Possible Trail Names

As John still hasn’t adopted a trail name, and may never will, I just wanted to throw out there a list of a few that I or others have thought of:

• Crazy Legs – Old high school moniker from basketball
• Grouper McNuggent – Self-given nickname during LBK winter break trip
• Emile Hirsch (main character in Into the Wild) – With John’s beard, he looks like the actor in real life
• GORP – This kid looks forward to making GORP everytime he nears finishing his old gorp. He actually carries two completely different gorp mixtures. Typically, one is sweet and one is savory.
• Director of Photography – Is out-photographing me about 10 – 1 right now. He’s gotten some really good pictures though and he’s brilliant with the timer shots.
• Sidewinder – Ever since he got his new foam pad for supporting his pack, he’s been revolutionizing hiking fashion by looking like he’s in line at Noah’s Ark ready to go down the Sidewinder slide
• Jamiroquai – Given by Salp due to his apparent similar looks (click link to see a picture if you don’t remember Jamiroquai)
• Chunky Monkey – Given by Salp because he loves Ben and Jerry’s ice cream
• Dalton (Patrick Swayze’s character in Road House) – There’s a line in Road House that some girl asks “Who’s that guy” and someone answers “That’s Dalton”. I picture someone asking me on the trail, “Who’s that?” and I could reply “That’s Dalton”. We were watching this at Salp and Leah’s place. If you haven’t seen Road House, do yourself a favor and rent it. Well, maybe wait till you come across is on TV, it’s ridiculous and you may not think it’s worth the money to rent it. But it does have Swayze in it.

Trail Name Suggesstions – John

Thank you to everyone who has shared a suggestion. Here’s what we’ve got so far:

 

Walking Anvil – Nathaniel Krueger

VIJO – Eric Neeb

Creek Johnson – Steve Neary

Snettles Unfaithful – Tom Wolf, Sean Smith

Johassafrass Crickets – Dom Ladd

Zebediah Swisher – Dom Ladd

Prairie Dos (P2) – Laura Spella

Trizzle ‘Playboy’ Jonez – Tris

Onatah – An iroquois indian name meaning of the earth – Jessie Murdock

Not-gonna-shower-a-lot – JM

Keoni – The hawaian translation of John – JM

Humuhumunukunukuapua’a – Hawaiian for trigger fish – JM

Adal Truesdale – Zak Suhar

Navon Hernando – Zak Suhar

John “Bright Eyes” Suhar – David Rack

Gavina Muff – Melissa Miller

Rahus-noj – Jeff Murdock

Sun-downer – Jeff Murdock

Acorn Boy – Sara Zwiefelhofer

 

Further Explanation on Zak’s brilliant suggestions:

 

Trail Name: Adal Truesdale: Adal – The boy’s name Adal \a-dal\, also used as girl’s name Adal, is of Old German origin, and its meaning is “noble, precious”. *This also is very similar to Rafael NADAL, who you seem to idolize for his lefty stroke but   more-so his hair! Truesdale – The boy’s name Truesdale \t-ruesda-le, tru(es)-dale\ is of Old English origin, and its meaning is “honest man’s valley”. *You are very honest, and traveling the valleys of Appalachia.

 

Trail Name: Navon Hernando – Hebrew origin, meaning wise. Also a very rare name.  *you’re one of a kind John Fernando – Spanish origin, meaning adventurer.

 

Trail Names? Really?

G’day Friends,

 

For any of you who haven’t heard, Joe and I have decided to thru hike the Appalachian Trail.

 

We will be starting in Georgia on April 18th and finishing in Maine sometime before October 15th.

 

It was recently brought to our attention, as part of their pilgrimage, most thru-hikers assume a new identity—a trail name. Trail names on the A.T. go back at least to the early seventies, but they caught on in the late seventies, when the number of hikers increased dramatically. Nowadays trail names are almost always assigned to fellow hikers; and since they’ve become basically mandatory now … We were wondering if you would be able to help us out.

 

In light of seeking new monikers, We were hoping you could find some time to send us a suggestion or two whenever you have the chance. Feel free to simply comment on this post or email us at:

 

JohnandJoeHiketheAT@gmail.com

Thank you all so, so much for your support and creativity!