What's in a name...

As I mentioned in my last post, the Alpine Ascents teams on Denali give themselves names like "The Frozen Chosen," "Team Roadkill," or "Mambo Mafia." Just a quick note: All of the above are real names taken on by Alpine Ascents teams; the last is from a team that climbed Kilimanjaro this summer. I don't know how the tradition got started but I know that taking on a "trail name" is nothing new. People have been doing this on the Appalachian Trail (AT) for decades.

This brings me to my own failed bid to thru-hike all 2,168 miles of the AT. In 2000 I found myself jobless, recently jilted, and a little jaded. So I decided, "This is the perfect time to try to thru-hike the AT." That is, to start at the beginning in Georgia and continually hike until I reached the end of the trail in Maine. That April my dad drove me to Amicalola Falls State Park, Georgia.

I'd done a tone of reading about the trail, the hikers and "trail life" in general. I knew that thru-hikers eventually adopted trail names, and this was one of the ideas that seemed really good to me. I would become someone else for a while. A new person, with a new name. Many people come to the trailhead with a name already picked out. One of the people I met did just this. He had taken on the personification of Grasshopper. I asked him how he had come up with the name and he explained that it was a nickname given to him by a friend. Others had long established names. OAB was one such hiker. OAB was short for "One Armed Bandit." He'd had a stroke many years before and it had left his left side paralyzed. But as soon as I learned about the tradition of "Trail Names" I knew that the truest and most meaningful names had been given. Like Little Green Turtle. He earned his name for wearing a bright green back pack, being short in stature and hiking the trail very slowly. I wanted to have my name given to me. I wanted to earn it.

Now I've been hiking and camping since 1992 and had put in some serious miles. I had a Colorado 14er under my belt when I went to Georgia. And I'd been above tree line on more mountains than the average person can name. But the endless up and downs of the Georgia section of the AT began to do a number on my knees. Mind you I'd never had any problems with my knees before, so this came as something of a shock to me. After a week of the endless ups and downs, I had knees the size of softballs and a gimpy walk to match.

It was then that OAB brought up the fact that I hadn't picked out a name yet, and suggested Festus. You know, the character from the TV show Gunsmoke who had a gimpy walk of his own. Only I didn't hear him very well and replied in shock and confusion, "Fester?" When the laughing and jeering ended, I was Fester.