[pct-l] Trail Names

[AsABat]

I sure don't care about any of this but I think the gal in the new National Geographic movie that carried the hockey stick was named Pack Rat. 

AsABat
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"Paul Robison" <paulrobisonhome at yahoo.com> wrote:

>Gary please have a sense of humor,  nobody knows or cares what your
>trail name 
>will be... seriously  
>
>"username:  Packrat hs been taken
>this is an automated message"
>
>was not even SLIGHTLY funny?  i personally laughed out loud.
>
>just relax,
>~Paul  (the first and only paul ...  or... okay  'impostor paul'
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Gary Swing <homelessontherange at yahoo.com>
>To: PCT Listserve <pct-l at backcountry.net>
>Cc: paulrobisonhome at yahoo.com
>Sent: Wed, December 22, 2010 12:49:22 PM
>Subject: Re: [pct-l] Trail Names
>
>
>In response to my first post on this forum (different thread), I have
>had a 
>dispute with someone who labels me an "impostor" for proposing to use
>the trail 
>name "Pack Rat" on the PCT in 2011. My girlfriend, Rachel, wants to use
>the 
>trail name "Spill," which is also apparently not unique and original.
>Rachel and 
>I had extensive discussions this summer about possible new trail names
>while we 
>hiked the Glacier NP section of the CDT with a friend. It's taken a lot
>of 
>discussion for us to come to mutually agreeable trail names, until we
>settled on 
>"Pack Rat" and "Spill." 
> 
>(Brief aside -- for the Glacier hike we named our friend "Bob McGuire"
>because 
>he asked Rachel if I'd told her about his "barbed wire" incident in New
>Mexico. 
>She thought he said "Bob McGuire" and asked who "Bob McGuire" was.)
> 
>Thousands of people have completed thru hikes of long distance trails
>while 
>using trail names. Many of these trail names are obvious, common, and
>simple. 
>When I thru hiked the AT in 2008, I met plenty of people with
>duplicated trail 
>names. I personally don't know anybody who has used the trail names
>"Pack 
>Rat" or "Spill." They are both fairly obvious trail names and fitting 
>descriptions of habits that Rachel and I have demonstrated while doing
>long 
>distance walks.
> 
>"Pack Rat" may be "a well known and popular accomplished hiker," but I
>don't 
>know him. I searched Trail Journals and found one listing for a
>"Packrat" (one 
>word) who hiked the AT in 2004 and the Long Trail in 2005. I didn't
>find any 
>listings for anybody named "Spill." I am not "pretending" to be a guy I
>never 
>met who hiked the AT in 2004. 
> 
>Like birth names, trail names don't have to be unique names that nobody
>has ever 
>used before. I'm not the only person who has ever been named Gary. That
>doesn't 
>mean I'm "pretending" to be somebody else named Gary. How would
>somebody even 
>know if they've come up with a unique, totally original trail name? Is
>there 
>some searchable registry of every trail name any hiker has ever used?
>Is there a 
>specific list of prohibited trail names that have been officially
>reserved for 
>"well known and popular accomplished hikers?" 
>  
>I don't really care what name I use on the PCT, or if I use a trail
>name at all. 
>Like anyone else, I don't want to be stuck with a dumb name like
>"Halitosis" or 
>"Stinky Feet." However, my girlfriend *insists* that we both must have
>trail 
>names, and wants us to start out on the PCT with them. 
>
> 
>Here are some pros and cons of trail names that I've considered:
> 
>Thought Criminal: I used this trail name on the AT in 2008, the
>Colorado Trail 
>and in the Chihuahuan Desert in 2009, and on the CDT between Canada and
>Butte in 
>2010. I have used this as a nickname in various contexts since 2002 --
>on 
>mountaineering forums, for a personal website that I had from 2003 to
>2009, on a 
>personal profile that I had for five years, and for a "Thought Criminal
>Test" 
>that I wrote. The term is taken from George Orwell's dystopian novel
>"1984" 
>about a totalitarian society in which anyone who thinks for oneself is
>branded a 
>"Thought Criminal." On the AT, I found that most people didn't get the 
>reference; the name was too long and people shortened it to "TC;" and I
>often 
>had to spell out the word "Thought" when I met people who couldn't
>understand my 
>pronunciation of the word. I prefer to replace this name on the PCT in
>favor of 
>something less political and more light-hearted. I don't want to feel
>that I 
