time. I told him thanks for the offer but I’m just going to keep on hiking and I won’t stop until the NOC. So imagine my surprise when I saw Zen hiking toward me from a trailhead.
“Quadzilla! I was just following my gut intuition and it told me I’d see you here today! What’s up brother?!” Yeah, your gut intuition and my Facebook stories most likely. “Come into town with me!” Zen wouldn’t take no for an answer and basically kidnapped me into town that night. It wasn’t entirely unwelcome. It was February and it was still cold out so getting a shower and a warm bed was very welcome. It also happened to be my birthday. I turned 37 that day. Zen and I went out to get a Chinese buffet for dinner. I paid for our dinner and put some gas in his van. I knew Zen was always having money problems.
He’d expanded his hostel with more bunks since 2016 and now had a big 12 passenger van. He filled me in on all the drama he was currently embroiled in. The girl he’d hired for the summer just told him she wasn’t coming because people had sent her messages slandering him. He was fighting with the owners of a new hostel in Franklin. He sat me down and recorded a new video series he was starting. He wanted it to be like “Between Two Ferns” and interview hikers. “Ah, this is why he’d kidnapped me.” The owners of the new hostel in Franklin had started a similar series with the hikers coming through their doors.
Even though I was exhausted from hiking 128 miles in five days I sat up with Zen and we recorded his video. It wasn’t great. Here it is. He uploaded it to his YouTube:
You can see how tired I am. I’d been up since 6am that morning and hiked 26 miles that day.
The next morning I was anxious to get back to trail but Zen wasn’t to be rushed. He made coffee. He made some breakfast. He picked up his Tao Te Ching and read a passage to me. You can see Zen reading to me in my video blog about my CYTC here:
Finally Zen dropped me off on trail around 9am and I was off again. That would be the last time I’d ever seen Zen. He died 13 months later, on March 23, of 2023. His obituary just says that he passed unexpectedly. Zen was a flawed human, like we all are. His flaws just were out in the open for all to see because he invited hikers into the privacy of his home, whereas most of us hide our mental health struggles behind closed doors, Zen didn’t have that option. He was a good person at heart and meant well. I just wish he’d found more support for his mental health.
You Can’t Buy What Isn’t For Sale
Walking across the country and sleeping in the woods for six months at a go is about as far removed from capitalism as you can get in our modern society. Even the Hermit of the Gila, who lives completely off-grid in his little hermitage deep in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico has to drive into town once a year and buy supplies.
Hikers quickly drop their “real world” personas on trail. Instead of asking “what do you do for work” you’re asked “what’s your trail name?” Instead of being judged by how much money you have in the bank you’re judged by how many miles you’ve walked that day.
There’s an equality and a meritocracy in the hiking community that also attracted me to the Army, wildland firefighting, and weight lifting. In all of these endeavors more emphasis is put on your physical ability to get work done than your status or wealth. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in the bank, you still need to carry your gear on your back and you still need to put one foot in front of another to walk from Mexico to Canada. Sure, a retired doctor could afford a fancy hotel room in town, and eat a steak dinner paired with an expensive glass of wine, but they still had to put in the work of walking every day just like the 18 year old broke hippy that’s sleeping in the shelter next to them.
And in the back country it didn’t matter how rich you were. If you showed up late and the shelter was full, tough luck! No first class tickets here, pal.
I have to exercise a high degree of discipline everytime I come into town because money starts to lose its meaning in the woods. You can’t buy something if it’s not for sale. I think you could make a great living if you were willing to hike pizzas and cold beers up to hikers at shelters. When you’re hungry and tired you’d give anything for a cold beer and hot pizza. I just wouldn’t feel right about invading the sanctity of the wilderness by bringing capitalism to its doorstep in this way.
Similarly when you walk into town after a challenging stretch in the woods you really don’t care how much the burger or beer costs. Fuck it. Spend the money. What matters is to satisfy all the cravings you’ve been ruminating on mile after hungry mile.
People in the western world have an unhealthy obsession with money. We think money equals security. Money equals freedom. Money equals groceries and rent and having enough money in our 401k will ensure that we can survive into old age.
Sorry to dispel this illusion but money in and of itself doesn’t equal any of these things. All those zeroes in your 401k account are as real as the money in the universally hated board game Monopoly.
