Ok, this is something I totally take for granted as common knowledge about the trail, but in telling the people back home about it and seeing their surprise, I feel it’s time to explain the whole trail name phenomenon.
Almost nobody goes by their real name on the trail. Instead, people take on pseudonyms which become their names. When meeting someone, you introduce yourself by your trail name. These names can either be self-appointed or, more commonly, they’re given to you by someone else based on some physical trait, trail happening or whatever someone thinks is a good name. You never refer to yourself by your real name. In fact, ”Ryan Chittick” doesn’t even exist on the trail.

How did it start? Well, a man named Earl Shaffer attempted the first end-to-end hike in 1948. Since no one had ever attempted the entire 2000 mile hike, he was coined ”the crazy one,” thus giving birth to the trail name custom. Since then, it has just become on of those quirky A.T. things.

The names can be goofy, such as ”Are We,” which is short for ”are we there yet?” but I’ve found that they take on a similarity to fighter pilot names. Remember back to Top Gun and the names like Goose and Maverick. It’s a lot like that. A partial list of names I’ve encountered includes:

Stinger
Swamp dawg
The Saucemaster
Bluebelle
Miss Graceful
Coyote
Woohah (think of the movie ‘’scent of a woman”)
Boatdrinks
M&M
Couch
Candyman
Sleeping Beauty
Radar
Yonder
Spock
Evil Eye

What’s mine? Well, it was originally ‘’swampfoot,” hence the URL of the blog. I can’t even count the number of times someone asked me if i was from the bayou. Instead, i had to explain the fact that i just have darn sweaty feet. For whatever reason, swampfoot was difficult for people to remember. I’ve veen called swampman, swampthing, swampcheese, and a few other variations. Often times, people would just call me ‘’swamp.” I’ve since officially changed to simply ‘’swamp,” eliminating the confusion.

Sure, it took a while to adjust to being called by another name, but now, hearing the name Ryan is just a bit weird to me. It’s a bit like when you say a word over and over again until it almost sounds foreign. Getting a fresh perspective on my own name was definitely something i had not anticipated.