I was thinking about going to India with Hannah, or Bali with Ashlyn, maybe Morocco with Emily Rose. But then I came across Yosemite with Haleigh. Haleigh looked so happy. So carefree. Her arms open wide, embracing the wilderness. I, too, wanted to clasp my coffee mug while watching the sunrise and swing in a hammock slung between pines. It had been too long since I鈥檇 gone backpacking! I didn鈥檛 know Haleigh鈥檚 last name or anything about her. No matter. Haleigh made life outdoors look so easy. So perfect. On Instagram, at least.

Recently, the algorithm has been inundating me with women like Haleigh鈥攑retty, approachable, adventurous, always on a trip somewhere lovely. And suddenly all of them seemed to be inviting me to join them. Trekking in Peru. Strutting through Parisian streets. Leaping into turquoise waters in Tahiti. 鈥淭ravel with me!鈥� their painstakingly curated feeds read, leading to links where all you had to do was click and pay, then pack a bag.

I wanted to go. Follow the followers. See what traveling with a travel influencer was all about. But India with Hannah sounded鈥� far. Better, I thought, to stick a little closer to my home in San Francisco; drive my own getaway car. So I clicked Haleigh鈥檚 book-now button, put down a $600 deposit, and, when summer came, headed east to Yosemite, to meet up with a bunch of women I鈥檇 never met before.

Most of the dozen others had flown in. Strangers all, waiting at the airport for the sort-of stranger who鈥檇 lured them there. And then there she was, in the flesh at SFO: @, a lithe 32-year-old with a waist-length dirty-blond braid, wearing Stio pants and Chacos, walking toward a van full of her followers. And everyone was quietly freaking out.

鈥淭here was this fangirl moment,鈥� Jeanne, a restaurateur from North Carolina, mother of four, and at 51 the eldest of our group, told me later. 鈥淣o one said it out loud or anything, but you could feel it. This nervous energy. It was like: Oh, my God! There she is! She鈥檚 real.鈥�

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In darkness, there is light, but I wouldn鈥檛 deign to carry one. Not since I saw the light. It dawned on me: Why lug around a cumbersome AceBeam or a Maglite dumbbell, even one of those cute mini keychains, when I can affix a beaming bright bulb to my forehead? They may not be as trendy as these days, but in fleece-clad circles they are equally fashionable: headlamps are the fanny packs of the face.

The chef Wylie Dufresne once the source of his disdain for both to-go lattes and umbrellas: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 like holding anything.鈥� I agree. What鈥檚 a little drizzle versus the hassle of dealing with an extra appendage all day? I have a cousin who marches into my house for dinner armed with a water bottle the size of a Vitamix, and I always wonder: Does she think we don鈥檛 have glasses?

As a suburban Boston-raised mallrat who grew up reading under a pink comforter with the same flimsy everyone did, I did not know of headlamps. It was my old boyfriend, a rugged Aussie named Rupert, who first introduced me to the practical joys of the hands-free light. Or 鈥渢orch,鈥� as he called it. It was the early aughts, which meant Rupert鈥檚 headlamp was giant and clunky, with a black rubber-encased lens as heavy as a Nikon and a colorful band as fat as a guitar strap. Hardly the sleek, piercing little LED numbers of today.

He鈥檇 take it everywhere he took me: into the backcountry, while hiking, camping, and fishing around Northern California. He鈥檇 wear it frying trout over his propane stove in the Sierra, pitching our tent under the stars along the Lost Coast, fleeing for the car one rainy night, when said tent leaked in Mendocino. On a dark November night in Yosemite, he and his brother, Finn, spent a good hour hoisting our food up a tree by the light of their headlamps鈥攐nly to have two bears ransack our would-be Thanksgiving dinner anyway as we slept.

Strapped around his brown mop, above his kind eyes and smattering of freckles, Rupert always looked handsome, at home even in his hulking headlamp. As alive as he always made me feel.

If also kind of like a cross between a coal miner and a WASP wearing as if he was some sort of rare outdoorsy Orthodox Jew. To Rupert, his headlamp was just another piece of gear, like his gaiters or trusty Opinel, which he鈥檇 use to pry us open an abalone, or spread oily sardines over a baguette as the perfect camping snack. To me, Rupert and his torch symbolized a sort of daring strength and self-sufficiency I lacked. A bold, beauty-filled life lit by AA batteries.

The electric Edison (as in Thomas) was invented in the early 20^th century following a series of coal mining disasters. It initially consisted of a steel-encased rechargeable battery pack hitched to a belt and linked like an umbilical cord to a bulb. A bulb later mounted on a helmet, which allowed miners to move about underground, illuminated, and unencumbered, for up to 12 hours. These days, we鈥檝e got 600 lumens and ever-lasting lithium batteries, featherlight weights, and varying light levels, from dim-red鈥攊deal for dinner conversation without blinding your date鈥攖o Luxor sky beam-bright, a.k.a.聽

鈥淭ell me the occupation of someone who might wear a headlamp,鈥� my favorite game show once polled. Number one, indeed: Miners (65). Next, dentists and doctors (23). Detectives (4). Construction workers (3). Clearly, Family Feud fans aren鈥檛 an especially sporty lot. Add: rock climbers and spelunkers, ultrarunners, and SCUBA divers. Also, the nice wildlife-control guy who once recovered a not-small raccoon decomposing deep under my deck.

