Trail Naming 101 – The Trek

Unless you give yourself a route name, which I don’t suggest. The trail names are part of the trail everyone seems to be waiting for. I personally wasn’t. I didn’t know I was a hiker until a few days into the trail. Funnily enough, I wasn’t planning on hiking, I was just accompanying a friend on her AT hike. Since I didn’t know anything about trail culture before, when I discovered the trail names, I thought they were silly.

Once I got on the path, they started to make sense. They are a way to maintain your privacy when you meet hundreds of strangers on the road. Route names can also be like alter egos or superhero names. They allow you to be a different version of yourself. You can embrace the silly with a trail name. Throughout the more than 5,000 miles I’ve hiked on long-distance trails, these are some of my favorite trail names.

mad dog

Possibly one of the coolest trail names, and also the most unfortunate. I met Mad Dog in the Hundred Mile Wilderness in Maine going SOBO. He still had his government name when I met him, but by the time we got to Shaw’s, he was nicknamed Mad Dog. One day, while hiking in the remote Maine wilderness, he turned a corner on a trail that intersected an old logging road and saw a family. He started to wave, but before he knew it, his dog attacked him!

The family dog ​​got scared and pounced on him with an intense bite. The dog hit him precisely in the stomach. There was a bit of shock and confusion, but the family’s reaction was disappointing at best. They awkwardly apologized to him and asked him what he wanted them to do about it. He mentioned that they should probably take him to the hospital, since he won’t appear in town for many days. They seemed uncomfortable about this but obliged. With little Lassie panting next to his head from the back seat, they set off. Of course, the doctors couldn’t stitch it up because it was a dog bite, but they gave the victim some antibiotics and bandages and sent him off. The retired Boston firefighter entered the desert as one man and came out a Mad Dog.

hot pants

Hot pants near Mount Baden-Powell

Dale was part of our Tramily on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2023. He went without a trail name for a few weeks, as did the group of guys who hiked with him at the beginning. In their original group was Dale, from England, a young German, an Italian and an 18-year-old Canadian. For convenience, I called their hiking group The United Nations. I didn’t see Dale for a week or two, and the next time we met him in Big Bear, he earned a new name, without knowing it yet.

2023 had a record year for snow. As the story goes, they were in San Jacinto in the middle of a storm. All the knights were huddled in their tents. The hail, rain, wind and snow were so bad that Dale decided it would be a good night to cook inside his foyer. While cooking, his camp stove fell, spilling food and catching his pants leg on fire. The boys told us this story when we met them at camp. We all laughed and someone said I should give the trail a name. That’s when we decided on the name Hot Pants.

Trash Handle (Tango)

FLOTUS & Trash Mango

Matt is one of those trail relationships that will last a lifetime. My companion Hornet and I ended up hiking almost the entire AT with him. We even went to their wedding last year. Before we became a trio of hikers, we were all just a group of semi-strangers in the Hundred Mile Wilderness. Despair for food can hit just a few days after hiking a remote trail, especially when you know you won’t have a hot meal or even resupply for up to ten days. This must have been on Matt’s mind when he saw some food on the ground.

There were 8 of us who got into the rhythm of walking together fairly early on our AT-thru hike. Once, as the day was ending, each of us walked toward camp. There was a dirt forest road and leaning against a concrete pillar on the ground was a bag labeled “Dried Mangos.” When I saw it I was interested. I love dried mangoes! Unfortunately as I got closer, you could see there was a lot more stuff in the bag than just mango, so I decided to pass. At camp we all mentioned seeing the bag but we overlooked it because it was a big unknown. Later, Matt trudged into camp, a bag of fruit in his hand.

«Guys, I just hit the jackpot!»

Matt was very excited about his discovery.

