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With nice weather and beautiful summer season upon us here in North America, my training for the Appalachian Trail thru hike in 2021 has now shifted from boring footpaths and dreaded treadmill in a dark basement to the hiking trails in Michigan mountains. We love our mountains. Some of them are as tall as 10 ft. But jokes apart, lack in mountains, on these trails are more than compensated with spectacular lakes and dense, lush forests with hundreds of shades of green.

That is all fine and dandy. But here is a challenge I faced this week.

Monday: I did 0.7 miles (1 km) on the trail in Pinckney Recreation Area. My legs, hands and most importantly, my bald head swelled within a couple of minutes on the trail. No, enlargement of my esteemed head was not because of my ego. It was because of crazy mosquitoes. I forgot to carry a repellent.

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Tuesday: I did 5.0 miles (8 km) on Crooked Lake trail. My repellent was an extremely light weight Fabric Roll-On (12 gm) used by parents on the children in Dombivali and Badalapur. These towns near Mumbai, India are well known for scourge and scourge of mosquitoes. But this high-performance repellent completely failed in Michigan. Since Michigander little devils get only 2-3 months in the entire year to suck human blood, these mosquitoes have a certain level of desperation and the attitude of hara-kiri. So, my bald head continued to swell with a feast for these bloodsuckers.

Wednesday: I did two rounds of Crooked Lake Trail (10 miles, 16 km) with 20 lb. on back. Covered myself with hand gloves, a rain jacket (with hoodie) (95 gm) and rain pants (66 gm). (I do not plan to carry any other hoodie or full pants on the trail, so I had to use what I have in my Appalachian gear). Despite usual crazy sweating, I did not feel any suffocation whatsoever in this breathable rain gear. That was a great respite and I was ready to rock on.

Thursday: I did 12.5 miles (20 km) Potowatomi half loop trail. Yesterday, while I was merrily hiking on the trail, mosquitoes called a meeting to strategize. Today, they were ready for me and attacked my bearded face. Now my face is also swollen along with the head. That’s it. I gave up in four days. I am now going to bite the dust and carry the traditional mosquito repellent Repel 100 DEET on the trail (48 gm).

Other day, I had to include diaper cream (15 gm) in my inventory list for the Appalachian Trail (after serious chafing at “you-know-where”).

Fricking back-pack weight keeps going up. Damn …

Nitin (Dadhi) Anturkar (June 27, 2020)

(Thanks to all fellow hikers for sharing their trail name stories on social media)

There is a tradition on long-distance trails to have brand-new, unique trail names given to the hikers. These names and the associated stories are as colorful, exciting, crazy, free-wheeling, and downright mad as the hikers themselves on these trails.

In a story of walking pilgrimage from Southern France to Compostella in coastal Spain, Paulo Coehlo wrote in a book “Pilgrimage” that:

“When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations and the day passes more slowly. So, you are like a child just out of the womb.”

Naturally, the first thing the newborn is supposed to get is the new name.

Hikers on the Appalachian Trail would walk insane 2,192 miles (3.528 km), vertical climb up and down 515,000 ft (157 km or 98 miles) and would take grueling 4-7 months to complete the thru hike. That is fricking mother of all travels. There will be surprises, such as 10-ft poisonous Copperhead Rattlesnake staring at you with hypnotic eyes, while you are engaged in a focused disposition of yesterday’s consumption of Ramen noodles, or perfectly potable water oozing out of blisters in a drought prone area, or aromatic odor emanating from your body that competes with the esoteric Chanel No 5 perfume. With all these surprises in addition to deprivation, hunger, and all kinds of pain “everywhere”, the least the hikers should get in return is the new name.

Some newborns cannot get rid of their attachments from the previous reincarnations. They continue to be hometown fans, such as Arkansas, Badger, Goldenbear and Packbacker.  But the rest of the newborns are deep into their new experiences. There are some skilled craftsmen and women on the trail such as Atlas, Gadget, Click, Chef, Munk (as in monk), Cornfield (a farmer) and Daktari (Doctor in Swahili). Some walk Slowly like a Sloth, and some walk very fast like a Flash or a Gazelle. Some snore like ChainSaw and RoaringThunder, and some keep saying “I Am Almost There”, “YoBear” and “WhyNot”. There are many of them who carry special items on the trail, such as Taser, a stuffed Piglet, Lucky four-leaf clover charm or Sherpa the dog.

All the above names make complete sense. But the weird folklore of the Appalachian Trail is made of some ridiculous Hall of Famers. There is s.i.d. (as in shits in ditches), somebody is a Forest Dump, Shitfoot is a common occurrence, and some Tracker Rob even tracks bear shit. Somebody is called Pony Porn because he video-taped what ponies do in springtime. But, seriously, there are some stories that cannot be made up. They are crazy and beyond disgust. Can you imagine why somebody is called Rocket? He can hit a frog between the eyes at 10 yards with his snot rockets. And then there is Suds because bubbles were spewing out of his smelly socks for several weeks since he forgot to dry the socks one day.

I want to do the thru hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2021. But then why am I thinking of the trail name for myself right now? Using Richard Bach’s words, “If I want to be with the trail, Am I not already there?”

So, here it goes. My trail name is Dadhi (In North Indian languages, it means beard). When I was in a college in India, approximately 50,000 years ago, I never trimmed or shaved my beard for the entire five years. All my buddies started calling me Dadhi. The name stuck.

It may not be a Hall of Famer trail name. But a long beard clearly has some advantages. I can hide a snicker bar there, showing off as a health-conscious hiker. In the morning, I am expected to drink a hot tea and start hiking. But at around 10 am when I crave for the next round, I can easily suck the remnants of the morning tea from my dense and long moustache. When tiny ticks and mighty mosquitoes plan to attack me, they will think that my beard is just a fungus and ignore me. My weight is pretty much the average east coast black bear weight (Please, please do not ask me how I am going to do thru Appalachian Trail in 2021 with that body weight). In the wilderness, I hope that bears will respect me as a professional colleague when they see my beard. While homo sapiens professional colleagues almost kill each other in their competitive urban environment, I am hoping that the tranquil wilderness will inspire bears to hug me before both of us proceed to our own ways. I will not carry a razor (15 gm) and shaving cream (40 gm), reducing my backpack weight. Finally, the most important thing is that I can create a façade of a very tough hiker, even when I am really shit scared.

So, what do you think of my trail name? Will that work?

Nitin (Dadhi) Anturkar (July 2020)