Out of the limelight, headlamps have long assisted in recovery efforts, from the rubble in to the 2018 cave rescue of the to September 11th. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum collection honors two headlamps: a duct-taped Black Pelican, donated by Dr. Cynthia Otto, a veterinarian who worked the night shift at Ground Zero treating wounded search-and-rescue dogs; and a four-bulb Black Diamond with 鈥淟t. Gleason FDNY 61鈥� etched on the inside of its elastic band鈥攖he name of the EMT from Queens who wore it for a week straight while searching for survivors.

Flashlight People, like Facebook users, are apparently an aging bunch. 鈥淚鈥檝e noticed older people buying flashlights,鈥� the lady at my neighborhood hardware store told me. I called REI, and the senior merchandising manager, Melissa Paul, agreed; the senior set prefers flashlights. Headlamps are a consistently larger business, she added. (REI: Headlamp People.) Still, both product categories have seen steady growth in recent years. Makes sense, what with the pandemic and proliferation of bomb cyclones and Cat 6 hurricanes. Apocalyptic times call for more than candles.

Not long after we broke up, Rupert and his brother died in a car accident, on their way back from a fishing trip in British Columbia. In my favorite photo of the two of them, they are headlamp-ed, happy, holding massive rainbows.

It鈥檚 been almost two decades. I tossed his leaky tent ages ago, but his light shines on through my marriage, motherhood, and middle age. I rarely go backpacking anymore, let alone running through the redwoods at 2 A.M. Still, I have a small arsenal of headlamps scattered around the house for other reasons. Walking the dog at night. In case the strikes.

I have a sturdy roof above me, and a warm bed flanked by nightstands topped with proper reading lamps鈥攂ut I never use mine. The shade is too translucent. The bulb, too cafeteria-bright. I suppose I could change it. But I don鈥檛. Instead, I prefer to cozy up with my book鈥攌ids curled in their beds; sweet husband quietly snoring beside me鈥攁nd press on my Petzl.

There鈥檚 freedom in my narrow nighttime field of vision. In the surrounding darkness, there is no overflowing laundry basket. No clutter on the dresser. No carpool logistics. No real worries. (Those come only after the light goes out.) There are no wrinkles anywhere but the sheets. Just me and my torch, and its subtle, if glaring, reminder: that life is, at the end of the day, still an adventure.

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They just kept coming. The day-trippers, Airbnbers, second-home owners, and unmasked revelers. Unleashed after California鈥檚 first statewide COVID-19 lockdown ended in late June of last year, they swarmed Lake Tahoe in numbers never before seen, even for a tourist region accustomed to the masses. 鈥淚t was a full-blown takeover,鈥� says Josh Lease, a tree specialist and longtime Tahoe local.

July Fourth fireworks were canceled, but that stopped no one. August was a continuation of what Lease called a 鈥渟hit show.鈥�

The standstill traffic was one thing; the locals were used to that. But the trash鈥攕trewn across the sand, floating along the shore, piled around dumpsters鈥攚as too much. Capri Sun straws, plastic water-bottle caps, busted flip-flops, empty beer cans. One day in early August, Lease picked up a dirty diaper on a south shore beach and dangled it before a crowd. 鈥淭his anyone鈥檚?鈥� he asked.

Lease was pissed. He couldn鈥檛 believe the lack of respect people had for this beautiful area, his home for two decades. Plus, they鈥檇 invaded during a pandemic, with them.

That day, after the diaper incident, Lease went back to his long-term rental in Meyers, California, a few miles south of the lake at the juncture of Highways 89 and 50, where he could see the endless stream of cars. An otherwise even-keeled guy, he logged on to Facebook and vented. 鈥淟et鈥檚 rally,鈥� he posted on his page, adding that he wanted to put together a 鈥渘on welcoming committee.鈥� He was joking鈥攕ort of. But word spread like the wildfires that would soon rage uncontrollably around the state. Before long someone had designed a flyer of a kid wearing a gas mask, with a speech bubble that read 鈥淪tay Out of Tahoe.鈥澛營t went viral.

On Friday, August 14, at four o鈥檆lock, over 100 locals from around the lake began to gather. They commandeered the roundabouts leading into the Tahoe Basin鈥檚 major towns鈥擳ruckee, Tahoe City, Kings Beach, and Meyers in California, and Incline Village in Nevada鈥攖o greet the weekend hordes. Young women in bikini tops, elderly couples in floppy hats, and bearded dads bouncing babies in Bj枚rns held up hand-painted signs: 鈥淩espect Tahoe Life,鈥� 鈥淵our Entitlement Sucks!,鈥� and 鈥淕o Back to the Bay.鈥� One old-timer plastered his truck with a banner that read 鈥淕o Away鈥� and drove around and around a traffic circle.

