Trans Triple Crowner Lyla Harrod shares about blazing tough trails, the power of sharing a snack with strangers, and how she keeps her hair perfectly purple.
By Audra Labert (she/her), CDTC Communications Manager
Making Her Way
With her trademark bright purple hair, Triple Crowner Lyla “Sugar” Harrod (she/her) has put thousands of miles of tough terrain behind her. Sugar completed the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (CDT) in 2023 as the last leg of her Triple Crown, her third border-to-border hike across the U.S.
Sugar is partway through another epic thru-hike that combines her favorite aspects of the CDT, the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and some desert trails in between. The route begins at the CDT Southern Terminus in the Chihuahuan Desert and ends at the Northern Terminus of the PCT on the border with Canada. Along her route, Sugar will connect some of her favorite places and some new country, including the Mogollan Rim Trail, the Oregon Desert Trail, and the Basin and Range Trail.
Charting new territory isn’t new for the full-time thru-hiker. When Sugar first began researching for her 2021 Appalachian Trail (AT) hike, the information she needed simply wasn’t available.
“I’d watched a bunch of documentaries, and I decided that the Appalachian Trail would be the best trail to start with,” she shared. “I started doing other research, and I Googled– transgender thru-hiker, Appalachian Trail trans hiker, and different keywords– to try to find stories of other queer and trans folks who had hiked the trail.”
But she didn’t find anything. Surely other trans people were thru-hiking, but Sugar didn’t find any resources about trail life and safety for queer and trans people. The lack of resources and support may have been a surprise, but it wasn’t a deterrent. Sugar charted her course for thru-hiking the AT and other trails as a transgender woman, and since then she has been helping others.
“I was like, well, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to share, I’m going to be public about what I’m doing as a means of letting people know letting other queer and trans people know that they’re not alone. They have an actual human being that they can reach out to and talk to on a personal level about their concerns.”
Sugar has become passionate about helping other beginning queer and trans hikers navigate new terrain and founded a program called Trail QTs in the winter of 2022. As a mentor for Trail QTs, Sugar is helping others prepare for long-distance hikes by providing access to what she wishes she had when first starting: Resources, information, and a community.
Sharing Snacks
With the Bootheel of New Mexico and the Mogollan Rim Trail behind her, Sugar is setting herself up for a few more months of weaving through the western wildlands. CDTC caught up with her during a break in Phoenix, Arizona for the beginning of Pride on the Divide, an annual celebration of the voices in the queer outdoor community of the CDT landscape.
Being open and vocal about being queer sometimes attracts curiosity from others, and Lyla is open to conversations and questions if it cultivates understanding. She chooses to make herself available to talk about her transness instead of tying up her shoes, posting pretty pictures, and keeping to herself.
“It’s important for people to be able to humanize transgender people,” she explained. “If I’m the first trans person that someone has ever met, then they can look at me and say, ‘Oh, well, she’s just like everybody else.’”
“My literal existence has been politicized,” Sugar added. “It’s easy to forget the humanity behind trans people when they’re demonized. In sitting down and sharing a snack with me on top of the summit, someone might gain a better understanding.”
Staying Bright
Being a trans thru-hiker means facing other challenges, and for Sugar, that also means being asked awkward questions like, ‘How do you keep your hair so purple?’ Even while on a 3,000-mile hike, Sugar’s hair stays impossibly bright purple.
“I use permanent hair dye,” she laughed and added that a periodic temporary color in between is what keeps her hair bright.
Finding and building a community in which she can see herself reflected is Sugar’s goal, because a sense of trail community is part of what makes thru-hikes so powerful. Whether it’s the feeling of welcome she receives when strolling into Doc Campbell’s Store every year or connecting through the Trail QTs, Sugar is hiking incredible hikes with style– and making the trail a safer, brighter place.
At the end of the day, what Sugar feels and what her sponsors and others see is a badass hiker navigating some of the most inhospitable and rugged terrain across the deserts of the U.S.
“I had to be super excited about [this hike]; that’s the only thing that could get me going with the type of enthusiasm that you need to complete such a long project,” Sugar said. “I can’t just up and do something just to do it; it has to be something meaningful.”
