If the name Tami Asars sounds familiar, it should. Living Snoqualmie introduced readers to the North Bend author and hiker in 2022, when she completed one of the most demanding achievements in long-distance hiking, becoming one of fewer than 100 women in recorded history to finish all three major long-distance trails in the United States.
Now she’s back with a memoir, a brand-new guidebook, and a free evening event at a local favorite that Valley hikers won’t want to miss.
Asars is a Triple Crown hiker, meaning she has completed the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Appalachian Trail, roughly 8,000 miles of terrain in total, according to the American Long Distance Hiking Association-West, which tracks the data.
The PCT runs 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to the Canadian border along the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges, completed by Asars in 2016. At 3,028 miles, the CDT follows the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico to Montana and is widely considered the most remote and rugged of the three; she finished it in 2020. The AT, at 2,194 miles, runs the length of the East Coast from Georgia to Maine, the final leg completed in November 2022 after precisely four months on trail.
Those three trails are the headline, but they don’t capture the full picture. She has also completed the Wonderland Trail multiple times, the Colorado Trail, the West Coast Trail, the Arizona Trail, and the Tahoe Rim Trail, among others, and knows nearly all Cascade trails by heart.
That depth of experience comes through in her bibliography. She is the author of six hiking guidebooks published by Mountaineers Books, including her newest, Day Hiking Snoqualmie Pass, which releases April 1st. She is also a contributor and columnist for numerous outdoor publications and magazines, and her nature photography has appeared in periodicals and campaigns, including the City of North Bend’s own branding work.
Before her writing career took shape, she spent nearly nine years at REI teaching classes and working as a professional backpacking guide on the Northern Loop Trail in Mount Rainier National Park. She and her husband, Vilnis, built their home in North Bend nineteen years ago, nestled against Rattlesnake Ridge, where wildlife is an ever-present neighbor.
Long Lost, her new memoir, was released on February 24th. It is not, she is quick to say, a victory lap. “I never set out to complete a Triple Crown,” she said. “But as ‘Long Lost’ shares, one trail led to another, circumstances lined up, and before I fully understood what was happening, I had become one of fewer than 100 women in recorded history to hike all three when I finished the AT. And while it might sound like the beginning of a tidy triumph story, this is not that. It’s a story of the bruises, doubts, and unpolished moments anyone who’s ever questioned their direction will recognize…but also the laughter, the unexpected kindness, the trail magic, the soul-melting views and the small, bright joys that kept showing up right when I needed them.”
What the trails left behind wasn’t a checklist of miles. The internal upheaval, she says, was what stayed with her, not the logistics, and the lessons were hard-earned. She spent thirteen months on trail in total: five on the PCT, five on the CDT, and four on the AT, and says that kind of repetition rewires you. “The long trails were simply my classroom,” she said. “The lesson applies anywhere you’re willing to return to the same hard thing until it starts to change you.”
When we asked why she chose to write a memoir rather than another guidebook, she said the experience simply couldn’t be contained in a guidebook format. It was messy, exposed, and full of moments that couldn’t be reduced to water sources, maps, or bullet points. A memoir, she says, was the only form honest enough to hold that, and one that opens the door to readers who may never walk those distances but know what it feels like to struggle, to start over, or to walk through hard times.
The writing process itself demanded something she had never had to do before. Guidebooks are structured and data-driven, focused on giving hikers exactly what they need: mileage, elevation, logistics, hazards. Long Lost required the opposite. Instead of organizing information, she had to sit with powerful emotion, and instead of telling people where to turn, she had to be honest about the times when she didn’t know what the path forward might hold. “Guidebooks require precision,” she says. “Memoir requires vulnerability.”
That meant confronting parts of herself she usually keeps tucked away, something she admits she was genuinely scared to do. Those are the pieces she tends to hide even from herself, but leaving them out wasn’t an option. “I had to write those moments exactly as I felt them,” she said, “even when it meant sitting with the parts of me that were annoying, insecure, or still very much works in progress.”
The memoir centers primarily on the Appalachian Trail, with flashbacks woven in from the PCT and CDT. For a third-generation Washingtonian, the East Coast was new territory in every sense. “Being West Coast born and raised, it was my first real tango with the East Coast, and I got a crash course in humidity, summer downpours that felt like someone had dumped a bucket over my head, and terrain that played by its own rules,” she said. Rather than towering, rugged passes, the AT threw smaller, relentless obstacles at her. “Half the time I was convinced the AT was actively trying to take me out. But the simple, stubborn beauty of the place was so powerful it kept dragging me back.”
She faced Hurricane Ian, Tropical Storm Nicole, two large ice storms, Covid, norovirus, and two colds. The trail, she said, “wasn’t playing nice.” There were several moments she questioned whether she would finish, but the lowest came in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, fresh off a bout of norovirus, climbing into a pressing storm on a rough, unmaintained path choked with sharp-needled evergreens. The internal argument over whether to keep going was fierce. “The path of least resistance is always whispering at you to quit,” she said. “The storm outside had nothing on the one inside my head.”
She didn’t quit, in part because she knew the pain of stepping away was worse than anything the trail could throw at her. She’d felt that sting before, six years earlier, when blisters on the PCT forced her off trail and left wounds deeper than anything on her feet. And, this time, she wasn’t out there alone.
Her trail partner, known on trail as Five Star, had logged thousands of miles alongside her before they ever reached the AT, and by then they knew each other’s patterns, strengths, blind spots, and exactly when the other needed a joke, a break, or complete silence. Months of daily marathons on broken sleep have a way of revealing all of that. “The physical fatigue is one thing, but the mental fatigue settles in just as heavily,” she said. “In that kind of environment, having someone who understands the grind matters more than either of you ever says out loud. Five Star became the closest thing I have ever had to a brother in real life.”
The bond that forms over that many miles goes deep, and it isn’t always pretty. She recounts a few less-than-her-best moments in the book, because as she puts it, “that’s part of the truth of hiking with someone day after day. What surprised me most was how steadying that bond could be through all the trails. Trail siblings tend to help you move forward even on days when they say very little or the miles are heavy.”
Early readers have said the book feels like walking the trail beside her, powerful, joyful and immersive in ways they didn’t expect. And even readers who have never backpacked are finding it inspirational, drawn to the deeply human story at its center. That response has meant a lot to Asars, whose goal was never to write a story of glory but an honest account of what it really takes to accomplish something that challenging. As she writes in Long Lost: “Maybe it was this profound self-reflection that kept me coming back: feeling suffering and elation in their rawest, most immediate forms, like living an entire life in just four or five months.”
For Valley readers who want to hear more directly from Asars, Pro Ski and Mountain Service will host a free presentation on Tuesday, April 14, at 6:30 p.m., where she’ll share a photo-rich look at her three long-distance hikes alongside short readings from Long Lost. The evening is free; no registration is required; it will include drawings and prizes, with drinks available from Arête.
Copies of both Long Lost and Day Hiking Snoqualmie Pass will be available for purchase and signing, and Pro Ski already has both books in stock for those who want a head start. Asars noted that reading Long Lost beforehand makes the Q&A even more engaging, and more information about her work and upcoming appearances can be found at tamiasars.com.
The event offers a way to step into the story before or after reading it, but the full picture is still on the page. I’ll be reading Long Lost next and will follow up with a full review after spending time with it, taking a closer look at how that journey carries through beyond the miles.