But summer turned to fall, which turned to winter, which became spring, and the newcomers are still here. It鈥檚 not just the tourists anymore, whose numbers have ebbed and flowed with lockdown restrictions and the weather聽and whose trash has gone from wet towels twisted in the sand to . There鈥檚 another population of people who came and never left: those freed by COVID from cubicles and work commutes. They migrated, laptops in tow, to mountain towns all over the West, transforming them into modern-day boomtowns: 鈥�.鈥�

In Lake Tahoe, the unwelcoming party was hardly a deterrence. The outsiders have settled in.

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It鈥檚 a dry January, which means two things on this girls鈥� trip to central Arizona: we鈥檙e all skipping the margaritas tonight, and the river will be low enough for our Tacoma to cross in the morning.

Crowded into a booth at a Mexican restaurant in a small town near the edge of Tonto National Forest, swapping names and where-are-you-froms, we are a motley crew: two millennials wearing camouflage and eyelash extensions, an overalls-clad photographer who lives in an Airstream, and me, a San Francisco food writer soon to be out of her comfort zone.

Our server, Penny, flower pen poised over her notepad, is confused. 鈥淚 have to ask,鈥� she says, inspecting us through rhinestone-studded spectacles. 鈥淲hat are you ladies doing here?鈥�

, 33, and , 32, friends who met on Instagram, look at each other. They鈥檙e used to this question.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going hunting,鈥� Amanda explains.

鈥淲hat? Four ladies hunting? All by 颅yourselves? Well,鈥� says Penny. 鈥淭his is rather interesting.鈥� She wishes us luck.

Apparently, we鈥檙e going to need it. What we have, I learn, is a late-season, last-minute, over-the-counter, nonresident, archery-only antlered-deer tag on public land. We鈥檒l be hunting mule deer: an animal that鈥檚 flighty and fast, with 310-degree vision, a sense of smell a thousand times stronger than ours, and ears twice the size of Alfred E. Neuman鈥檚. The $300 tag will be difficult to fill鈥攐dds of success are just 颅10 percent. In other words, it will take serious luck to bag a buck in the next five days. But also serious skill, which these ladies definitely have.

Ladies they don鈥檛 mind. Just don鈥檛 call them huntresses. 鈥淲e hate that word,鈥� says Rihana, who lives in Layton, Utah, and works as a marketing director for , a company that sells nutritional supplements and clothing for hunters. 鈥淚t鈥檚 too sexualized, like temptress or seductress. Why does everyone try to put us in our own category? We鈥檙e hunters鈥濃�攍ike hikers are hikers and runners are runners. Amanda, a realtor from rural Montana, agrees.

The style of bowhunting we鈥檒l be doing, called spot and stalk鈥攕potting an animal from afar, then stalking it until we鈥檙e within shooting range鈥攊s popular on the vast public lands open to hunters in the West, and it鈥檚 much harder than, say, deer hunting from a tree stand, which is more common in the East. 鈥淭here will be lots of highs and lows,鈥� Rihana warns. 鈥淏ut if we do get a deer, it鈥檚 going to be epic.鈥�

I want epic. I think. As a liberal, urban, coastal-living walking clich茅, I care where my food comes from: I鈥檒l pay for the precious $4 peach, the $8 carton of local eggs, and whatever my bougie butcher counter charges for its organic grass-fed beef. But I have never cared quite enough to take it to the next level and harvest my own. That鈥檚 why I鈥檓 here, to fulfill my moral obligation as a meat eater. To experience what it feels like to, if not kill the animal myself, at least watch it die. And then, you know, help dismember it before sitting down to dinner.

Modern-day omnivores have long outsourced the dirty work, of course. And in doing so, we鈥檝e created something even dirtier: factory farms and slaughterhouses. Things most meat eaters like to ignore for the ease and inoffensiveness of picking up a pound of plastic-wrapped chicken breasts on the way home from work.

In 2004, David Foster Wallace about lobster, though the same holds true for steak: 鈥淎s far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing. I should add that it appears to me unlikely that many readers of Gourmet wish to think hard about it.鈥�

But today, food has come to dominate our collective conversation. 鈥淲ho makes the best ramen?鈥� is the new 鈥淚t looks like rain,鈥� and photos of Early Girl tomatoes get nearly as many likes on Instagram as photos of cute kids. At the same time, we鈥檙e increasingly concerned about the environment and climate change鈥攁ccording to the , livestock contributes 14.5 percent of the world鈥檚 human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions. The result is our fervent desire to know the source of everything we eat, from our honey to our halibut. Consumer interest in sustainable food increased 23 percent from 2018 to 2019, according to a recent study by Tastewise, a data platform for the food industry. Harvesting your own meat is a way to opt out of the distasteful aspects of factory farming.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened our interest in self-sufficiency, from gardening to raising backyard chickens to hunting. While people panic about meat shortages, having the ability to secure your own supper is an attractive idea.

