My name is TJ Swing, I live in Ohio, am an avid hiker and a board game enthusiast.  I went on my first hike/backpack trip back in 2014 ago in the Great Smoky Mountains, and was hooked ever since.  Over the past decade I have backpacked in 10 different states all along the Appalachian Mountain range. Bottom line, I love hiking and think about it more than a person should.

The problem was when I wasn’t hiking, there wasn’t really a way to capture that feeling of being out in the wild, overcoming challenges, and getting that sense of survival.  I tried a few of the other hiking or backpacking themed games out there, and as good of a game as they may be, they really didn’t capture the true essence of a long-term backpacking trip – specifically the grind, grit, fear, excitement, stress, and the shear joy of completing a challenging adventure.

So 4 years ago I began playing around with the idea of making my own game completely based on a feeling and a theme.