Nah, they'll be fine, well, fine-ish. The cops will see someone walking with a pack and arrest them for vagrancy before they can get into too much trouble from the elements.

But for real, I know next to nothing about this sort of thing and even I know 1. Do not fuck around with mountains 2. Do NOT fuck around with desert.

Oh, and one more thing: You're not walking to Mordor, you're walking through Mordor. There's next to no water, the water that's there is poison, the temperature swings wildly between extremes, and most of the humanoids you'll come across will get angry and violent if they see you

That looks boring as fuck, imagine walking across the Great plains. Just days and days of corn and grass.

Why don't they do the Appalachian Trail or something else cool and normal instead?

You know, I think the last time someone did a long walk through Navajoland 3,500 people died and they wrote a national anthem about it.

I hope they're just walking on the highway because that route is a death sentence if you try to pathfind your way to the end.

Literally going through the worst mountains, deserts, and basins just for a fucking bit.

Or you could go to New Zealand and hike from Hobbiton to Mount Ngauruhoe (the Mount Doom from the movies) in a quarter the distance, with more varied terrain, in a country with dedicated hiking huts, and probably chain together a bunch of hiking trails along the way.

Wait this has to be a joke right? They plotted their way to walk through Death Valley. No one is that stupid right?

The Donner party has entered the chat.

is he stupid? does he think the fellowship would've walked all that way if they had access to trains?

adding days to my trip by zig-zagging the path for no reason

living is an elaborate way to kill yourself. the goal is making the rube goldberg machine go on as long as possible.

Just do the AT, PCT or CDT, you liitle freak.

do not fuck around in the great basin, I am always saying this

It's doable if you have a significant support group that can cache food and water for you and drive you too and from shelter at night. Long distance treks like this usually rely on having a lot of help.

Doing it alone, though, you're right, it's just a very complicated way to seriously injure yourself. If you're a hundred miles from anywhere and roll your ankle without someone who can come get you you're going ot have a bad day.

It's possible, but it needs a lot of logistics. You need a top-noch ultralight pack and gear because it is going to be very heavy. The Colorado leg of the trip will probably be the easiest in that front because you can find water to purify in the Rockies and forests, but a lot of these legs seem over 50mi between cities with sparse water. This means you might need to carry >5l of water (haven't gone backpacking in deserts often, take this with a grain of salt) and a ton of food. You will need to hit every town you come across to restock and a ton of your equipment will break and it will be hard to replace high quality hiking equipment in Bumfuck, Nevada. I have no clue how you'd do the death valley leg safely and with enough water, food and shelter. The Rockies will rough you up a bit but at least there's water there, unlike the desert legs.

Do you have access to lembas bread, magical clothing, and the fate of all of Arda? No? Then don't do it, nerd.

If the Mormons don't get him, Ceasar's Legion will

He's just giving this guy a new Missing Persons project, so I look forward to reading that

This is what American Exceptionalism will do to a motherfucker. Choose one of the several long hikes with actual infrastructure, dumbass!