Hunting in America has long been associated with gun culture, something for dudes who love to drive big rigs and drink beer and shoot things. But shouldn鈥檛 it also be associated with food culture, something for women like me颅鈥攐r, really, anyone鈥攚ho love to hike and drink wine and eat things?

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IT'S THE WELCOME BASKET that overwhelms him. Not the idyllic grounds or gardens or the fact that鈥攆or the first time in two years鈥擟harlie Engle has his own room, with his own bath. Long deprived of fresh fruit, he beelines toward the bamboo bowl brimming with organic apples and Asian pears, just plucked from the surrounding orchards. Then, gazing out the sunlit window (a window!), he polishes off every piece. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 even know what I was eating! I just grabbed these weird brown things!鈥� he says, laughing. 鈥淚n prison I never ate something I couldn鈥檛 identify.鈥�

Engle (left) with Ray Zahab, running the Sahara

The prison workout group, May 2012

I meet Charlie on a chilly morning last September at a manicured farm in Mendocino County, just a few weeks into his newfound freedom from West Virginia鈥檚 Beckley Federal Correctional Institute. He has been flown out to Northern California for the (think TED with olive oil and wine tastings), where he鈥檒l lead morning runs through the grapevines and give an inspirational talk to a barn full of people in Patagonia puffies. It鈥檚 a chance to tell his new story, to see if the audience will accept him. Plus, it鈥檚 his 50th birthday, and wine country isn鈥檛 a bad place to spend it.

At seven this morning, he led a dozen of us on a six-mile run, but it鈥檚 not until he later hops up on the small Do Lecture stage that we learn the full extent of Charlie鈥檚 ultra-running, Hollywood-worthy past. For once, he kept his life鈥檚 details close to his dry-wick tee. 鈥淚 thought my talk would be more impactful that way,鈥� he says.

He was right. Turns out, as he tells the 100-person crowd in a 25-minute presentation, it was running that helped Charlie overcome a decade-long addiction to alcohol and drugs in his twenties. He went from doing crack and doing marathons鈥攐ften days, sometimes mere minutes, apart鈥攖o getting sober and winning elite ultrarunning endurance races around the world, including a 155-mile run across China鈥檚 Gobi Desert in 2003 and a 135-mile jaunt through the Amazon jungle in 2004. In 2007, he and two other ultrarunners covered 45 miles a day, for 111 consecutive days, to cross the Sahara.

Charlie, who had previously freelanced as a cameraman and producer for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, dreamed up the idea for the expedition with ultrarunner and approached Academy Award鈥搘inning director James Moll about making a documentary called . Moll brought on Matt Damon as narrator and executive producer, and Damon鈥檚 production company secured the film鈥檚 sponsors, including , Toyota, and Gatorade. The project raised $6 million for the charity Damon cofounded with Charlie and others, H2O Africa, which brings clean water to communities in Africa.

The film, both gritty and moving, earned Charlie a new level of recognition, and sponsorships poured in, from , , and AXA Equitable. He signed on with an agent at William Morris, who secured corporate speaking engagements with fees as high as fifteen grand. Suddenly, Charlie had turned his two legs into a full-time, income-generating career.

The second film he appeared in, , about his attempt to set a new cross-country speed record with ultrarunner Marshall Ulrich, premiered in May 2010, in his hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina, to a packed theater. 鈥淏est day of my life,鈥� Charlie says. Less than 24 hours later, he was arrested for mortgage fraud.

In the spring of 2009, Greensboro IRS special agent Robert Nordlander became aware of Engle after reading about Running the Sahara in the local papers and wondered how he had time to make a living with all that training. He opened an investigation after noticing that Charlie hadn鈥檛 filed taxes for two years. When Nordlander found no wrongdoing on the returns he persisted, ultimately sending in an undercover female agent. While wearing a wire over lunch, she recorded Charlie saying: 鈥淚 had a couple of good liar loans out there, you know, which my mortgage broker didn鈥檛 mind writing down, you know, that I was making $400,000 a year when he knew I wasn鈥檛.鈥�

The case went to trial in September 2010 in a federal court in Virginia, where Charlie owned a couple of properties. The jury eventually found him guilty of mortgage fraud (broadly defined as intentionally falsifying or omitting information on a mortgage application to obtain a loan). The prosecution pushed for four years鈥� imprisonment, but Judge Jerome Friedman considered Charlie鈥檚 clean record, his charity work, and the 120 letters of support he received and gave him 21 months instead.

