After Hot Springs I moved on totally by myself, learned how to tent in the woods fare away from others, and how to hang food. It was time to get serious.
Category: PHOTOSTORIES
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Tennessee Salmon
A lot of food from Tennessee club, bold hills, very noisy (bad noise, not fun) hikers hostel in Hot Springs, that helped me to make a choice: you need to stop hanging with crowds too much otherwise you would never see Katahdin.
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Standing Bear
Tennessee North Carolina state line, sun in Smokies, the wreckage of an aircraft, and the Standing Bear hostel at the end of Smokies with a lot of “old” and “new” hikers there.
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Ghost in Smokies
Rain, twilights, muddy woods, Smokies. A lonely silhouette, moving slowly the same directions like me, no raincoat, no backpack. Just white angels wings on the back of his black hoody. Who it could be? Ghost, who else.
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Great Smokies Sliding
More rain, less fun, just mud, and beautiful muddy mountains, that I slide from on my bum. I am glad I saw Smokies on their best: smoke itself, rain, mud. And blossom!
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Nantahala Gathering
More rain. More hikers in Nantahala Outdoor Center. More fun. More food. (more…)
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Trash Days
Reading carefully how to deal with black bears, cooking stove, experiencing the last slightly below freezing temperature. A hikers hostel sent a bus to fetch us out of the woods during a bad forecast. (more…)
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Watching NoBos
Learning more about NoBo hikers (Northbound), Trail Angels, and hikers hostels. Watching what others eat, how they sleep, what they’re wearing, and what they are caring. (more…)
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Flood in Woody Gap
Woody Gap. Drying from the first storm at the trail angel’s house. My passport and other documents were wet as well, and, to save time, I asked the old lady to dry them with a hair drier, while I was bathing.
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Trail Magic Kick
#SpringerMountain. First two days and two nights on #AppalachianTrail. First storm. These first two days that did not let me turn around straight from Springer Mountain in Georgia. (more…)
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Camp NASA
I flew from South Africa to hike the #AppalachianTrail. What I knew about it? That as a trail runner I was able to do these 2000 miles anyway. I supposed to walk with a project of US militaries, so no need to care about supplying/resupplying. They would show me the way to hm… Katarin? Karazin? Ah, does it matter?
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The Whole Nine Yards of the Appalachian Trail
In 2014 I hiked the Appalachian Trail, unexpectable and unpredictable way. I wasn’t ready, I didn’t know about AT, I didn’t know how to deal with woods and wilderness and I was not a backpacker at all. So I’ve got whole nine yards of it.
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South African Road Trip
2014, Johannesburg, Kalahari, Cape-Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Groskop, Pretoria.
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Running & Winning Story
It’s possible to turn yourself into a runner in one month and into a winner in the second one. Run to win and share podium, no matter age.
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IRON AFRICA: An Unconventional Industrial Photography Exhibition
Against everyone’s expectations, in South Africa, I didn’t take a single photo of Kruger Park. The best wildlife I could photograph, given my patience level, would have been animals’ rear ends disappearing into the horizon. Then how on Earth did I win the African division of the International Photo Contest?
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Moscow
TV Short Movies Production, Journalism, Creative Writing. Once known as Elena Novikova, or Lena Mescherskaya, she made her mark as a journalist in a top Russian newspaper in the mid-2000s. With degrees in both technical and philological fields, she wrote on a variety of topics, earning praise for her literary flair, emotional depth, and unique blend of irony and grotesque allegory. Her column, The Track, a famous paper column, was especially notable, offering glimpses into her extraordinary life through its double meanings.
Now from the first face:
The following chain of events was never planned but happened because of the GEO-BS ripple effect.
South Africa
Because of my early age inspiration from the The Gods Must Be Crazy movie, in 2008, I flew to South Africa to run the Kalahari Desert Race and learned to run chasing other racers. This escapade led to a contract with the University of South Africa, where I trained with a top coach and won a Silver medal at the World Masters Athletics Championship in the USA in 2011. Dummit! If I had known, I would have stayed with my coach’s plan, and might have taken a Gold. But victories in the Alliance de France and British Consulate International Photo Contests, followed by a solo photo exhibition, Iron Africa, didn’t leave space for these thoughts. On a road trip around Cape Town, my camera with mindblowing footage of abandoned ships was stolen, together with everything else in my car, and I left for the longest hiking trail for a walk about.
Four Years On Foot. Wherever Eyes Lead
Because of this running chapter, I checked my limits and went unlimited. I thru-hiked the 2081-mile Appalachian Trail, cycled Historic Route 66 from Chicago to LA, pedaled from the Canadian border to Key West, biked from London to Orkney Island, traveled by boat and through the jungle on the Amazon River, climbed Machu Picchu, and drove from the Atacama Desert to Salar de Uyuni and Lake Titicaca.
Midcost Maine Art.
Because my car was towed away by mistake at the very beginning of my 2018 road trip, I changed my mind, stayed in Midcoast Maine for two years, collaborated with local artists on my art installation White PT Cruzer, which was frozen during the COVID lockdown.
Two Years of Skiing Lake Tahoe.
Because of the lockdown, I restored my road trip plan. At the gas station, on my way out of Rockport, I saw the car with an Aspen sticker and decided to go there. Until the track Chevy Tahoe arrived. And another one right after. A decision was made – I headed to Palisades Tahoe, passed PSIA exams, and for the next two seasons became a ski instructor with swim instructing in between.
Silicon Valley.
Horrible accident, deadly for my car and lacky for me, was a trigger for me to move to Silicon Valley to finally apply my engineering skills. Or media. With the W3 arrived, it can be both at once. Oh, and I should fix a mess on my account here, because my books, my bestselling hard copies, were published in the country whose language is not supported even for writing a bio here. Not even speaking about my changed name.
My books were uploaded to Amazon by the publishing house under their account. Who cares that it was one of the biggest in Russia? I must start over in English.