View Full Version : Are any of the SuperLegends on the trail this year?
MedicineMan
03-24-2005, 05:17
Just wondering if Seiko, Wingfoot, Baltimore Jack, Lone Wolf, or others of their stature are thru-hiking this year???
Flash Hand
03-24-2005, 05:53
Just wondering if Seiko, Wingfoot, Baltimore Jack, Lone Wolf, or others of their stature are thru-hiking this year???
Balitmore Jack a superlegend? really? wow.. didn't know that Balitmore Jack is a super legend... :D
Flash Hand :jump
MedicineMan
03-24-2005, 06:34
well to me a thru-hike is legend enough so to be arbitrary i'll just throw up the figure more than 3 is super status....now if Seiko has done it 15 years in a row i dont think there is an english word to describe.....now they will be humble and even blow it off saying such like 'its only walking' but when you think about it (and this is coming from someone like me who knows a thru-hike will never happen) completing one is extraordinary but to repeat over and over it something else entirely....so i was just curious if any are adding feathers to their headresses
Spirit Walker
03-24-2005, 10:08
I think Warren is planning an expedition this year. He usually does one every five years.
Jack Tarlin
03-24-2005, 13:14
Medicine Man:
To address your comments:
1. I've said it before: The only Trail legend I ever head of was Earl Shaffer,
and even he probably blushed crimson if he ever heard the term publicly.
2. Superlegends? That's a new one.
3. Seiko is even more unassuming than Earl. And while he may have been
out for 15-odd years or more, he'll be the first person to tell you that
very few of his trips were thru-hikes. He hikes for the pleasure of it, and
not to achieve "records" or for boasting rights.
4. Wolf has been out twenty years; likewise, most of his trips weren't thru
either. He long ago, quite rightly, decided it was more pleasurable to hike
wherever he pleased, rather than adhere to any strict schedule or
regimen.
5. To answer your question, tho: Wolf is on the Trail NOW, as far as I know;
Seiko will be leaving shortly. I'll be on the Trail around 10 April, tho I've
no idea where or how far I'm going.
6. Wingfoot will apparently be hiking somewhere this year, tho it doesn't
look like he'l be hiking all the way thru.
Hope to see you out there somewhere. Us non-legends would be glad for the company!
Flash Hand
03-30-2005, 19:36
well to me a thru-hike is legend enough so to be arbitrary i'll just throw up the figure more than 3 is super status....
OH ok ok ok.... then Balitmore Jack is superlegend... :banana
Flash Hand :jump
Maybe they are more like super-fortunate to have lives that allow them the opportunity to get out there when they want to.
Now, if I could only find a way to become super-fortunate too and still manage to keep my girlfriend (non-hiker)... :jump
I agree with Jack on his choice for Superlegend ....
Just wondering if Seiko, Wingfoot, Baltimore Jack, Lone Wolf, or others of their stature are thru-hiking this year???
i hear that elwood will be back on the trail,what your gear:cool: neo
Spirit Walker
03-31-2005, 10:22
It's not fortune - or luck - it's choices.
You can choose to maintain a lifestyle that makes hiking a once in a lifetime proposition, if that. You can choose to have a lifestyle that makes thruhiking an every year event. There are tradeoffs. Do you want a home, a career, a community, money in the bank? Then you probably won't be hiking all that often. Do you want adventure, travel, a hike every year? Then you probably won't have a home, a family, a career or financial security. It's hard to maintain both worlds, though some do. Teachers, construction workers, etc. can often hike for several months every year. Some careers allow for long annual vacations. Others make saving money easy. If you are a good saver, you may not hike every year, but doing multiple thruhikes is still a possibility. I am good at saving money -- ultra frugal--so we have enough money for our next hike, plus money in a 401K, plus a house. I wish I could hike every year, but I'd rather have a bit more comfort and security (though I know that is an illusion) in the off years and go only every five years or so. Sometiimes I think to myself, "I'm so lucky to have experienced what I have!!" But I know that I made the choices and I paid the price, which price isn't always monetary. Yogi paid with her feet, Jack with his ankle, many other hikers with the strain in their family relations, some of us with the feeling of always being just a temporary resident, wherever we go --at home on the trail, but not really anywhere else.
Rift Zone
03-31-2005, 17:33
Seiko is a cool kat! Don't expect him to to always ID himself by Seiko! He is the most down to earth "super" I know.
I watched with great interest as some long-distance hiker explained their hiking prowess to Seiko. He just took it in. Never did he realize he was talking to THE MAN!!!
Well said SpiritWalker.
Panzer
I think Warren is planning an expedition this year. He usually does one every five years.I don't know Warren Doyle personally, other then meeting him at the 2004 ALDHA Gathering. Nevertheless, he did say he was leading an expedition this year. He may have started by now. His group may be at Trail Days, unless they out walk the date.
icemanat95
04-06-2005, 12:32
The Expeditions are specifically designed to cater to college students and teachers schedules, so they typically start in May and run until August getting everyone back in time for school.
...The only Trail legend I ever heard of was Earl Shaffer,
and even he probably blushed crimson if he ever heard the term publicly....
My husband was a personal friend of Earl's and it's true. He would not even consider being a legend, didn't pay much attention to all the whoopla around him. He was the type of guy who would gladly swap his AT popularity for the return of his life long buddy, killed in action, while serving with Earl, during WWII. My husband talks very little about him, but I know he carries a picture of himself and Earl taken somewhere on the AT. I know my husband, along with many others, admire him and consider him as their role model, many consider him the one and only LEGEND of the AT. hikerwife.
Earl Shaffer, when he learned of the press contingent waiting for him at the base of Katahdin, skirted around the media circus unseen, I guess so he could savor some private moments on Baxter Peak.
I suspect that the more one desires trail legend status, the less they deserve it.
Jack Tarlin
06-28-2005, 08:38
Another Earl story.....during his '98 thru-hike, he stopped signing Trail registers because he'd learned that folks were tearing his entry/signature out of the books as a keepsake. Earl worried that someone's else's entry on the page (or the back of the page) would be lost in the process, maybe with an important message on it, so out of consideration for other hikers, he pretty much stopped signing in, tho sometimes he'd sign his initials.
This is the kind of guy who Earl was.
I saw Warren Doyle and his crew on the trail in early May. Apparently their first zero day was planned for Monson MA otherwise, it was all 20+ miles each day. Didn't seem too appealling to me.
Yes, Have been following Warren's entries, about a day behind, then two....then three...they are moving quick! No bugs out here, amazing, some really hot days this past week from PenMar on up into central PA. Anybody post a story yet about PussGut (original Trail Name not known to me)
If not, it involves a hiker who on 6/21 decided to be modest and put 'leaves' under his belt....will let someone else who was there tell the full story ;-)