Episode 18: Rekindling Childhood on the CDT

How learning to survive in the wilderness can make you younger

Meg Roussos, Chilton Tippin and Corey White celebrate reaching Hope Pass near Twin Lakes, Colorado.

A Continental Divide Trail Hiker pushes through a snowfield in the South San Juan Wilderness.

Chilton Tippin stands above a snowfield near Monarch Pass, Colorado.

Corey White and Meg Roussos descend a mountain flank above Colorado's Sanford Basin.

Corey White and Chilton Tippin pause for a break in the San Juan Mountains.

In the Spring of 2015, writer Chilton Tippin quit his job and set off on the Continental Divide Trail, a 3,000-mile hiking route that runs from Mexico to Canada along the Rocky Mountains.

In the five months he spent on the trail, Chilton made friends with fellow hikers, pushed himself to exhaustion, delighted in the natural splendor of the American West and got a taste for what it's like to live life as a vagabond.

In some ways, he learned lessons you'd expect someone to learn on a trip like this, like how to rely on himself in the wilderness. But the trail did something else to him too -- something quite unexpected. On this episode, he shares his story.

Photos courtesy Chilton Tippin.