Trail Names - I am "Muddy Shoes"

There is a long standing tradition of hikers using trail names instead of their regular names. Part of it is for the mystique and part of it is just to have a name that fits who you are or who you've become as part of your journey.

Traditionally, your trail name is assigned to you by other hikers. You might wake up one morning and put your boot on and squish a frog that somehow jumped into your boot during the night - Your fellow hikers might call you "Frogfoot" from that day on. Or you might accidentally set your tent ablaze doing something stupid with your camp stove. "Firefly" might then be your name for the next 2,000 miles. But it's not entirely necessary to wait for a name.

Some hikers have trail names or nick-names which they have already, and which they carry with them to the trail, or they may choose their own names for some personal reason or as a right of passage. One person I heard of whose name was John fell into a privy one late night. He chose his own name of "Crapper John."

Unless something changes, my chosen trail name will be "Muddy Shoes." This name comes from one of my hobbies called "Geocaching." Geocaching involves hunting hidden 'treasures' using a handheld GPS. You have a description of where the treasure is, what kind of treasure it is and the coordinates which you program into your GPS and then hunt down. When you find this treasure which may be a tupperware box or other container, you take one item from within the container and leave another, signing the logbook inside as part of the process. Then you visit the website, www.geocaching.com and log your finds. It's a fantastic hobby which I highly recommend.

http://www.geocaching.com

Oh...ok, almost forgot...Muddy Shoes.

Well, when hunting geocaches, I always seem to take the hardest route through the woods and swamplands to get to the cache container. While most people would follow a clear path, I somehow always get off track and end up knee deep in mud, soaking my shoes, socks and making a general mess of things - Hence the name, Muddy Shoes.

But on the trail, all kinds of things can happen and my name may change, either by choice or because someone who cared enough to call me something even more embarrassing than Muddy Shoes, wanted me to have a different name.

But for now.. I am Muddy Shoes... intrepid explorer, pathfinder and mountain man.

Ron