People we meet on the trail

This is an attempt to describe the type of people we are meeting on the trail - apart from the boy scout groups which seem to have disappeared since the school holidays finished.

In the early days there were lots of jocks - the young college grads all trying to outboast each other about the highest mountains they had climbed etc. These have all rushed past us, and we think that the jock wave is about 200 hundred miles ahead of us, all vying to be the first thru-hiker to complete for 2010.

We have already heard along the trail grapevine about people who we met on day 1 and have already dropped out. One young man - Jeremy - from Louisiana, who stopped walking on the second day because it was the Sabbath and he wanted to respect the Sabbath while on the trail, did not make it to the next Sabbath. He was so overwhelmed by the number of people on the trail he decided to go home. We think that there were about 40 people a day coming through at that time.

Now it is about 15-20 people coming through. Everyone has trail names - ours are Wizard from Oz and Tripper. We met an old man who looked the spitting image of Father Christmas with out the red suit - about 75 we thought - he started hiking on March 15 - taking his time. His name is MAM - stands for Miles are Miracles. We have seen a few really oldies - long and wiry with varicose veins - walking at twice our speed.

We have not seen any married couples - sometimes pairs of friends or singles who team up on the trail. For a couple of days we hiked with Fast Food and Mr T - both young men who were unemployed and who thought that hiking the trail is a good way to wait for the job market to improve.

Diesel was in the military and now retired. He hiked the trail right through in 2004, and is now doing it again. He has Parkinson's Disease and watching him try and cook and pack up with the shakes is really hard. He says his trail name means that he is slow to get started, but once he is up and running there is no stopping him. An this is true. He left at 5.00am this morning to catch the 9.00 am suttle from the mountain.

Pocohontas Mode is a very fit young woman covered in serious tattoos on both her arms and legs. The back of one leg has a sentence tattooed into it but I dont know her well enough yet to ask her about it. Her trail name comes from getting into the zone when you are walking - imagining that you are back in the forest when the Indians roamed the land and the spirits were free.

Sugar Ray has a broken nose from throwing a rock over a branch to hang his bear bag of food for the night so the bear would not get it. The rock came back like a boomerang and banged him on the nose.

I could go on but this is enough to give you the idea - everyone on the trail has a story. You get to meet and then remeet people and make friends.