As a Wyoming caller noted in an earlier episode, through-hikers on routes like the Appalachian Trail give each other trail names — jocular appellations that stick throughout their trek. The origin stories of several of these are told in the book Journeys North: The Pacific Crest Trail (Bookshop|Amazon) by Barney Scout Mann. Also, the term trail angel refers to those good-hearted souls who help out hikers along the way, even to the point of inviting weary, footsore travelers into their homes for a shower and a meal. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Hiker Trail Names and Trail Angels”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
We were talking earlier about the language of through hikers, those people who hike for many, many weeks and months to get to a destination.
And when you’re doing a long trail like that, you tend to acquire what they call a trail name.
And Grant, you’ll remember we had a call from Liz in Laramie, Wyoming, who spent six months hiking the Appalachian Trail.
And people commented on her accent.
Right.
They kept thinking she was from somewhere else, but she was born in the United States.
Right.
And you may remember that she said that on the trail, her name was Half Notes.
That’s what everybody called her.
And it’s partly because she’s a musician and partly because, in her words, she’s rather short and petite.
And what I didn’t realize until recently is that hikers usually don’t think up that trail name for themselves.
It tends to be bestowed on them by others.
It’s inspired usually by something you’ve done that’s unique or smart
Or maybe just spectacularly stupid.
And I learned this and much more from a new memoir called Journeys North.
It’s by Barney Scout Mann, who, as it happens,
Hiked all 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail.
And he’s also done all of the Appalachian Trail and the 3,100 miles of the Continental Divide.
So he’s what hikers call a triple crowner.
He really knows his stuff.
Wow, a triple threat.
Yeah, and triple sore, I bet.
Anyway, each of these trail names ends up telling a story.
Somebody who’s singing a lot on the trail might be called Figaro, for example.
And one of my favorites is a guy who was sitting around with a bunch of hikers during a break,
And he said, gosh, wouldn’t it be awful if you ended up with a trail name like Cuddles?
Well, you can imagine what trail name they gave this guy.
Oh, poor Cuddles.
But the best names are the ones that come from stories, right?
Not the ones that you assign yourself out of who you think you are.
Yeah, yeah.
People think you are.
So shout out to Cuddles.
Another cool term is trail angels.
These are people who leave food for hikers all along the way,
Or they have a standing invitation for hikers to just pop off the trail for a day or two and stay at their home.
Oh, that’s fantastic.
Yeah.
You might have overestimated your abilities or just need to rest your knees.
Yeah, or it gives you something to look forward to.
I mean, word gets out among hikers.
You know, in terms of the Pacific Crest Trail, about 300 hikers do that every year.
There’s a window of time when the weather lets you do that.
And about 300 people at least start out, not all of them finish,
But they know where the Trail Angels’ homes are along the way.
And people just open up their homes or their yards and let people crash for a day or two.
It’s really a cool subculture, I guess.
Yeah, that’s wonderful.
I love that spirit of community and of co-giving, the back and forth.
So it’s not only the angels giving to the hikers, the hikers giving to each other,
And then the hikers sharing their stories with those of us who don’t go
So we can appreciate the beauty of the relationships that they form,
But also the wilderness that they pass through.
You know, I’m really glad you said that because reading this book, Journeys North,
I really thought that it was going to be about the landscape and the beauty.
And, of course, that’s absolutely true.
But it’s really a book about relationships because you’re in this world that’s cut off from other people.
Usually for about five months.
And it sort of reminded me of, you know,
When you take a long airplane flight
And you sit down next to somebody
And you just, you pour out your life story to somebody
And then maybe you never see them again.
Or maybe you do develop some kind of friendship
That lasts a lifetime.
Martha, it sounds like a wonderful book.
What was it?
It’s called Journeys North by Barney Scout Man.
That’s fantastic.
We’ll put a link to that on the website
When we post the episode.
We’d love to hear what you’re reading
Or about your travels
And the language that you uncovered when you went to interesting new places
Or even terrible ones.
And we’d love to hear the good and the bad stories.
Email words@waywordradio.org
Or try us on Twitter @wayword.
