The below is a transcription. Minor edits have been made for clarity and readability, while preserving the original message and intent. This video is part of a new series on The Trek’s Youtube. Be sure to check out the full video, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

On April 24th, Madison Blagden—better known on trail as Peg Leg—shared a powerful written account on The Trek detailing a disturbing encounter she experienced with a stranger while hiking the Appalachian Trail.

It immediately went viral.

The original blog post received over 250 comments alone. On social media, nearly 600 more comments combined. Over 500,000 people shared, read, commented, and reacted to what Peg Leg called her scariest encounter on trail yet.

But what followed was even scarier. Since sharing her experience, Peg Leg has been harassed, threats of DOXXing, and even death threats.

So what happened? And why was the internet’s reaction so intense? Let’s talk about it.

WHO IS PEG LEG?

For context, Madison Blagden, better known by her trail name Peg Leg, is an extremely experienced thru-hiker and triple crowner. She’s been writing for The Trek for years, blogging about her experiences on trail. She has a dedicated following that reads every single one of her blogs – the good and the bad. She’s well-known and beloved by many in the thru-hiking community.

This year, Peg Leg is tackling the Border-to-Border Calendar Year Triple Crown. I.e. She is setting out to hike each of the big three scenic trails – the AT, the PCT, and the CDT – all in one year, and all starting at the border relative to each trail. She started her border-to-border of the Appalachian Trail on January 1st this year at the southernmost terminus of the Eastern Continental Trail – in Key West. Since then, she’s bounced back and forth between the trails, hiking an average of 30 miles a day and racing the weather so that she can finish all three trails in one calendar year. It is an extremely difficult feat, one that even the most skilled thru-hikers could only dream of accomplishing, and Peg Leg is the first woman to ever even attempt it.

The encounter we’ll discuss today occurred on Day 112 of her hike.

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

Peg Leg had just crossed into Vermont – the 12th state on the Appalachian Trail when you’re heading Northbound. As is to be expected from Vermont, the trail was flooded and muddy for the majority of the day, but she kept up the pace even as she was slogging through the muck. She was planning to crush 33 miles that day despite the less than ideal trail condition.

She hadn’t been totally alone on trail all day – she’d been hiking on and off with her friend Sunflower, and passed a bunch of Southbound section hikers. It was a normal day on trail, and she had no reason to feel unsafe or uncomfortable as she hiked along. She even met up with her friend Iceman after 18 miles around 2pm, where they hung out and ate hot dogs and drank Mountain Dew. After awhile, she said goodbye to her friend, and started a brutal 10 mile climb.

It was towards the end of that 10 mile climb that things really took a strange turn.

“What unfolded in the next half hour was truly chaotic and something I never would have predicted…

Around this time I was passing the spur trail to a shelter. I decided to pop over there and see if there was a privy. As I walked down the spur trail I couldn’t see directly toward the shelter initially. Then when I got closer I noticed someone sitting at the picnic table out front. The guy was wearing some blaze orange and appeared to be perhaps a hunter. When he first saw me, he signaled some kind of hand motions at me. My initial reaction was that he was doing something hunting related and I was interfering with it. I was pretty confused and kind of just froze where I was.”

She’s standing about 30 feet from the man, who’s sort of wildly gesturing at her. Peg Leg is confused but on her guard. When you’re a solo woman on trail, you’re pretty much always on your guard when you’re alone in the woods with a stranger – they could be the nicest, most well meaning person in the world… but the truth is, you just never know who they are, or what they’re capable of. And though Peg Leg wasn’t quite feeling like she was in danger yet, she was thrown off enough to just stop where she was and see what the stranger did next.

“I was about 20 to 30 feet away from the man. Initially I was caught off guard and a bit confused. I thought he was just some regular dude and was trying to logically make sense of the situation. Though the more he spoke and gestured, I began to make realizations. After a moment I realized that he was actually gesturing for me to come toward him with his hand.

All of a sudden he started saying “Come here. Come here.” He said a few other things and was basically just trying to get me to approach him. I was a little confused and stayed where I was. I took one of my headphones out and asked him what he was saying and what he wanted. He reiterated that he wanted me to come toward him. That’s when things got super weird. All of a sudden he said something along the lines of “Please come here, I need your help. Someone’s trying to poison me.”

