Trail Names: Earned, Important, Silly ?

[Toe Cozy]

The birth of Cozy...

Back in aught four while doing my very first backpack trip with Seema and some other ladies my name was Jen. Simple. Obvious. But this was the Long Trail in VT and I was hiking more miles with more weight than I'd ever done before. I was livin' a dream for real and so happy those first two weeks. (my first backpack trip was 130 miles) I knew ahead of time that the second toe on my left foot got really hurty after lots of walking. So in anticipation I purchased this toe "thing" from the drug store. It's like a gel/compression stocking hat for your toe. I cut it to the right size and put it on every day. It was really quite unique and eccentric, (i.e. dorky!). When we arrived at camp I'd remove my boots and my socks and the (gross) toe thing. Invariably during those first few days I'd lose the stupid beige toe hat by morning. It was sad. Then I stuck my hand into a little used pocket of my shorts and my fingers felt a weird squishy object. I pulled my hand out of the pocket, held aloft the prized object, smiled at my companions and hollered with extreme happiness, "hey, my toe cozy!"

Seema deemed me Toe Cozy from that moment on. It's a warm fuzzy early days on the LT memory and for that reason I'll always keep it as my trail name. Although I don't use it in reality for more than posting here.

Our experience on the LT also created a group trail name of "The Go-Lite Girls" for the four of us. That was fun too.

Trail names are great fun. And often special memories.

 

[trailbiscuit]

Trail names are a really interesting phenomenon. It makes a lot of sense on the AT, since you basically drop out of society, why shouldn't you be "reborn" with a new name? In fact, we met a ton of people and we don't even know their real names...and I consider them good friends. Goes to show you that names and other "material" things don't mean a whole lot. Plus, it's just more fun to refer to someone as Hariball, Free Rad, Beantown, Naked Sun...etc.

I was Snowman on the Trail, and whenever I talk to any of our AT pals that's what thay call me. One guy found out my real name was Ryan and was shocked. "Ryan? You look more like an Andy."

As far as trailbiscuit goes...I like trails and biscuits. Then again, who doesn't?

 

[Pete_Hickey]

I could never give myself a trailname. I don't know, I think I would just laugh at myself whenever I told someone what it was. It's hard enough for me to take myself seriously as it is.

As far as others calling me names, this happens often, but the names don't seem to stick. Probably because they change from time to time. Once it was crazy-man, then it became mad-man... I'm not sure what they call me now, but at trailwork outings, something I frequently hear, is "Don't go with Pete".

I think that nobody understands me. <sigh>

Anyway, I hike solo most of the time (or used to before the accident.. Now my wife is always pushing me to hike with someone), and hiking solo, I frequently talk to myself. I already knew my name, and would find it hard to start calling myself by some other name.... I was afraid that I wouldn't answer... so I am what I am... (right... now people will start calling me Popeye!)

Maybe when I make it through the therapy I'll be able to handle more names, but for now...

P.S. If I seem to be rambling, it's probably because I'm stuck in Pennsylvania.

 

[--M.]

Me too, most people actually think "David Metsky" exists.

-dave-, um, I mean -ChickenBoy-

Way back a long time ago, when I was in college, I became a member of an organization that had a very specific nickname protocol. For one thing, it strictly eschewed self-naming. It didn't even need forbidding, it simply was not appropriate for one to name one's self.

While I'm glad that there are different protocols in different communities, showing the infinite diversity of possibilities in this universe, I would definitely argue that one who lobbies for one's own nickname ought, on principle, be denied, especially when one does so twice in the same thread.

That said, the name I had applied to me at the time showed another of the group's protocols: I truly and actually hated it, and still do to some extent. Thus, when it came time to choose one for myself, I followed Pete_Hickey's example and simply used the moniker I usually employ to close correspondence. The choice also happens to limit the spread of my actual name, which I like keeping private in this age of government data mining.

I'll let the beauty of serendipity work its magic when the karma is right. I hope for something as cool as "Dr. Wu" or "Rem Dawg," but will probably end up with something born of spilling my dinner down my shirt.