“Did you grab the bag of garbage mangoes?!”

said Mr. President, the unofficial leader of our group. We laughed and made fun of Matt, commenting on how we had all passed around the bag of suspicious fruit. It turned out that it was just a bunch of mixed dried fruits stuffed into the bag. We soon nicknamed Matt «Trash Mango» and called him «Tango» for short. Later, after marrying his wife Hannah, we affectionately called her “Trash Banana.”

mr president

FLOTUS, Mr. President and Hornet

The honorable Triple Crown superstar, Mr.President, was named after him years before we met him. A long time ago, before he was Perez, he was just Bill. Bill was hiking the PCT, when he and his new hiking partner found a formerly iconic spot on the PCT. It’s not there anymore, but as the story goes, there used to be a dumpster on the road in Southern California.

This garbage container was a place for people to leave magical traces. Bill and his friend approached a large group of people gathered around the dumpster, looking for trail magic in the form of snacks. For some reason, two girls started singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.” They excitedly discovered that «Mr. President» would be a good name for the trail. The group walked around trying to see if it would fit in with anyone they knew. Before Bill knew it, his hiking partner exclaimed that HE actually fit the bill.

«His name is even Bill!! Like Bill Clinton!»

The record screeched to a stop and the jury entered. The two girls thought that they should be the ones to decide if he was worthy of the name. Knowing Perez and his affinity for words, along with his ability to win over even his biggest opponent, I can only imagine how easy it was for him. He explained his reasons and answered their questions, but finally mentioned that he was actually the president of his class in college. Everyone asked where he went, when he said «University of Vermont» one of the girls gasped.

“That’s where I went!!”

That was all it took, they were all sold.

FLOAT

My Secret Service pin

While we’re here, I can easily explain on Segway how I got the name of my trail. After meeting Mr. President my first week of travel, we were in a shed with our group sheltering from a storm. When it was time for dinner, I started preparing my food. Mr. President is a man of class, which is why he always had a meal at Mountain House. I’m a chef by profession, so I brought a lot of seasonings and spices when I started walking. I offered to flavor his food while we all cooked together. He obeyed and we all talked. At one point I told him,

«Do you know you’re the second president I’ve cooked for?»

Confused, he and the others asked me to explain. I told you about the time I cooked for the President of the United States of America, who turned out to be the GOAT, the honorable and outstanding Mr. Barack Obama. It was December 2016 during the sweet time after Christmas before New Years. Every winter, the restaurant he worked for hosted Sir Obama while he took his annual vacation to Hawaii. Luckily, I was on duty when he walked in. First, before opening, the restaurant was full of Secret Service agents, searching the building. They brought their K9 unit and looked under all the counters and ovens, while I followed them, sweeping up any debris they illuminated with their flashlights.

Hours later the Obamas arrived and we served them a multi-course tasting menu with everything that was on the menu, and even some things that weren’t. At one point, so many dishes were going to their table that the serving staff needed an extra set of hands. My chef rushed me to help and I was able to bring a plate to his table. I was waiting in a staff conga line when Mr. Barack finally said:

“There is no more space!”

It was at that moment that I knew what had to be done. I knew he liked dad jokes and I saw my chance.

“On the table or in the stomach?!”

A terrible dad joke, but someone had to say it. He looked at me, unamused but with a slight smile on his face, nodding his head in acknowledgement. He seemed satisfied with the effort. I was too. If you get the chance to tell Obama a dad joke, do it.

For some reason, the group thought that FLOTUS was a good name as a companion to a worthy president.

Honorable mentions

I’ve heard hundreds of trail names, too many good to mention them all, but here are a few that I liked. My boy, “Hornet,” simply got stung by too many hornets in one day, first in the toilet and then in a nest in the ground. He broke out in small hives and my offer of Benadryl may have been my first documented flirtatious gesture. «Big Milk» was a young man from the Midwest obsessed with milk. He talked about it so much that someone accused him of being associated with “big dairy” (like “big pharma,” but with more lactose).

Our friend Beaver got caught in a storm so big he thought his tent would flood and float away. He started digging a ditch in the middle of the night in his underwear. After his friends caught him, they named him «Beaver.» «Bad Bunny» was a hiker whose tent was hit numerous times by a mob of large rabbits in the middle of the night. «Birdy» was a golf fanatic and if you ever met someone named «Seeker», «Strider», «Compass» or similar…I bet they gave it to themselves. Be cool, be sociable, be patient and let someone else give you a trail name that really fits!