# Trail Stories - There's No Suck to Be Embraced with Bradford "Rafiki" Bartels

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/hiker-trash-radio-2158694/trail-stories-there-s-no-suck-to-be-embraced-with-bradford-rafiki-bartels
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/hiker-trash-radio-2158694/trail-stories-there-s-no-suck-to-be-embraced-with-bradford-rafiki-bartels.md
Podcast: [Hiker Trash Radio](https://stenobird.com/podcast/hiker-trash-radio-2158694)
Published: 2026-09-12T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://bleav.com/shows/hiker-trash-radio/?post_type=gp_podcast_episode&p=1014
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/1385/injector.simplecastaudio.com/6d2da267-75e0-4996-8f52-dc96c283fcb3/episodes/3c42e326-e19d-4b3c-9110-92ed2ac1c0e7/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=6d2da267-75e0-4996-8f52-dc96c283fcb3&awEpisodeId=3c42e326-e19d-4b3c-9110-92ed2ac1c0e7&feed=TGxnwCmZ
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Duration seconds: 1209

## Resource

Bradford "Rafiki" Bartels just became the first person to thru-hike the Alaska Long Trail — a roughly 500-mile route from Seward to Fairbanks that is still under development, was not on FarOut when he walked it, and has approximately 30 percent road walks connecting trail segments that, in his estimation, still feels like a complete thru-hike because the whole point of a thru-hike is to explore an ecosystem and immerse yourself in a backcountry environment, and the Alaska Long Trail delivers both in surplus. He did it in 47 days. That is an OKT — Only Known Time. He researched it for years, called the organizations that opposed it to make sure he wasn't screwing anything up for people, and walked it in three emergency ponchos (one of which was a skirt) after his rain gear disintegrated against the Devil's Club. In this episode he explains why everybody worries about the wrong thing out there (it's not the bears, it's the rivers), shares his unpopular opinion about thru-hiking culture, and directly argues against the show's own closing line. It's a short detour from embracing the suck. The full interview with Rafiki drops Wednesday in two parts on the Hiker Trash Radio feed.

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## Transcript

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