>must live up to  this name.
> 
>Pack Rat: Rachel and my friend Barrett ("Bob McGuire") have made fun of
>my 
>tendency to pick up and carry useless and generally unwanted items and
>carry 
>them long distances before eventually using them, sending them home, or
>leaving 
>them somewhere else. I tend to do this particularly with hiker boxes,
>picking up 
>something nobody else wants and carrying it a long way until I
>eventually leave 
>it in another hiker box, or consuming it (if it's food) when I have
>nothing else 
>left to eat. Also, I do promotional work for the Colorado Ballet,
>sometimes in 
>costume. I wear a rat costume for promotions of "The Nutcracker."
>Drawbacks: 
>"Pack Rat" is a common, unoriginal name. It has been objected that a
>"well known 
>and popular accomplished hiker" uses the name Pack Rat.
> 
>Alien: Expresses my deep feelings of alienation from American society.
>I was 
>also amused by the "No Alien" stickers I saw posted on the Colorado
>Trail. I 
>wrote a satirical commentary about this. In 2010, Denver (where I live)
>had a 
>local initiative on the ballot to create an "Extra-Terrestrial Affairs 
>Commission" to study evidence of alleged extra-terrestrial visitation
>on Earth. 
>I wrote some satirical commentaries about this proposal and used an 
>"Extraterrestrial Affairs" themed costume for Halloween. Drawback:
>Folks might 
>assume that I'm a UFO buff, which I'm not.
> 
>Peakbagger: My hobby from 1990 to 2007 was climbing Colorado's 637
>mountains 
>over 13,000 feet. Drawback: I don't plan to divert from the PCT to bag
>peaks, 
>except for Whitney and Muir.
> 
>13er: See Peakbagger.
> 
>Winston Smith: Lead character from George Orwell's novel "1984." The
>original 
>"Thought Criminal." Less obvious trail name than "Thought Criminal,"
>sounds like 
>a real name. Most people probably wouldn't get the reference.
> 
>Crestone: The name of my favorite Colorado 14ers (Crestone Peak and
>Crestone 
>Needle).
> 
>Green: I was a Green Party candidate for Congress in 2010. Rachel was
>"Red" on 
>the AT in 2008. Could be part of a "couples' name -- except Rachel
>doesn't want 
>to be "Red" again.
> 
>Sequoia: I have a Specialized Sequoia road bike. Rachel briefly
>considered being 
>"Redwood" on the PCT before rejecting it. Possible couples' name.
> 
>Ecotopian: Obscure literary reference to Ernest Callenbach's novel
>"Ecotopia" in 
>which northern California, Oregon, and Washington secede from the
>United States 
>to build a new society based on principles of ecological
>sustainability. Seems 
>appropriate to me since we'll be walking the length of "Ecotopia." 
>Drawbacks: Most people won't get the reference, and it's too many
>syllables. 
> 
>Swingman: This was my nickname in high school, but I haven't used it
>since 1985. 
>Doesn't seem meaningful to me anymore.
> 
>Rachel used the name "Red" on the AT. We met in North Carolina and
>walked to 
>Maine together. Red was her nickname from trail crew in the White
>Mountains (NH) 
>for her hair color. I thought it was a boring, unoriginal name, so I
>tried to 
>give her a different name. She rejected my proposals. I suggested
>"Lumber Jill" 
>because she was a competitive Lumberjack. I later proposed "Redblaze"
>because 
>she kept falling and blazing the trail with her own blood. For our
>Glacier 
>National Park hike, I proposed to name her "Pandemic" because she works
>in a 
>medical laboratory at a hospital. At the time, the people in her lab
>were 
>playing a fantasy game called "Pandemic" in which they try to design a
>highly 
>contagious disease capable of wiping out the entire human race. On the
>AT, we 
>also debated the idea of calling ourselves "Misery" and "Company" --
>with some 
>uncertainty as to who would get which name. For the PCT, she considered
>
>switching to "Redwood" with me as  "Sequoia." I proposed the name
>"Spill" for 
>her on the PCT because she always seem to spill her food, and often
>spills 
>herself as well. She tumbled down a rock stairway on the AT. Another
>time, 
>she tripped over her own feet, stumbled a few paces, and fell on the
>only 
>stickerbush in the area.
> 
>So... in non-conclusion, I don't really care what name I use on the
>PCT, as long 
>as it's not "Halitosis" or "Stinky Feet." Rachel thinks we should stick
>with 
>"Pack Rat" and "Spill" -- even though other people have used those
>names.
> 
>Cheers,
> 
>Gary
>
>
>      
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