PDA

View Full Version : Trail Names



bohochristine
12-15-2016, 11:35
I'm curious how those of you that do have your trail names got them? Did you come up with it yourself, did someone give it to you, is it a nickname you've had your whole life?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

chknfngrs
12-15-2016, 11:48
Back in college, I ate a whole lot of those fried chicken strips called "fingers" and honey mustard sauce. Hence "chknfngrs"

runt13
12-15-2016, 11:54
I have been called Runt for the past 15 years or so, even my granddaughter calls me ''Grandpa Runt''. I would say most people who know me [some for the better part of those 15 years, some longer], don't even know my legal name. 13 was my original racing number. So................Runt ''13'' it is.

RUNT ''13''

Whack-a-mole
12-15-2016, 12:05
Mine involved a mouse and a flip-flop. You can figure out the rest.

JC13
12-15-2016, 12:12
A guy named Bees gave it to me at Blue Mountain Shelter, although I had been called the same name prior.

Leonidas

TNhiker
12-15-2016, 12:17
i bought mine off of Ebay............

Motormouth
12-15-2016, 12:35
Childhood nickname

RangerZ
12-15-2016, 12:47
i bought mine off of Ebay............

If you need one quick, try Amazon Prime :banana

Vrill
12-15-2016, 15:42
Mine is a whole sentence and I don't really intend to use it until a better one finds me. My first time on the AT, the guy who drove me to the trail head said my trail name is "Don't worry, be happy" like the Bobby McFaren song. He bestowed this name upon me because I was nervious and excited and asking a lot of questions, and I needed to stop worrying and just have fun (be happy).

So yeah, my trail name is "Don't worry, be happy."

jefals
12-15-2016, 16:23
sometimes I use gypsy, from one time when I was on a road/hiking trip, generally across the country, but no specific time frame or destination ...

map man
12-15-2016, 16:37
I was given mine, "Orange," by another hiker going the opposite way on the Colorado Trail in 2014 (I always wear at least some blaze orange on all my hikes in recent years). But I'm the one who decided to own it and answer to it in subsequent hikes. I'd been backpacking for eight years before I acquired a trail name. Some people in every AT hiking class seem to be in a big hurry to give others and themselves trail names in the first few days, or even hours, on the trail. It seems like a good idea to let a name come more slowly and naturally than that.

Some who name themselves might take names like "soulful spiritual pilgrim" or "gall bladder cancer survivor," etc., names that are hard to imagine fellow hikers actually wanting to use on the trail.

martinb
12-15-2016, 16:43
Wanted to use my TN (trip) here but it was taken. It's trip because if there's root, there's a good chance I'm going to trip over it.

RockDoc
12-15-2016, 17:26
At it's best you don't choose your trail name. It is conferred on you, as with many Native cultures.

People see things in you that you can't see...

YoungBloodOnTrail
12-15-2016, 17:52
When I started hiked the AT I was 18, and in the first few days I would always get to the shelters before everyone else. One day another hiker (peacedawg) came up and was like.. "man you got that Young Blood working for you!". From then on, I was Young Blood.

AfterParty
12-15-2016, 17:54
My dogs name is party I'm going to hike after she dies in her memory.

ScareBear
12-15-2016, 19:09
Well, there was this bear, see......

Brian Doyle
12-15-2016, 19:24
You either invent a good one in advance or get one as you go.

Lone Wolf
12-15-2016, 19:27
My dogs name is party I'm going to hike after she dies in her memory.

that is so sad. but very cool too

Lone Wolf
12-15-2016, 19:28
i named myself

egilbe
12-15-2016, 19:36
I wasnt wearing a pack and you know that feeling after carrying a pack for awhile and you take it off, how light and free you feel? I was running down a trail, packless and hopping from rock to rock and mentioned to my gf that I felt like a billy goat. Being the paunchy 50 something I am, she said I looked more like a Belly Goat. It was funny and I took it.

Theosus
12-15-2016, 21:07
I was the first in our group to use a hammock every time we went somewhere. People started joking that I was a bear taco. So now I'm just "Taco".

wanderlust78
12-16-2016, 08:19
Mine was back from my military life. Apparently, when I get excited, I look and sound a lot like Beaker from the Muppets.

Greenlight
12-16-2016, 12:26
I like the native culture aspect of being given a trail name. There are also those who choose a new name to begin a new chapter of their life. For some it's a deeper catharsis, especially for those who have survived abuse or war or some other trial, and they rename themselves based on something meaningful to them. I could see this going a hundred different ways, all valid. Or what does valid even mean? Mine was a collaborative effort back in April at Mt. Collins Shelter. It was my second section hike of the AT after resolving at age 50 not to spend the second half of my life as disconnected from my roots as the first half. My son and I had hiked there from Newfound Gap on cold and windy night. We got to the shelter at dinner time, right before hiker midnight, and after eating, I put my headlamp on to rifle through my pack and get ready do bed down for the night. The shelter was full, and the only two thru hikers were trying to get a fire going in the fireplace. After getting a couple of glares from eyes peering out of sleeping bags, I apologized for having my bright light on, and powered it down to blackout lights, which on my Browning are green. Everyone else's were red. One of the thru hikers, a younger man with his brown hair in dreadlocks, told me he liked my green light. Something clicked in my head and I mentioned that wouldn't be a bad trail name. "What wouldn't?" he asked. "Greenlight" I said, "I kind of like that." He said either that or green lantern. We laughed at the DC Comics reference and that morning they went NOBO and my son and I continued SOBO. But I had a trail name. I consider myself lucky to walk in the green light of the forest canopies. Every morning I wake up, I've been given the green light to put on my Merrill Moabs and walk this beautiful planet, even if it is only through the four acre stand of hardwoods next to my office.


