>>1826950They do but it always feels put on and pretentious as shit. I’ve done several sections of the AT and I’m definitely not alone in that. I mean sure, yeah, nicknames are fine, and it makes sense that someone you see repeatedly but don’t really know will get a nickname. It’s just kind of natural in that case, and since that happens so much on the trail nicknames got tossed around a lot. But the forced meme of “getting a trail name” is just stupid.
I was asked a few times “what do they call you?” My answer was always the same; my name. It’s actually a relatively new thing. My first time on the AT was in 1999 and there was no talk about “trail names.“
