Trail Names (February 21 - 25, 2011)

"I should have made business cards with my trail name, hometown, hike specifics and occupation." Slowpoke and Peter Flakery, 6/25/2010, John's Hollow Shelter

Spam (left) and I (April 17, 2011)

Trail names are assigned to hikers for reasons unknown to me. I guess it gives the
illusion that you are a different person on the trail. Everyone loves flattering nicknames. Unfortunately, real nicknames are usually unflattering or seemingly random. Anyone on the trail with an impressive name like Long Strider (allegedly the name of some guy who hikes fast) named himself. On the flip side, people without trail names are assaulted with a torrent of nickname suggestions that become increasingly annoying. If a person without a trail name does anything, even an innocuous thing such as eating a tuna pouch, people will say, Your name is Big Tuna. I've got it. And then they'll tell everyone else in camp, play up the name repeatedly and admire their own creation. Trail name creativity is often jarringly limited. I actually think we should just go by our own names. At the very least you should be on the trail a few weeks before given an appropriate name. I'm probably in the minority here.

My first camp was a success. I setup and decamped without difficulty. Eating was self-explanatory and I threw my first bear bag. No complaints. The AT isn't technical and this is a wonderful thing for someone like me.

I start off hiking with JT Hill, Sensei and Guido. Hiking with someone simply means you plan to hike the same number of miles to the same camp. You frequently don't see the people the entire day. We start off hiking about 8-12 miles per day. This is a low amount of miles but it seems like we're covering a lot of ground.

On the second day we meet an English professor who tells us how he met his wife facilitating a coke deal in New York City. At the time he was working as a manager at Papa John's. I would later find out that he was showing naked pictures of the very same wife to fellow hikers, Borat style. I guess he wasn't ready to show me the photos day 2. He tells me about his life as a recovering alcoholic, though. Yet I would have liked to have seen those wife photos. We also camp with two hippies who act exactly as you'd expect hippies to act.

The walking carnival is taking shape and we've only just begun.

We pass a South-Bounder, Wreck Diver, who has just 2 or 3 days left to complete his hike. He started in July and hiked all winter. Others are sort of star-struck by this guy but I'm too busy being fat.

I wheeze my way up the mountains and take staggeringly long breaks. The trail is just an up, and then a down. I swear I thought it would be flatter.

2,126.5 miles to go.