I also like the Tappet Brothers' crew names, including Heywood Jabuzzov and Marge Innovera.

--M.

 

[Jeff-B]

most people actually think "David Metsky" exists.

-dave-, um, I mean -ChickenBoy-

I got it!

BIG HUCK'IN CHICKEN!!!!

You aint no boy at your age.........

 

[Neil]

When I joined the forum I was in too much of a hurry to start posting to bother thinking up a screen name.

When I was in high school we all had nicknames and mine was Maniac. I won't explain why this name was bestowed upon me but there was no way I was going to go by that name on such a sober and serious web forum as this one.

I'm quite happy to simply go by my real name. I usually use a pic of myself for my avatars on the forums and I often have people on the trail ask me if I'm Neil.
No need for alligator eggs.

 

[Periwinkle]

I think I see where you were going with this, Chip. I have no clue how or why trail names evolved from the AT to an internet forum. I read somewhere (Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods perhaps) that AT purists believe that trail names are for the AT and should only be given by other hikers while on the trail -- eliminating all Moonbeam Spirits, Soul Searchers, (and Periwinkles) and such, leaving only HairyPits, MegaStench, etc.

Obviously, I don't agree to a certain extent. It's been fun naming people and even the dogs (Yogi and BooBoo).

My own trail name could be considered pretentious, as it is somewhat grandiose -- I was repeatedly called a trail snail, which I found undignified. If I was going to be called a snail, it should at least be a cute lil' purple sea snail, hence Periwinkle. Much cuter. It stuck.

If I were really shooting for extreme pretentiousness (per Pilgrim's posted definition) I think LadyUberHiker would be totally over the top. A Lady (which I'm usually not, tho God knows my mother tried) and UberHiker (which I most certainly am not).

Now, if Puck's rule applied, I’d have to go for a variation on Wheezer: Ouiser -- a play on words on wheezing and the name of the cranky eccentric old lady in Steel Magnolias who said “I’m not crazy…I’ve just been in a bad mood for 40 years.”

But, I think I have to stick with Periwinkle now. It’s become my superhuman alter ego.

 

[Raymond]

Let's get back to Gig Young.

He did win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969).

 

[bjc]

Is ChickenBoy packing Ben & Jerry's ? Hmmmm.....I gotta figure out how to fit a cooler in my pack.

 

[skiguy]

I'm very comfortable being called bubba and, although I don't fit everyone's image of a "real" Bubba, it gets my attention and it's still fun for me. I also introduce myself as bubba, and don't offer any more. I know first hand that when introduced over the past weekend, Pudgy Groundhog introduced herself as Kathy, and then said her screen name...

I'm really glad you introduced yourself as Bubba. First of all I am not so great at remembering names but I never forget a face. I am relatively new to VFTT gatherings and to be able to put the face with the screen name I find interesting; but also a start for me to hopefully remember all your real names someday.
My experience with trailnames is that if you hike long enough someone out there will give you one and it WILL have a relavent meaning wether you like it to or not. So be careful what you do or say! My trailname is CanMan after a backpacking trip where I was the only one dumb enough to bring along some food in cans where everyone else was doing the dried food thing.
My screen name is a nickname given to me from freinds because I ski twelve months a year (Snow in Winter...H2O in Summer) I guess they think I"m obsessed. Like I said be careful what you do or say.

 

[KayakDan]

There's a deep secret meaning to my name...

I Kayak-

I'm Dan-

Anything else would just be too complicated for me...
maybe I spent too much time upside down in the water..

 

[adkleaddog]

I've been going by the name of "Lead Dog" for quite some time...before the "dog" references were popular....It's from the signature at the bottom of all my emails, work, home, and on the forum. I've pretty much been the lead dog on trips, always in front, usually. Hence the name Plus, like it says...."if you ain't the lead dog......your're usually looking at someones hind quarters!!!

