Hi everyone. Buddha and Zack here from the CDT '05. We were wondering if anyone has the contact info for Jerome, the French guy who hiked the CDT in 2005. Unfortunately all I know about him is his name was Jerome, he was from Paris I think, he was very tall, hiked southbound, was a great guy - shy but nice.
The reason I ask is that Zack and I just finished a thru-hike across Iceland (North to South) and we think he was 2 days ahead of us. We’re basing this on a couple of backcountry hut register entries signed by a guy named Jerome doing 30 miles a day, and we met some hikers saying he was doing a thru-hike, had a very small pack, was tall, wore trailrunners, etc. We were following his prints off and on for the first 10 days or so of our hike, until we came to a river we could not cross (and a week later Jessica “Wildflower” CDT '07) also could not cross - though “almost drowned” is a better term for our attempts I think.
Icelandic Search and Rescue has been searching for this hiker for at least 15 days now - which is more or less when he should have finished his hike. We never saw his prints backtracking from the river area, so my big fear is that he never made it across (actually, according to Jessica, who made it further than we did, the river had swelled to a series of braids several miles across).
If anyone from '05 has his contact info, could you send it to me? Or if any hikers currently on the CDT come across a register, could you see if he signed in '05 and left his contact info or address? I know I’m making a big assumption that this was indeed the same Jerome, but considering how rare it is to see an ultralight European hiker, let alone one in trail runners with a huge stride, light pack, doing big miles, from France, named Jerome, on a route popular with thru-hikers (Jonathan Ley, Trauma, etc.) I’m pretty convinced it’s the same guy. At the very least, it would be nice to rule him out. I’m hoping he just forgot to contact Search and Rescue when he finished the hike, but that river was unfordable for Zack, me and Jessica and her friend and now I’m really worried about him. So anyway, my email address is: buddhapants@gmail.com. Thanks everyone,
Shinobu “Buddha” Price and Zack Karas
Buddha