With every year about 4K new people try to hike the AT. While each of us will hike our own unique hike, one ritual that touches us all is the granting/receiving of trail names. Since being on the trail we’ve met Turtle, Thor (x2), Dropsy, and Chuck Norris. We’ve also been hiking with Brian… who refuses to take any of the different names we have given him (chainsaw, audible, pontus, soap box, and french press). The ritual is special and sacred as a name means a lot both to those we interact with as well as to ourselves and who we wish to become.

Jess-

I tried a lot of different names out for Jess over the last four weeks. “Hey Rocket, ready for a snack?” (She learned to snot rocket on the trail and also requires an astonishing amount of fuel to keep going), “Hey Wonder, what do you think about this flower?” (For about an hour of every hike she’s in literal awe of every flower, bug, and person we meet), “Have you guys seen Wild Flower? I can’t find her anywhere” (yeah, obviously the school connection, but she really really likes the flowers out here), and there were a few others but none really stuck.

The one that finally had legs (well not really legs…) was Turbo. You see Jess really really really likes snails, and she’s also much much faster than I am. Snails and speed = the fastest snail I could think, Turbo (a close second was the racing snail from the never-ending story) . She’s even developed her own song: “Turbo Snail, she’s faster than all the other snails and John, she’s going all the way to Maine…”. Okay, so the song is still a work in progress, but none the less, Jess is now Turbo.

John-

My name doesn’t have its own song yet (Though we did start saying it very loudly one day when we heard what sounded like a very large animal in distress from an even larger animal). We were walking through a cloud one morning in Georgia. It was hard to see even 50 ft out in any direction, but as the other hiker approached he knew exactly where we were from well beyond because of the highlighter green pack cover that I was using for the rain. “Hey Lighthouse!” rang out as his greeting… That moment combined with my extraordinary good looks… okay, okay, my height, made for a sticky trail name. John = Lighthouse