My mother grew up during the famines caused by Mao’s “Great Leap Forward.” She didn’t walk until she was five years old because of malnutrition. She vividly remembers meals of soup that consisted solely of boiled tree bark.
Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward (1958-1962), an ambitious but catastrophically flawed industrialization campaign, precipitated the deadliest famine in recorded history. The program forced peasants to abandon traditional farming methods for untested agricultural innovations while simultaneously redirecting rural labor to backyard steel production and massive infrastructure projects. This severe disruption of agricultural practices, combined with exaggerated harvest reports from local officials fearful of punishment, led to widespread food shortages that were exacerbated by continued grain requisitioning to meet export quotas and feed urban populations. As the crisis deepened, government officials confiscated seed grain and denied the severity of the famine, while prohibiting affected populations from seeking food elsewhere through strict migration controls. Historians estimate between 15 and 45 million Chinese citizens perished from starvation, disease, and violence during this man-made disaster, which was largely concealed from the outside world until decades later. The famine ended only when more moderate party officials convinced Mao to abandon key Great Leap Forward policies in 1961-1962.
I’m sure the rich fared better than the poor, even in this famine, but at a certain point when there is no food to buy your money is worthless. Your 401ks and retirement accounts will only maintain their value as long as this system and status quo holds. Look at the economic harm that has been done to Russia under Putin. Think of all the poor Ukranians who thought they had their retirements figured out until Russia came in and leveled their homes with bombs and artillery. Think of the 550,000 Americans who file for bankruptcy every year due to medical debt. Wow this stat actually shocked me. I thought it was around 100,000. Nope. Five hundred and fifty thousand!
According to my mom our family used to be rich in China before the communist revolution. My great grandfather was the superintendent of schools and could read and write English. Unheard of in early 1900s China. My mom still to this day talks about all the golden ingots that the family buried away when the communists took over. If only we could find those golden ingots we could be set for life now. I guess our family was part of the bourgeois class. My great grandfather was taken, beaten, and tortured by the communists for daring to be an intellectual. Our family lost everything overnight.
Just like I lost my family overnight when I was sent to America. Just like I once again fear that I will lose everything I’ve worked for with the rise of this fascist regime in America.
My point is all of this security you think you have because you have a lot of money in the bank is false security. It is an illusion and it can easily be pierced by reality. The truly wealthy will be insulated from what is to come, but you aren’t that rich, and neither am I. Your money ain’t no good when there’s nothing to buy. Even golden ingots won’t save you if society collapses.
This is an excerpt from a book I am writing. Please subscribe, I plan to write daily. And any feedback you have is much appreciated. Writing in this “live” format with instant feedback gives me much more motivation to maintain the practice. I really appreciate your participation in the creation of this book.
If this is the tenor and tempo of the rest of your book, it’s going to be wonderful. You bring these people into colorful light. When it’s published, I’ll buy a signed first edition.
When I first start to read your essays, I get a conservative/prepper vibe but push forward because I know thats not you. Increasingly, I’m feeling this weird cultural cross pull because of the overlap of preppers with campers/hikers. I’m building an off grid cabin in the mountains where I’ll live (because I want to) and plan to do the CT after that. Much of prepper wisdom comes in handy but feels odd - like I’m a slowly boiling into a conservative. I can’t yet reconcile these two worlds.
I had a similar experience with Zen in 2018. I was in the beginning of my journey with transitioning and solo hiking. I was talking to folks around the campfire one night about being trans and word got back to Zen. He was scheduled to drop me back on trail the next morning, but first held me hostage at breakfast and told me his slander stories, and about how he thought someone was messing with his hunting bows at the hostel. A few days after he dropped me off on trail, he pulled up to a picnic area I was having lunch at. Very creepy, and I believe said something very similar to “I thought you’d be here.” He then went on to tell me how unnatural being trans is and how “I’m so cool and such a cool girl and should be confident in that” yada yada. Major creep shit. I called my mom crying that night and afraid he would keep popping up. A few days after that I landed at the NOC. I was worried he would be there, and sure enough he was. Before I saw Zen, a fellow hiker saw me and ran interference. It was terrifying as a solo hiker to know that a hostel owner was constantly trying to track me down to preach to me, or do whatever else. It’s sad that mental health can turn people into monsters. In my experience, I think the AT is a safer community without him.