Trail Names

-

 A few friends asked me about my trail name, so I thought I’d share the story of how I got it. This post isn’t about any particular part of the trail. In fact, it starts right after I began hiking almost four months ago…

Endless Wildflowers 


I stopped at a small creek in a canyon to fill up water. As this was the only water source for the next 13 miles, a few other PCT hikers were filling up too. A man with a magnificent red beard and a brimmed hat arrived. “What are your trail names?” He demanded. I thought the question came a little early. We were at mile 4.4 and I had only hiked for about two hours. I imagined it was the same for the others. To my surprise, quite a few of them already had trail names. There were Angler and Lightning Rod and a few others. The guy with the beard introduced himself as Stranger. “I’m Michael. I… I don’t have a trail name yet.” I said meekly when it was my turn. I half expected Stranger to tell me to go back to the Southern Terminus and wait until somebody gave me a trail name, but he just nodded. I thought I saw a glimpse of pity in his eyes. Was I already falling behind in the naming ritual? What if I didn’t get one at all? I started to panic.


Mirror Pond


The next day I ran into Angler and Lightning Rod again at the Malt Shop in Lake Morena. Angler had just named another hiker Fry Guy, because he’d asked him for the leftover fries after Angler finished his burger. Angler said it was a toss up between Leftovers and Fry Guy and he thought the latter option was nicer. Eric kept introducing himself by his real name, hoping the name wouldn’t stick. He later accepted the trail name Faith. Given my ravenous appetite, this could have easily been me if I had arrived half an hour earlier. After this experience I felt a little better about waiting longer for my trail name.



A few days later I arrived at another water source. This one was a stagnant tank with a pipe at the bottom that ended in a bee infested drain with a spigot. As there were few water sources in this section of the trail, again there were many other hikers filling their bottles and chatting. I filled my bottle, walked over to a group of them and started talking with two guys who introduced themselves as Andrew and Steve while mindlessly drinking from my bottle. When I finished, I noticed that everyone had their water filters out. “Did you just drink this without filtering?” “Uhm, yes.” Well, I was still thirsty and the damage was done anyway, so I refilled the bottle and drank it down again to the amazement of the others. I didn’t think much of it, but a few days later I met Andrew and Steve again. “You’re alive? You didn’t even get sick? You have an iron stomach!” I know my stomach better than that. I’m sure that I had just been lucky and the water was fine. Also, we weren’t past the two week incubation time of giardia yet, so technically I wasn’t out of the woods. No, the time for my trail name hadn’t come yet…


Oregon Sunset

The days went on and more hikers received their names. Fortunately for many, it is customary that you officially accept a proposed name, although it can get difficult to reject a name that just sticks because people keep using it. One hiker told me that she hadn’t paid attention and walked head first into a tree, earning her the trail name Karate (which she rejected).

Another one inadvertently hiked several miles in the opposite direction, earning her the name U-Turn (accepted) and so on.


Crater Lake


It took several weeks for me to get a name that stuck and that I liked. I’d been hiking on and off with Marmot, a hiker from France. One day he noticed that my hiking gear had all colors of the rainbow. He also thought that I had an outgoing and open personality, so he proposed the trail name Rainbow which I graciously accepted.


Going with the theme…


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Finally Made A Bucket List

-
Image
 It actually turned out to be exactly five buckets, 20 gallon each. I hope I'm doing this right... Planning the types and quantity of food was relatively easy as I could draw from my experiences preparing for and completing the Pacific Crest Trail and the Arizona Trail. I estimate the Hayduke to take about two months. Unlike for the much longer PCT, I decided not to do any cooking and dehydrating and will rely on commercially available foods only. The Buckets And The Stuff That Goes Into Them My breakfasts will be based on overnight oats, just like during my previous thru-hikes. I add chia seeds, different kinds of nuts as well as dried cranberries or raisins to create variety. The mix goes into individual ziplock bags that I will also use for overnight soaking. The moistened mix is a favorite for rodents, so the bag goes into my cooking pot during the night and will be firmly secured with a metal lid. I eat directly out of the ziplock bag, eliminating the need for cleaning any dis...
Read more

Hello, Hayduke!

-
Image
 Today I received a long awaited email from a backcountry ranger at Grand Canyon National Park. "Hello Michael, I drew up a permit for you...". That was the moment my next thru-hiking adventure started to feel real. It's been two and a half years since my last long hike, the Arizona Trail. Back then, I had added roughly 100 miles through southern Utah, more out of convenience than anything else. By starting my hike in Bryce Canyon instead of the Arizona border I could just take a bus from Las Vegas instead of scrambling to find transportation to the official terminus. I ended up liking this part of the hike more than most sections of the official trail and started looking into hiking the complete route. Overlooking Grand Gulch in Capitol Reef National Park At first, it sounded too daunting. The Hayduke is an 800–850-mile, mostly off-trail route linking Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks across the Colorado Plateau. All my...
Read more

The Route

-
Image
One of the skills I had to improve on while preparing for the Hayduke was making routes on maps. While the route exists on CalTopo and AllTrails, updates and alternates are missing. Many underlying maps are pretty old and do not reflect developments in recent years or even decades. I found, for example, that a rockslide closed part of the Zion route and I had to look into detour options. I’m sure I will discover more changes as I continue my preparations and also along the hike.  I started looking into my preferred route last year already, but worked out most details in the last few weeks. While the process of working on those maps can be pretty tedious, I enjoy imagining hiking the routes I created. Current State Of My Route With Some Alternates I learned the hard way during the hike in 2023 that marked water sources like springs can be really unreliable. Luckily I found a spreadsheet online that showed known water sources along the route, but the last updates were from 2022. I su...
Read more