The prosecutors maintain that the case was quite clear. 鈥淢r. Engle was convicted by a jury of fraudulently obtaining more than $1 million in four mortgage loans on two properties, pulling out nearly $150,000 in equity, and then allowing the properties to go into foreclosure,鈥� says Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Still, hundreds of thousands of borrowers and brokers used liar loans鈥攐therwise known as stated-income loans, which did not require a lender to verify a borrower鈥檚 annual income鈥攄uring the housing boom, and Charlie remains baffled as to why he was targeted. 鈥淭wenty-one months for allegedly over-stating your income on a loan application?鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 frigging ridiculous! What sort of prison tattoo am I supposed to get? A fountain pen?鈥�

Indeed, several prominent journalists took up the case while he was in prison, pointing out the lack of prosecutions aimed at big-fish bankers who were driving forces in the housing bubble and crash. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just that Mr. Engle is the smallest of small fry that is bothersome. It is also the way the government went about building its case,鈥� wrote New York Times columnist Joe Nocera he devoted to Charlie. 鈥淭he more I looked into it, the more I came to believe that the case against him was seriously weak. As for that 鈥榗onfession鈥� 鈥� It really isn鈥檛 a confession at all. Mr. Engle is confessing to his mortgage broker鈥檚 sins, not his own.鈥�

Charlie has always said that he didn鈥檛 fill out the loan document, and he maintains his innocence. Though motions for a new trial were denied in late January, he says he will persevere and intends to appeal until the felony is cleared from his record.

Meanwhile, whatever the merits of the case, Charlie served his time, and now he鈥檚 out. He鈥檚 back to dreaming big, planning another epic adventure: to run, bike, and kayak from the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea, to the highest, the Himalayas, where he鈥檒l climb to the top of Mount Everest.

He鈥檚 also jobless, facing five years of probation, and staring at a $262,500 court-ordered debt to the bank. 鈥淲hich basically guarantees real poverty,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 just want my life back. The one they took from me. My biggest fear鈥攎y only fear鈥� is that I won鈥檛 be able to live my life the way I want to.

BACK IN THE BARN, the Do crowd is riveted, including fellow speaker Cheryl Strayed, , one of the 153 books Charlie read in prison. 鈥淵ou ran 4,400 miles across the Sahara?鈥� she exclaims. 鈥淚 only walked 1,100!鈥� Charlie, who is writing a memoir, later says to me, only half-joking, 鈥淚 was like, if she can write a bestseller about a hike…鈥� The weekend was the jump-start he needed. Not every just-sprung ex-con gets a standing ovation.

But two months later, when Charlie returns to California from his home in Greensboro, post-prison reality has set in. We meet up in San Francisco. He looks older, paler, more human than superhero. He鈥檚 doing contract work for Hawkeye, a company that sets up urban obstacle-race courses and has 72 rainy hours of hard manual labor and sleepless nights ahead. Still, he鈥檚 grateful for the temporary gig. He鈥檒l make about $2,000, plus get a shared room at the Radisson and free pizza.

At six feet tall and 175 pounds, Charlie is bigger than most distance runners. With blue eyes and a goofy grin, veiny temples, and graying, thinning hair, he looks a little like Don Knotts, but with more muscle tone. 鈥淔rom the neck down, he could be 18 years old,鈥� says his friend Greg Clark, who has known him since he actually was. He says 鈥渁ww鈥� when he drives past road kill and taught his two sons (now 18 and 21) to greet people with hugs, not handshakes.

Sipping a triple-shot mocha, Charlie starts in on his life story. He got married in 1987, the day before his 25th birthday, to Pam Smith, a woman he鈥檇 spent a total of ten days with. They bounced around, from California to Georgia, where their first son, Brett, was born, in 1992, and settled in Greensboro, where their second son, Kevin, was born, in 1994. Pam and Charlie divorced in 2002 but remain close. They live minutes from each other in Greensboro, the sons with their mother.

On February 14, 2011, when Charlie entered Beckley, a fence-free minimum-security facility, guards ripped his sons from his arms, stripped the clothes off his back, and tossed him regulation greens and steel-toed leather boots. He got good advice early on, from an inmate named Block. 鈥溾�夆�楧o your time,鈥� he said, 鈥榙on鈥檛 let your time do you,鈥欌�夆�� Charlie recalls.

He took it to heart. What he accomplished with a pair of Nike castoffs from the commissary and a quarter-mile gravel track is pretty impressive.

For starters: 135 miles. If he couldn鈥檛 make it to Badwater that year, he鈥檇 bring the famed Death Valley ultramarathon to him.

So at 6 a.m. on July 11, 2011, on his own, Charlie ran. Around and around the basketball courts on the quarter-mile path. There was no cheering on the sidelines. No support crew, save the guy he asked to toss him a Snickers.

He marked each mile with a stone: 81 the first day, 54 the next. He was back in his cell by the 4 p.m. count. A prisoner still鈥攂ut 540 laps later, the length of the race done.

