During our six months on the PCT, we met 45 or 50 people who were attempting a thru-hike, plus many more who were walking shorter sections. On the whole, these folks were so healthy and normal that I often forgot that they were attempting to do something extraordinary. Typically, these people were taking advantage of a natural pause in life to fit in some adventure. Many had just graduated from college, or were between college and graduate school. Others had been laid off or bought out, and hit the PCT before their next serious job searches. Many ordinary Americans do the same thing, although their “adventures” are more likely to involve a few months of sightseeing or maybe volunteer work. I’m not trying to suggest that thru-hikers are ordinary—they’re not. And while we often urged parents we met along the way to take their kids backpacking, we would never suggest they tackle something on the order of the PCT without working up to it. That would be like suggesting that anyone with an ordinary level of physical fitness and a spare $60,000 can safely climb Mt. Everest. But neither are backpackers very different from the mainstream.
One of the characteristics that does set thru-hikers apart from the mainstream is their use of nicknames during their time on the trail, and even afterward. For some backpackers, acquiring a trail name is a matter of great consequence. Others use them but don’t attach much importance to them. And some very serious and even famous thru-hikers never do acquire trail names. The trail name tradition is generally considered to have begun on the Appalachian Trail. But the custom of assuming, or assigning, nicknames related to an intense experience goes back much further. The military in particular seems to generate nicknames that are based on experiences only other members of the unit can appreciate.
Trail names also serve a practical purpose. They are an easy way for thru-hikers to establish an identity within the group. Since there are no professional guides on the long trails, and no one individual is responsible for looking out for us, we learn to watch out for each other. If someone named Jim or Karen doesn’t show up as expected at a trail angel’s house or at a road crossing, it’s going to be pretty hard to track down that particular Jim or Karen because they are such common names. But if word goes out that Sandpiper is overdue, or that Chocoholic left his camera and his passport at the Summit Inn, the trail community can focus on the right person and solve the mystery, sometimes with amazing speed.
A couple years after our PCT trek, I mentioned to Mary that a columnist in a southern California newspaper made fun of people who use trail names, suggesting it’s pretentious and immature. Mary thought seriously for a while, and then opined that while people’s “real” names are important, sometimes the trail names they choose, or which are chosen for them, become their “true” names. (Other times, of course, they’re meant to be a joke and are taken as such.)
WHEN WE BEGAN THE PCT, like all prospective thru-hikers, we looked forward to awesome scenery and unforgettable trail experiences. By the time we finished, like all successful thru-hikers, we realized that many of our best memories were of the people we met along the way, and of the relationships we formed with them. That’s why our fellow backpackers deserve a chapter of their own. That’s also why I’ve chosen to present real people, rather than the composite characters found in many books about outdoor adventures. And rather than pseudonyms, I’m sticking with people’s actual names—first, or first and last, whichever they tend to use—or their chosen trail names. Some were thru-hikers, others section hikers, and some were just out for a long weekend. They’re arranged alphabetically by the names they prefer or by the names for which they are best known in the thru-hiking community.
ALICE AND PAUL were heading north from Muir Pass on a cool, rainy July 3, when they spotted us taking a break among some junipers. They swung by to say hello and offer us their extra food. From then on, we saw them almost every day until they left the PCT eight days later at Tuolumne Meadows to complete their south-to-north journey on the John Muir Trail. (The 211-mile JMT coincides with the PCT along most of its length, but splits off at the north end to drop down to Yosemite Village, and at the south end to summit Mt. Whitney.) Each time we parted, we’d say a final goodbye—only to see them again the next day. One day, Gary, Mary, and I topped a pass south of Yosemite to discover someone had spelled out a message in rocks. As soon as I stopped tripping over the rocks and figured out what it said—HI SCRAMBLER—I knew who had left it.
Paul and Alice had met through a mutual interest in organic chemistry at the University of California-Irvine. After they married, they went to work for a big pharmaceutical company, only to be laid off after it merged with an even bigger company. Paul had thru-hiked the PCT several years earlier, but the John Muir Trail was Alice’s first major backpacking trip. An attractive couple in their early 30s, they were among the finest people we met, not to mention the smartest. They were excellent conversationalists and took a strong liking to Mary. A year after we met them, they moved to California from the Midwest, eventually settling in Berkeley, where Alice attended the University of California’s Boalt Hall School of Law, and Paul launched a career in forensics and criminology research.
BRIAN AND CARYL, whom we first met at the Kennedy Meadows campground in June, were long-distance bicyclists and strong hikers. Brian is only a few years younger than Gary and me, and Caryl is a few years younger than Brian, so they were among the older people on the trail. But they have the strong, youthful look of people who keep in top physical condition all the time. We ran into them again on Glen Pass and at Vermilion Valley Resort, and expected they would finish the PCT without difficulty. But on July 15, we met them again at Sonora Pass—and this time, Caryl was on crutches. They had taken an alternate route through Section I, in hopes of avoiding the notorious elevation losses and gains in Yosemite National Park’s high country. At their third crossing of Matterhorn Creek, Caryl tossed her boots onto the opposite bank while she crossed in her spare shoes. Unfortunately, one boot didn’t make it all the way across and began floating downstream. While scrambling after it, Caryl slipped and cracked her kneecap. They had to hike out several miles before the Mono County Volunteer Search and Rescue team met them and took them to a hospital. Several weeks after we saw them at Sonora Pass, the fracture had mostly healed and they resumed the trail, but by now it was mid-September. A month later, with a winter storm threatening, they called it quits at Castle Crags State Park, and made plans to resume their PCT journey from that point the following summer.
Unlike many in the outdoor recreation community who can only dream about such a life, Caryl and Brian quit working to spend all their time bicycling, hiking, and traveling the world. They gave up their engineering careers in the aerospace industry several years before we met them, sold their home, and determined that by careful budgeting, they could turn their passion for bicycle touring and outdoor recreation into a full-time experience. Since then, they’ve covered most of North America on two wheels or two feet and have seen much of South America by bus as well as bicycle. Another bicycle trip took them through Portugal, Spain, France, and the Alps. After that, they began planning a unique approach to the Continental Divide Trail: hiking the southern half of the CDT and bicycling the northern half of the more-or-less parallel Great Divide Mountain Bike Route one year, and then the next year, hiking the northern CDT and bicycling the southern half of the bike route. Caryl calls it their “thru-hike-bike.”
CHACOMAN was standing on the bank of Whitney Creek, a few miles from Mt. Whitney itself, on June 26 when a clumsy female hiker slipped on the rocks and fell into the water directly in front of him, with a tremendous splash. That was me. As I scrambled out of the stream, my first sight was of a pair of sandals, next a pair of thin legs, and finally all of a very slender thru-hiker. “Sorry about that,” Chacoman said, as though thru-hikers were always falling at his feet into rushing mountain streams. I felt like an idiot, but my embarrassment soon disappeared. Chacoman turned out to be one of our favorite trail people. A young computer programmer