Now, I want to pause here and encourage you to put yourself in Peg Leg’s shoes. You’re alone in the woods. You are a woman, alone. There is a man wearing what looks like hunting gear – you don’t know if he has a firearm. And he’s telling you to come closer – where he could possibly grab you, and harm you, and no one would be around to help you. And to make matters stranger, he’s claiming he’s been poisoned… but by who? He doesn’t seem sick. There’s no one else around. It’s bizarre, and it’s alarming. Peg Leg continues.

“When I heard those words come out of his mouth, they set off immediate alarm bells for me. I can’t speak for anyone else, but to me that sentence indicated that this man was either mentally unstable or under the influence of drugs. And if it wasn’t either of those things, then it just sounded like he was trying to lure me over to him and possibly harm me.

As soon as I heard him say this sentence I turned around and started running back to the trail. I can still remember the tone in which he spoke as well. It was the causal nature of his words which filled me with fear. He wasn’t panicked or frenzied. He was so incredibly calm.”

Talk to pretty much any woman who hikes alone in the outdoors, and I guarantee you they will all basically say the same thing – trust your instincts. Trust your gut. And Peg Leg, who has 15,000 miles of thru-hiking experience under her belt, much of it alone, is immediately feeling like she needs to get away from this man. It’s the way he’s acting, the way he’s speaking to her… alarm bells are going off in her head. There’s no second guessing for her – she felt primal fear, and her body told her to run. And that’s when things got even scarier.

Peg Leg takes off running, and the man behind her starts screaming after her, telling her to stop, to come back, and to come over to him.

“It was absolutely terrifying, and I only looked back once just to see if he was following after me. But it was really hard to tell because the shelter was slightly up on a hill. So after only 10 or so feet of descending, I really could no longer see the man at the shelter. At this point, I really didn’t care whether or not he was following me. I knew I just had to get out of there as quickly as I could.”

So now Peg Leg is running through the woods as fast as she can, she has no idea if this man is following her, and if he is, how fast he is, or what he wants to do to her. If she turns back to check while she’s running, she could risk tripping and hurting herself, which means he’d catch her, and who knows what would happen then. She’s also running with her backpack on, over roots and rocks, trying to keep her balance all the while her body is in fight or flight mode.

“At this point in time, my entire body was flooded with adrenaline and my face and neck had that flushed hot sensation that you truly only get when you’re afraid for your life. I felt sick to my stomach and just started running down the trail as fast as I could. Vermont has tons of rocks and roots. There was mud all over the trail. I was running and jumping over things and praying that I didn’t trip and fall. I just kept running for as long as I physically could and just looked back every now and then to see if he was there.

It was hard to balance looking back for comfort and also not looking back to keep myself moving. I was worried that if he was following me that he would definitely be able to catch me. You can’t run that fast with a backpack on. So some part of me kind of wanted to stop and hide. Another part of me just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

While I was running, of course, the only thing flashing through my mind were all of the terrifying stories that I’ve heard over the course of my entire life.”

Peg Leg ran for about half a mile until she was fairly convinced he wasn’t behind her, but for whatever reason, a part of her still felt as though he was there, lurking somewhere behind her or still in pursuit.

She decided to call her dad, and she shared with him all of the details of what had just occurred as she continued to jog down the trail. Her dad then called the state police and reported the situation, who then called the Forest Service who promised to look into it. This was a big relief for Peg Leg, because even though by this point she was miles and miles away and wasn’t necessarily concerned for herself, she was pretty concerned that this guy was still out there and could be a danger for other hikers.

“I really don’t want another hiker to have to go through what I just went through. And honestly, I’m worried that another hiker might not run away and might get lured in by this guy. If fight or flight hadn’t kicked in for me I don’t know what would’ve happened back there. That could’ve been a really dark situation.”

After all of the excitement, Peg Leg kept on hiking. She hiked on to the Kid Gore shelter through deep snow, and eventually was able to lay down and get herself to sleep, which she desperately needed after such a stressful day.

THE RESPONSE

Now, what you would hope would happen after someone shares their scary experience online would be an outpouring of reassurance. For me, when I read this story, my immediate response was “Man, I’m so glad that Peg Leg followed her gut. Clearly, her instincts were telling her that something was wrong. That could have been a really, really scary situation if it turned out that that guy had wanted to hurt her.” And, naively, I just assumed that pretty much everyone online would have the exact same response. Unfortunately, I was pretty shocked by the discourse.

