Hi! My name is Andrew Goorhuis, but while hiking I’m also known as Haystack. I’ve spent the last few years of my life traveling with my own two legs. I’ve walked 7,000 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, Oregon Coast Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and Appalachian Trail. I’ve also cycled Pacific Highway 1/101 from Riverside, CA to Portland, OR. And guess what! I’m looking forward towards more. On this website I’m going to share some of my experiences with you.

What I can share now relates to my 2023 hike on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). I’m sharing verbatim from my personal journal (unless I feel what I’ve written would be needlessly hurtful to post). Each of these CDT posts is titled by the date which it was written and corresponding day of my trip. After each post’s verbatim is a post note. The content in each post note reflects my contemporary mood, feelings, and thoughts at the time at which I copied the verbatim down onto this blog. I’ll make sure to include any memories which come to mind after the prompting of reading my verbatim.

I hope you enjoy! I’m really thankful to anyone who’d take the time to read me. These trips are really sacred experiences. I’m mostly alone while on these trips. Alone for 90-95% of the day. And when moving alone I find myself inescapable. These trips offer an opportunity for me to continue to explore my name. Each evening of my trip I laid under the trees or under my tarp and tried to write something before the sun went down and I was asleep. What you find here is my daily attempt to scratch at the surface of the experiences of the day. Each entry is an attempt to record or re-remember what I’d felt before it slid and melted away.

My walk from Mexico to Canada along the CDT lasted 109 days. I plan to post daily, and will run out of posts from my CDT trip long before being ready to continue sharing from other experiences. So, if you’ve grown invested in my work, please be kind and expect a lapse. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you when I’m ready. In the mean time you can follow me on Instagram by searching andrew.goorhuis on the Instagram application or by clicking the various logo icons which appear at the bottom of each page on this website.

I can be critical at times while I’m writing. I want you to know that everything I share in this blog has more to do with me and my own limited perceptions than about the people whom may be included in what I write about. This is a public forum, and there are limitations to what a tool like this website can do. By sharing my personal journal with you I bring you into a confidence about my life. In return, I expect a certain responsibility from you. I’ve turned off comments on my posts, but I do want to hear from you. Hearing from you would be really fun for me I think. You can generate an email to me by utilizing this website’s contact page.

Much thanks and best wishes, I hope you enjoy. Click Here to Read the Blog!

- Andrew