Carl “Professor” Stanfield is a serial thru hiker. Hailing from the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, he’s been chasing bigger and bigger adventures ever since he first got a taste of long distance hiking from his college Wilderness Leadership program in Brevard, North Carolina. In 2018 he thru hiked the entirety of the Appalachian Trail and chased that with a thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019. Since then he has been reviewing backpacking gear and working at a local gear store in Alabama, saving up for and dreaming up the next big adventure.

I’m 2022, Carl is attempting to backpack more miles in a single year than anybody on record ever has. Roughly 15 people have ever completed what’s known as the Calendar Year Triple Crown, which is completing all 3 of America’s major long distance trails in a calendar year: the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail, totaling roughly 7,500 miles. To break the current mileage record of about 10,300, Carl added on to the Appalachian Trail by starting in Key West, Florida, and finished beyond the end of the AT at the Canadian border, adding 1,800 miles to the 2,200 mile AT. The rest of the year’s miles are planned to come from hiking the 1,175 mile Mountains to Sea Trail across