Friendship on the trail

imported
#1

Seems like everyone makes great friends on the trail.

I wonder - out of the people you meet on the trail, is it that a much higher proportion are “your type of people”, or are more real, less superficial somehow? Do you keep in touch with your trail friends for years after your hike? How about friends you meet out there versus friends you’ve come with from home?

A quote on the front of one of my favourite hiking guides says “hiking whittles away at people, chipping them down to their essence”.

I am interested to hear different people’s experiences with friendship on the trail.

Sophie

#2 
In 1992 I met a guy on the trail in the san Juan national forest. We are good friends to this day. My wife and I stay with his family whenever we are out there and we talk on a frequent basis.  We both love to combine backpacking with trout fishing!

Roadrunner

#3

In 2002 I met several people that I keep in touch with, get together with and consider some of my best friends. One lives in Montana, one hasn’t stopped hiking yet, and the others are scattered up and down the east coast. I seem to have much more in common with them than others here where I live. Hikers seem to have a different mindset about the important things, and that may be true of other subsets, but I can only speak from my experiences.

Grassy Ridge

#4

Ditto. After our thru hike in '02 we have continued communicating with friends we met on the trail.

A couple of weeks ago we had a wedding in our hometown. The daughter of a hiker we met and became friends with decided our home was a central location for the friends and family of the bride and groom could get to. No one at the wedding lived closer than a few hundred miles. After the wedding the minister asked me “does anybody know why was the wedding in this place?” I said Flame and I met Sunrise on the 16th of April in 2002 on the AT. He said “who is Sunrise?” I said that is the bride’s mother’s trail name. He said “I’ve got to hear this story.”

To me the experience of walking from GA to ME changes all of us in some way and those that have that in common understand what that difference means to each us. When we get a chance to visit with old friends (and make new friends) at Trail Days, as you know, the stories go on and on. We get to relive the adventure all over again. It is awesome.

Papa Smurf

#5

Anytime you go through a life experience with a group, you tend to stay in touch. This can be a charm school for industry, a small group bike tour, or a long distance hike.

Peaks

#6

I am still in touch with many many of the hkers I hiked with in 2001-02-04.

I have stay much closer to these friends then many of my other 'social" ones.

T/HH

Hammock Hanger

#7

Because I only hike SOBO, I don’t meet as many people as the NOBO’s, but I can say that every great friend I have today was an AT Thru-Hiker! Regardless of which direction I hike, I always meet the best people in the world on the AT. I may not always agree with what they do or what they say, but we all share the same desire to hike the AT; and I guess that is enough sometimes.

Just Jim

Just Jim

#8

In 2005, I hiked with some crazy boys for a month, who are still in my heart forever–Pyro, Mad Cow & Kung Fu. Everyone named us the Four Horsemen. When we broke up, I met my soul mate, Ranger Super Danger, and we became Team Blonde. So what if she’s also a girl and a crazy redneck and I’m a funny talkin’ yankee, we are sisters for life. We would have hated each other if we met off the Trail, but we managed to talk all the way from Damascus to ME and cause trouble and not kill each other. I still keep in touch with everyone that meant something to me, like AWOL the tattooed guy and Phoenix Rising and Leisure and Hellboy and little Beast, who will marry me one day when he is able to grow face hair.

Shera, Princess of Power