At it's best you don't choose your trail name. It is conferred on you, as with many Native cultures.

People see things in you that you can't see...

Storm
12-16-2016, 12:49
Had my trail name all my life. My real last name is Gale and the nurses in the hospital where I was born referred to me as the Storm when I started bawling. Kids on the trail in 2012 said it was because I attracted thunder storms. Did get caught in a couple that year.
In recent years with my advanced age I have considered changing it to Drizzle. :)

jefals
12-16-2016, 14:52
Had my trail name all my life. My real last name is Gale and the nurses in the hospital where I was born referred to me as the Storm when I started bawling. Kids on the trail in 2012 said it was because I attracted thunder storms. Did get caught in a couple that year.
In recent years with my advanced age I have considered changing it to Drizzle. :)

Hey, I think there was a movie star named Gale Storm. That ain't you, is it? ☺

GoldenBear
12-16-2016, 15:14
I gave it to myself, and it's the nickname of my college's sport teams.

Furlough
12-16-2016, 15:44
Mine came from when I was in the Army. I was detailed to do a fellowship with RAND. Whenever I would go for a backpacking trip I had to call in to a Headquarters Unit down in South Carolina to sign out on leave. One time I heard the Sergeant on the other end jokingly say to someone "we need to Furlough the Colonel again so he can go backpacking." So Furlough it is.

ldsailor
12-16-2016, 16:57
My trail name is Slapshot. A hiking partner gave it to me after observing me hitting sticks and stones off the trail with my trekking poles.

GolfHiker
12-16-2016, 20:11
I've been golfhiker for 15+ years. Pretty simple, I play a lot of golf, when I'm not hiking.
On my '16 semi thru hike ( Springer to Harper's Ferry), I shortened it to "golf", just easier.

Engine
12-17-2016, 06:30
My wife (Caboose) and I used to do extended trips in GSMNP with our 4 kids. On one of those trips, we kept running into the same group of guys over a few day stretch. Every time they saw us on the trail I was in front and my wife was in the back, with our kids lined up between us. One of the guys mentioned we looked like a trail train complete with an Engine and a Caboose...

Storm
12-17-2016, 22:27
Hey, I think there was a movie star named Gale Storm. That ain't you, is it? ☺

Nope, that isn't me but I remember "My Little Margie" well. (Starring Gale Storm)

Backpkrmn
12-17-2016, 22:51
I had been given the name Spider because I used to be a rock climbing instructor. However, one night on the trail there was a problem with a canister stove and a canister not mating properly, leaking badly. I was able to use some sticks and find a way to make it work. I was then renamed by those in the shelter, Spiguyver. It's a combination of Spider and McGuyver, due to my ability to fix something broke with junk laying around.

excuses
12-18-2016, 00:18
When I started hiking again in 2006 I was using my old gear. I was having a particularly rough time on a section hike and complaining about why I was having so much trouble. Some one said, sounds like alot of excuses. Been that ever since, Excuses.

jj dont play
12-18-2016, 03:55
I got in with a group for the beginning of the AT. We all met day 2 so just called each other by first names other then the guy who had thru hiked before. Just about everyone got trail names then I butt dialed one of the guys so he started calling me pack dial. It felt forced and didn't really stick. Everyone else still called me JJ. After Erwin I got waaayy ahead of those guys and just started going by my name JJ again then figured I needed a trail name but like just using my name so used JJ Don't Play which is a nickname someone else gave me pre AT.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

jjozgrunt
12-18-2016, 04:41
Got my nickname of "Moose" the second day I marched into my Infantry Battalion in 1977. Can't remember how or why as we were in the boozer at the time and a little under the weather. Next morning everyone was using it and still are 39 years later. Not worth starting over.

Christoph
12-18-2016, 16:33
Thumper - because I'm clumsy, my toes hate me.

RadioFreq
12-19-2016, 20:11
Met a backpacker who was in the same line of work as me. When he did contract work (he's retired now, but still hiking) he always referred to himself as "Radio Ranger". I liked that so I used it as inspiration for my trail name.

johnspenn
12-20-2016, 10:50
My wife and I named each other. She's "FallsInCreeks"... because she has that proclivity lol. I'm 'Shwack" because of my penchant to bushwhack instead of following established trails at times.

DavidNH
12-20-2016, 14:39
It took me a while to come up with a trail name when I thru hiked NB in 2006. One young couple in North Carolina was suggesting that I take the name of snuggles (as over night I guess I rolled too close in the shelter) so I had to do something. Not being real creative, I just called myself Snickers.. because I loved eating snickers bars on the trail!

Tennessee Viking
12-20-2016, 15:09
I am a trail maintainer so I carry an axe a lot. And one of my favorite books is the 13th Warrior/Eaters of the Dead. So I picked "Tennessee Viking".