Jack Jones was not a cheat-code kid.

When he played computer games like World of Warcraft or EverQuest, Jones always wanted to know about the next level, where the struggles and the stakes would both be a bit higher. This characteristic hasn’t changed. Jones, now 38, is better known as Quadzilla, a hiking powerhouse famous not only for the gams that gave him his trail name, as well as his charismatic YouTube channel, and his righteous political advocacy, but also for his willingness to push new extremes. Midway through a 100-mile race in 2021, for instance, Jones decided that he would pursue the Calendar-Year Triple Crown in 2022: the Appalachian, Continental Divide, and Pacific Crest trails in the same year. With that done, Jones opted to level up in a different way during 2024: to hike the entire Appalachian Trail while spending just $1,000 total on gear, food, and shelter.

“I knew I could hike the AT, that I could do 30-mile days,” Jones tells me from Vietnam, where the Army veteran has begun an indefinite self-imposed political exile. “I knew this might force me to go two weeks without a shower. It might force me to eat a whole chicken in a Walmart parking lot—and then continue on.”

So on May 21, 2024, Jones—and a younger hiking friend, Tate “Pyro” Dobson—left the trail’s southern terminus in Georgia, carrying $383 worth of gear he’d methodically made himself or ordered after hours of research on AliExpress, a sort of Chinese Etsy-meets-Amazon in overdrive. In the past, Jones had carried backpacks that cost more, but he was attempting to reach Maine with an $80 backpack, an $18 jacket, and shoes he purchased on clearance. “It was my extra layer of challenge,” he says, grinning. “Being a little more creative to be a little more comfortable is fun.”