Interview with Eight Left

Eight Left (Kathleen) is 27 years old and originally from Long Island, New York. She attended Boston University, and prior to the beginning of her hike, she was a sous chef at a restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina. Eight Left was hiking with a six-person tramily. The interview was conducted at Partnership Shelter on the AT in Virginia. 

Eight Left trying (and failing) to hitchhike

What was your motivation for hiking the AT?

 A few years ago, I met someone who had thru-hiked and it just seemed like such an amazing thing. The AT specifically seemed like such an amazing thing, and that kind of planted the seed, but I wasn't really sure it was for me. And in the fall, when I was planning my activities and goals for this year. I wanted to do a section hike on the AT. But when some stuff started falling apart at work, I just decided to quit and do a seven-week section hike, about 500 miles. So from Georgia to Damascus, and I have now surpassed Damascus at 500 miles. I've had just such an amazing time, and I've met such amazing people, so I'm really excited to keep going, way more than I thought. [Fancy Man interjects, “No one's ever going to work ever again”] Yeah, I have no idea what I’m going to be doing after the hike. I'm hoping that the trail will provide some direction

at some point. I'm just really enjoying being out here in the woods and not trying to rush away this experience by thinking about the next one.

What has been your favorite part of hiking the trail?

Definitely the tramily. It's just so fun to be in the woods with your friends every single day and joke around and laugh, and it's just such a special community. And I’ve met such amazing people out here. Being around them feels like I'm breathing fresh air into my lungs. Life is fun. Life is what you want to do with it. These people inspire me and remind me of that every day. 

What is the story behind your trail name?

So, my name is Kathleen, and they were calling me Kat for the first couple of weeks. I really wanted a trail name, but they wouldn't give me one. Fancy Man kept saying I had to be memorable. Do something memorable. He called me Wet Kat, Scaredy Kat, Kat Hole, Kataract. Eventually, we were down in Tennessee, and Rigg’s brother is actually a white water rafting guide right now for the season. So he picked this up at a gap one day, and we went white water rafting. We were screwing around on the river a little bit. And we get to this rapid, and his brother's telling us it's called Lost Guide Rapid. And a few years ago, a guide had fallen out of the boat and gotten stuck and died. So we decided to hit that sideways and try to flip the boat. So we do that, and I fell out of the boat. I got caught in the hydraulic hole, and it's just circulating there for 30, 40 seconds. It was the worst minute of my entire life. I really thought I was gonna die. There were a bunch of other people on the river, though, and these other guides from another rafting company came and got me out and shuttled me back on their boat. We just kept going down the river, and they shuttled me back over to my raft. And Fancy Man goes, “Well, Kat, eight left.” As in, a cat has nine lives. So, all I had to do was something memorable. Drown.