When he wasn鈥檛 running or cleaning the pool hall, his assigned prison job, he鈥檇 devour old copies of Vanity Fair or respond to the hundreds of letters he received鈥攆rom recovering addicts, inspired runners, supporters he鈥檇 never met. Or he鈥檇 be in the library, poring over a world atlas, charting his route from the Dead Sea to Everest.

At first, no one was quite sure what to make of him, the guy running in the rec yard every day, doing downward dog, trading cafeteria meat for fruit, corralling signatures to get almonds onto the commissary list. 鈥淭hese guys call me crazy and maybe I really am,鈥� he wrote in his journal. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a label I can live with in here 鈥� my crazy label has drawn a lot of guys to me.鈥�

One by one, inmates began approaching Charlie, tentatively jogging beside him and asking fitness advice (鈥淚f I jiggle my fat on purpose while I鈥檓 running, will that help me burn it off faster?鈥�) and nutrition questions (鈥淗ow many laps around the track equals a doughnut?鈥�). Soon he amassed a ragtag workout group: Block, Butter Bean, Bootsy, Dave the pot dealer, Casey the meth manufacturer, Howell, in for a white-collar crime, and Adam, a six-foot-five 430-pounder who huffed and puffed his way to the cafeteria.

They met every afternoon. They鈥檇 run, do speed intervals, and lift rocks. Charlie鈥檚 coaching style was more lead-by-example than Jillian Michaels. 鈥淚鈥檓 not really a you-can-do-it type of guy,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 more like: if what I do inspires you, if you see something in that, then good for you.鈥�

This unlikely crew saw something. 鈥淚t was the darnedest thing,鈥� recalls Casey by phone after his release, describing how he lost 20 pounds and worked his way up to five miles a day. 鈥淐harlie鈥檇 tell you entire stories while you ran. He鈥檇 just carry you around the track, know what I mean?鈥�

Fifty-nine-year-old Howell got down to 7:30 miles and started running half-marathon lengths at Beckley. But it was Adam who had the most impressive turnaround. By December, he鈥檇 lost 180 pounds and went from a 46-inch waist to a 36. In a six-page letter to me from prison, Adam shares his first impression of Charlie. 鈥淚鈥檇 started walking and was complaining about blisters,鈥� he writes, explaining how he thought he鈥檇 never be able to get size 14EEEE sneakers from the commissary. But 鈥渢hat afternoon, Charlie shows up in my cell. He went through the trouble of finding shoes for the morbidly obese guy he didn鈥檛 know.鈥�

On August 8, 2012, Adam ran ten miles for the first time. 鈥淭his is for Charlie,鈥� he said of his friend, who鈥檇 left prison for the halfway house in June.

CHARLIE ACTUALLY started off on the right path in high school, in Southern Pines, North Carolina. He was at the top of his class, student-body president, a star at every sport he tried, including track鈥攍ike his grand-father, who coached at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 40 years. But when Charlie got to UNC himself in 1980, he realized that he wasn鈥檛 exceptional at anything but alcohol. It was the early eighties, and cocaine was as common as kegs; by his junior year, he鈥檇 lost control of his addiction. His father, who divorced his mother in 1964, pulled him out of school and got him a job flipping burgers at a Wendy鈥檚 in Seattle, where he lived at the time.

Charlie spent the next decade moving around, going from cocaine to crack, and waffling between bingeing and achieving. One day he was the best salesman at Bally Fitness in Atlanta, Georgia; the next he was borrowing drug money from the Baskin-Robbins register he manned in Monterey, California. He became a top Toyota salesman, until he got fired for not showing up. He found a new niche in the auto industry, paintless dent repair, and started a company that chased hailstorms around the U.S. Suddenly, he was earning more money than he鈥檇 ever made. And spending it on more crack than he鈥檇 ever smoked.

His binges lasted anywhere from two days to two months and typically involved motel rooms, random women, and thousands of dollars of crack, which he鈥檇 smoke in three hours. Then repeat. His lowest moments came when he鈥檇 wake up strung out on some sidewalk鈥攁nd see joggers鈥� legs going by.

So he did what he presumed no drug addict could possibly do: he laced up and started running marathons. His first was at age 26, in Big Sur, California, in 1989. The next year he ran Napa (March 10), then Boston (April 15), then Big Sur (April 21) again. He鈥檇 binge, then race, binge, then race. 鈥淚 could say, 鈥業 just ran a 3:07. What鈥檇 you do this weekend?鈥欌�夆�� he recalls. He found sobriety in 1992, two months after the birth of his first son, Brett, when a weeklong crack spree in Wichita ended with a narrow escape and three bullet holes in his 4Runner. He went to three AA meetings that day, and the day after, and he attended a meeting at least once every single day for the following year. After ten years of addiction, what changed in Wichita? 鈥淎ll I can say is, I had a son, and I finally decided to choose life over death,鈥� Charlie says.

Four years later, he鈥檇 done 30 marathons鈥攁nd won his first ultra, a 100-miler in Australia. By the turn of the century he was on top of the world, competing all over it.