Folks calling her an attention-seeker, folks calling her a liar, dramatic, overreactive, man-hating… one person even went so far as to include “#deathtomadisonblagden” in a comment. Revolting.

MY THOUGHTS

Here’s my take on the situation: I can understand how people might downplay Peg Leg’s experience here. If you explain the situation with literally zero nuance, you could argue that she came upon a man in the woods, and though he didn’t explicitly threaten her, she felt endangered anyway and took off running.

But when you explain the situation from the perspective of a solo woman hiker, alone in the woods with a stranger, who is claiming he’s been poisoned without explaining by who or what, and asking her over and over again to come closer, come closer. He wasn’t outwardly ill, or in pain or anything, he was very clear and concise with his wording, so much so that it was chilling for Peg Leg to hear… he could have a firearm, or overpower her through sheer force alone… all of that combined was enough to tell her something was off. And then when she takes off running, he starts SCREAMING at her, telling her to come back. Imagine a stranger screaming at you, SCREAMING, in the woods.

I’m telling you right now, if that was me in that situation, I would have done the exact same thing.

Remember, Peg Leg has 15,000 miles under her belt. I have zero doubts that she has had some strange run-ins and encounters with folks during her thru-hikes. I have only 2,200 miles under my belt, and during my thru-hike of the AT I can recall 3 situations in particular where I actually felt unsafe on trail because of a stranger I was alone with in the woods. And to be clear, as a solo woman hiker on the AT, you meet a LOT of people when you’re alone in the woods, and 99.9% of the time they’re totally normal encounters. But you really remember the ones that made you feel unsafe.

So for me, to see people react in this way was really chilling. Now to be clear, there were a LOT of really supportive people in the comment sections too, and people coming to her defense.

There was even a supportive comment from someone who camped with Sovereign in 2019. Sovereign was a thru-hiker on the Appalachian Trail who was known for his erratic and often aggressive behavior. He later murdered Ronald Sanchez Jr aka Stronghold, and nearly killed another woman hiker, with a knife.

For me, as a solo female thru-hiker, you better believe that I thought of Sovereign every time I had an encounter with someone that made me feel unsafe in any way. Best case scenario, I felt a little uncomfortable and I went on my way. Worst case scenario… you know.

SO… WHAT?

At the end of the day, all I can say is – none of us were there, except for Peg Leg and this stranger. None of us have any more information than what she provided in her blog, and in her videos. However, I think we can all safely assume that Peg Leg wouldn’t have reacted this way if she didn’t sincerely feel terrified and uncomfortable. Something in her told her to leave, and leave NOW.

And, I think we can all agree that, god forbid Peg Leg hadn’t run away and something HAD happened… you would have been seeing comments in that comment section saying things like “Why did you trust that stranger? Why didn’t you run away? Why didn’t you trust your instincts?” It’s the same reason that, when you’re watching a horror movie, you’re screaming at the television yelling “don’t go in the basement!” You have the benefit of knowledge. Victims don’t.

And unfortunately, as is human-nature, you’ll find that people are fascinated by danger. On YouTube, some of the most watched videos about the Appalachian Trail are titled things like “The Most Dangerous Man in Appalachian Trail History”, “The Most Deranged Man in Appalachian Trail History”, “DANGERS OF THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL”, and so on. And so, I believe when an encounter like this occurs, people are naturally drawn to it, and they’re also inclined to give their opinions – however positive or negative they may be. Peg Leg never could have predicted the blog taking off the way that it did. 

And whether these folks are actually a part of the Appalachian Trail community, or are simply folks who saw the blog title and decided to click… regardless of how you feel about Peg Leg’s reaction or the situation or whatever… a response like that, to a thru-hiker simply sharing their experience online, is NOT. OKAY. Plain and simple.

I want to thank Peg Leg for sharing her experience, and providing a place for discourse like this to occur. I also want to thank her for allowing me to retell the story here – I was deeply, deeply disturbed by the negative comments directed at her at the time. She deserves better.

Please be sure to follow her blog, or here on YouTube at @MadisonBlagden.

Feel free to leave a comment below with your thoughts on the situation – and please, keep it civil. We can talk about stuff like this without getting nasty.

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My name is Sassafras, and thank you so much for watching.

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Friday, July 18, 2025