 

[Woody]

I think I was born with the nickname of Woody, but when I tried to use it as a screen name (I forget which site) it was not available so I just became Woody48. I was thinking about the number of peaks in the White's at the time, but I could soon be my age as well

Woody

 

[alpinista]

Alpinista told me that my trail name of "Marty" was boring. Fortunately, she never directly told me that I was boring in general.

You are definitely not boring, Marty!

I can't remember how or why I came up with Alpinista. I think I was trying to come up with an e-mail address that didn't have my name in it, and it was around the time I started hiking, so I adopted the Italian word for mountain climber, "alpinista".

It's weird by I feel like I have multiple personalities. There's the adult, professional me, who goes by Lisa Marie (fill in last name here); there's the friend to non-hikers, who is known as Lisa; and there are my hiking buds, who know me as Alpinista. Recently, I had plans to do an overnight at Lonesome Lake hut with an old high school chum _ and, yup, you guessed it, work interfered. But he went anyway, and apparently it was quite a head-scratcher for him for a while to have all these people asking about or speaking about "alpinista" _ since he only knows me as Lisa. It took him a while to connect the dots.

 

[Gris]

There is a difference between a "screen name" and a "trailname." You have to earn a "trailname," whether on the AT or wherever. Screen names are just whatever fetish strikes the person at the time they pick it. Nothing to screen names. OTOH, trailnames often times make people warm and fuzzy thinking back to days and exploits gone by. Maybe someday you will have a real trail name. Then and only then, you will understand Grasshopper...

 

[Peakbagr]

When I was younger and a real peakbagger, some folks a little less obsessed used to refer to me as a peakbagger. I decided to make fun of the name, and since "peakbagger" couldn't fit on a license plate, it became "peakbagr" and its been on the bumper ever since.

 

[BorealChickadee]

I just happen to like Boreal Chickadees, and it's a special day when I see them along the trail.


I'm also known as Peanut Butter, but that's a whole 'nother story.

 

[eddie]

When eddie and Willie (we are brothers) are on the trail with my son Eric, we are reminded of all sorts of new trail names for ourselves - Uncle Jymitz, Bobby Dybass, El Waygo, Jag-Off, Bolo, Scrote - all nicknames of people (real characters) from our past. It just comes out of our memories and story-telling when we are hiking. We weren't to imaginative with our screen names.

Hey Willie, see ya at the LP Pub & Brewery on Sat evening after our Santanonis adventure. Let's see how pine needles I get up my butt near the Couchy swamp.

 

[SherpaKroto]

My buddy MtnBob gave my my name in 1999. (BTW, he is the last person that should be called Mtn anything. We got him up Katahdin by convincing him they sold cigarettes at the summit). We were backpacking from Zealand Road to Guyot Campsite and he was struggling. When he reached the Zeacliff summit, I was all excited about the view, while he was ready to just kill anything that moved. I heard him mumble under his breath "he's a God D*mn Sherpa" and then he snapped a picture (one of 2 he took the whole weekend. He just said "I'll look at yours"). Two Christmas' later I got a present (a jigsaw puzzle of Mt Rainier) and a card with the picture from Zeacliff. On it he had written "To SherpaKroto who has taken me to places I had only dreamed of". So that's how I got my name.

The funny thing is that my wife refuses to call me by that name, though at this point nearly everyone else does

 

[uphillklimber]

I chose uphillklimber for a couple reasons. I could always klimb the peaks faster than I could descend them, due to my knees. I worked on that, lightened my pack, and paid close attention to my technique, so that's not so true nowadays. Also, it seemed, in an earlier life, that my whole life was an uphill klimb. Now it's a real steady cruise and enjoy.

I changed the spelling to avoid having to be uphillclimber 1048 or something like that. Making it a bit distinctive helps with login in at various websites. Everywhere I go, I sign up under this name. At thebackpacker.com, I hiked with a friendly group of folks and I was klimbing up every formation and rock peak, with and without pack, and they dubbed me monkeyboy and "made" me sign in under that name. They're good folks, so I sign in there only under a different name.

I like the various sign ins I see as it can be quite descriptive of the person. My wife signs in at various places as Skeetah bait and klutz, for obvious reasons