LAST DECEMBER, I visited Charlie in Greensboro. He鈥檚 living rent-free in a house in the suburbs with a friend who has an extra bedroom. Strewn with AA and Buddhist books, his old polyester greens and tattered Nikes, it looks like he鈥檚 barely unpacked from prison.

He鈥檚 wearing a gray shirt printed with the words BELIEVE+ACHIEVE in white. 鈥淚 almost called to say don鈥檛 come,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 not in a good place. I鈥檓 too depressed. I hate it. It鈥檚 not me.鈥�

We head outside to Greensboro鈥檚 network of wooded trails and he vents: 鈥淣o one cares. No one gives a shit about me unless I鈥檓 doing something interesting.鈥�

His cell phone rings midrun. It鈥檚 his 18-year-old son, Kevin. Doesn鈥檛 matter who it is鈥攌ids, potential job leads, probation officer, former girlfriends鈥攈e always picks up. They make dinner plans. 鈥淏ye, love you buddy,鈥� he says.

鈥淚鈥檇 love to do Badwater with my boys someday,鈥� he says. Though Dead Sea to Everest is his top priority right now, Charlie has a zillion big ideas brewing. 鈥淚celand would be really cool.鈥� He also wants to take another shot at running across America. He wasn鈥檛 able to complete the first run due to a staph infection. (Marshall Ulrich pulled off the third-fastest crossing, completing it in 52 days.) 鈥淭he women鈥檚 time is actually pretty soft,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 could find someone to do it with me. We鈥檇 go after both records.鈥� And, of course, film it.

Eight miles later, his mood has mildly improved.

But he鈥檚 got a long way to go before recovering financially. He has no savings and is scraping together a living by working for a friend鈥檚 paintless dent repair business and with various freelance projects, like the contract work for Hawkeye. All of his sponsors dropped him after his conviction, as did H2O Africa (), where he was a board member. Though he has given rousing free talks at his old UNC fraternity and the local Kiwanis club, he鈥檚 waiting to reenter the speaking circuit until he has something more positive to say. 鈥淧eople want a comeback story,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 come back from shit yet.鈥�

Still, he鈥檚 constantly working all kinds of deals from his de facto office, the sofa. iPad propped on his knees and iPhone at the ready, he fields phone calls, e-mails, texts. Ding! A producer potentially interested in a reality-TV series he鈥檚 pitching called Time Served, about helping former inmates find their footing. Bark! A warden from a women鈥檚 prison in Tennessee inviting him to come speak. Ring! An AP reporter asking to film him at the Krispie Kreme Challenge, in Raleigh鈥攚hich requires running 2.5 miles, eating a dozen doughnuts, then running back鈥攆or French television. Sure, agrees Charlie. He鈥檚 up for anything right now. As Kevin says over dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, 鈥淲e wish he was a normal dad, but he鈥檚 not.鈥�

To get fit, Charlie runs 鈥渁s much as is humanly possible鈥� and works out at his gym. He occasionally goes to Bikram yoga and sees his chiropractor (who never makes him pay). He admits that his body isn鈥檛 in shape for the Brazil 135, which his probation officer just green-lighted and is coming up in four weeks. 鈥淧rison, the stress, it all took a real toll,鈥� he says. But his physical state seems to be the last thing he鈥檚 worried about. Ready or not, he鈥檒l always run.

Ring! 鈥淣aaaaaate Smith鈥� So nice to see your name,鈥� says Charlie over a bowl of black bean soup at Panera Bread. The old friends, who met in the nineties when Nate was Charlie鈥檚 instructor at the San Francisco鈥揵ased Presidio 国产吃瓜黑料 Racing Academy, catch up. Turns out Nate is now a manager at Oakley. I listen to Charlie鈥檚 end of the call:

鈥淚 have a new expedition planned. It goes from the Dead Sea to the top of Everest 鈥� I know 鈥� I just had to change my route again after I realized鈥攚hat was I thinking?鈥擨 can鈥檛 cross Syria right now! So I鈥檓 gonna run through Jordan into Saudi Arabia, then Oman. I鈥檒l paddle across the Arabian Sea and then bike across India to Everest. And climb it. Yeah, it鈥檒l be another film.鈥� He takes a sip of his soup.

It鈥檚 Christmastime, and at this point he has nothing more than a loose plan and a PDF of his pitch. Still, his tone is done-deal matter-of-fact. (Subtext: How about a sponsorship?)

Self-propelled, multi-country expeditions have been completed before. Last year, a 49-year-old Australian named Pat Farmer successfully ran from the North Pole to the South Pole in nine months. And Turkish-American adventurer Erden Eruc spent five years cycling, rowing, and climbing around the globe, finally completing his journey last summer. But very few have ever gone from the lowest point on earth to the highest. Which, of course, is why Charlie wants to.

