When Earl got off trail because it was overgrown, he’d bushwack to a road and get into a town. Then he’d refind the trail. He wouldn’t go back to pick up those missed miles, so I guess that makes him the original blue blazer. And Earl, at a PA Ruck, described Grandma Gatewood as a Yellowblazer (although the word he actually used was “fraud”). So maybe we have to redefine what is and isn’t an “old school style thruhiker.”
Jester