Jonathan Maidment will return to the trails in 2020! He is pleased to announce that he will be hiking the Continental Divide Trail, which consists of 3,100 miles between Mexico and Canada through the United States, along the Rocky Mountains and crossing Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

The Triple Crown of Hiking refers to the three major U.S. long-distance hiking trails: the Appalachian Trail (AT), the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). The Triple Crown is not an easy feat, as hikers must complete a total of nearly 8,000 miles across 22 states with one million feet of cumulative elevation gain. It is estimated that only about 600 people have actually hiked the Triple Crown.

Maidment, the 24-year-old from Connecticut, walked the entire 2,650 miles of the PCT in 2019 and the 2,184 miles of the AT in 2014, raising an incredible amount of awareness about Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1) and funds for research and related programs at the Alpha-1 Foundation.

Maidment himself is an Alpha. He was diagnosed at age 10. As Alpha-1 is a genetic condition, his father, Dave, is also an Alpha and his mother, Karen, is a carrier.