He鈥檒l kick off the expedition with a float in Jordan鈥檚 Dead Sea, then run 2,000 miles east鈥攖hrough Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Oman (approximately 40 miles a day)鈥攖o the Arabian Sea, which he鈥檒l kayak 750 miles across to the coast of India. And then bike 2,350 more miles, for a total of 5,000 miles in six months鈥攊n order to reach Everest by May, climbing season. (He鈥檚 summited mountains of less stature before: McKinley, Whitney, Rainier, and, during the 1998 Raid Gauloises, Ecuador鈥檚 19,347-foot Cotopaxi, following a five-day run.) His lean crew will consist of a physical therapist, a logistics expert, and a native in each country familiar with the area and local customs. Matt Battiston, a retired Army Ranger and former Eco-Challenge teammate of Charlie鈥檚, has agreed to be his U.S.鈥揵ased chief coordinator. Unlike Sahara and America, Charlie will run solo this time.

Being a gifted self-promoter is a necessity for anyone seeking to make a living in adventure sports, and Charlie is one of the best. Though some grow tired of his shtick. Ulrich, fellow star of Running America, no longer speaks to him. (Nor did he want to be interviewed for this story.) But in Running on Empty, his book about the 3,063-mile adventure, Ulrich writes: 鈥淭he guy could work a room, for sure. Charlie鈥檚 braggadocio and craving for the limelight had begun to rub me the wrong way.鈥� The index lists six separate instances under the heading 鈥淓ngle, Charlie, conflicts with,鈥� but Ulrich also credits Charlie for making the project possible. 鈥淚t had all finally materialized with Charlie鈥檚 efforts,鈥� he writes.

鈥淗e鈥檚 not egotistical,鈥� says Jill Leibowitz, a producer who first met Charlie while researching a potential piece for HBO鈥檚 Real Sports about his run across America. 鈥淏ut he does have a very high level of confidence. You have to,鈥� says Leibowitz, who鈥檚 now at Chicago-based Intersport, the production company working to secure sponsorships and funding for Dead Sea to Everest in exchange for a cut of what comes in. At least one former sponsor has expressed interest: Newton, the Boulder, Colorado, running company, which is also providing him with shoes. Before Inter-sport signed on, in January, a few colleagues asked Leibowitz if Charlie was credible. Her response: 鈥淐ompletely.鈥�

BUT THE DEAD Sea to the top of Everest? That鈥檚 crazy talk. 鈥淚 just keep talking,鈥� Charlie says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 what I did with Sahara. The thought of Sahara actually happening? I mean, really actually happening, never crossed my mind. Until one day, I bolted up in bed at 3 a.m. and said, 鈥極h, my God, I have to run across the Sahara Desert!鈥欌�夆��

鈥淚 like to experience the world by the soles of my feet,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 want to suffer. I need the next adventure so I can know that feeling again.鈥�

In late January, he gets a taste of it, after finishing the in 45 hours. To further test himself, he tacked on 133 additional miles beforehand鈥斺�渢o find out where I stood,鈥� he says鈥攖o run a total of 268 in four days. We talk the day he gets home. His body is broken, but he鈥檚 elated. 鈥淚 set my own personal reset button,鈥� he says. 鈥淧ain is what I need. Somehow, the easy path just doesn鈥檛 do it for me.鈥�

Back in Greensboro, post-Brazil, things start to pick up for him. Hawkeye books him for more race-course work; he submits a memoir proposal to his literary agent, who is shopping it around; a DePaul University professor decides to make a documentary about his case; his paintless dent repair work is once again bringing in some money; and Running the Sahara and Running America are being rereleased by DigiNext Films in 18 theaters this spring. He also accepts a job as director of , a 170-mile nonstop race across Oman in January 2014, where he鈥檚 planning on being at the time for Dead Sea to Everest. Coordinating the event will allow him to make some money midway into his expedition and give him a week to recover from his 2,000-mile run across Jordan before his 750-mile paddle across the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile he鈥檚 already jonesing for , in July. 鈥淟et鈥檚 say I鈥檓 not just looking to finish,鈥� he proclaims.

Charlie plans to leave in December 2014 for Dead Sea to Everest. He will do it, he vows. Can he hold up for 5,000 miles and 29,035 feet? 鈥淥h, absolutely,鈥� says Ian Adamson, a friend and a director of research at Newton, as well as a world-record holder in distance kayaking, who has agreed to accompany Charlie across the Arabian Sea leg of the journey.

But the more pressing question looms: whether Charlie can rebuild his life and put together an expedition of this caliber. It鈥檚 almost as if he needs these insane goals to stay sane.

鈥淕oing from the lowest place on earth to the highest is perfectly in line with how I feel about my own existence right now,鈥� he says. 鈥淵es, I do need this. But there will always be a next adventure for me.鈥�

He鈥檚 also realistic. 鈥淚 never guarantee success. That鈥檇 be foolish,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hings never go as you expect.鈥� He grins. 鈥淭he interesting part is what goes wrong along the way. Shit happens. It鈥檚 all about what you do when it does.鈥�

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