A guest post from Bubbles:
It started in Hanksville. Drop-n-Roll and I walked into Dukes Grill and spotted him with his ULA backpack: Joey. Excited by another Hayduker, we invited him back to our hotel room to chat and hangout. He seemed the quiet type, and we weren’t even sure he’d come, but he did. Drop-n-Roll, Carrot, DanFriend and I then spent the next 2 hours overwhelming him with our loudness. A shy computer programmer from Indiana/Iowa in his former life, he quietly sipped a beer and told us he’d hiked the Florida Trail and the CDT.
He surprised us again by showing up to our invitation of breakfast the next morning. Joey, DnR and I hitched out of Hanksville together, to tackle the Henry mountains’ snow as a group. The waist-deep postholing slowed Joey down, since he didn’t have the snowshoes we did, and at one point he says we left him for dead when we couldn’t see him behind us for half an hour. Like magic though, he showed up ahead of us on the other side. Since then we’ve been a 3-pack.
Two long trails and no trail name? Actually, Joey has hiked All The Things, both in the US and Internationally. He quit his computer programmer life 4 years ago to hike the CDT, and has been traveling and hiking non-stop ever since. The problem (we saw) was he has done all this alone. It’s hard to get a trail name when you’re hiking alone. Our goal was to get Joey a trail name. We hiked together for weeks and nothing really struck us. No outrageous stories, no quirky habits. I used him as a ladder to get down tall jumpoffs and rocks, but “Ladder” is boring. His tendency to hike alone is notable, but “Lone Rider” has been taken a dozen times over; also boring.
And then. One day it happened: inspiration struck us all. Maybe the 5am headlamp detour made him a little crazy, it made us all a little loopy. We had All The Fun that day, and it just never went away. Joey started posing for pictures in a really fun way. We called him out on his fun photos. Embarrassed? Yes. But he continued to pose for fun photos. At first with prompting, but quickly over time he would surprise us by initiating a fun photo shoot. The man has sass! And definitely knows how to work it for a photo better than either DnR or I could ever imagine being able to pull off. What happened to our shy, quiet Joey? We don’t care, we love how much fun this one is!
The seed was planted for a trail name. Drop-n-Roll and I loved it. He denied it for weeks, but always with a grin. Clearly, he secretly/not-so-secretly loved it, but still wouldn’t accept it. “I don’t know how to answer to anything other than “Joey”; I’ve been “Joey” my whole life.” The poses and photos kept coming. We started calling him by our preferred trail name for him. Initially playing coy, eventually he started answering to it. We’ve tested it out on some other hikers we’ve seen throughout the Hayduke; Everyone loves it. And now, DnR and I are pretty committed to it.
Nothing is official, and we welcome comments.
We propose to present: Pinup!
Fantastic!! and what a montage of supporting photos?
Enjoyed your Hayduke blogs and excellent photos. Glad to hear Joey finally has a trail name. Looking at the photos, it fits him well. But, what about Babs / Bubbles? My guess, her name is the result of an unfortunate incident in a hot tub. Gust a guess. Roll on.
Love it! I can only assume the “2016 Hayduke Pinup Calendar” is in production for all loyal followers.
You betcha!!!
Congratulations on your Hayduke hike, with such an interesting blog and superb photos. I have enjoyed following your progress and good luck with the bike ride!
LOVE the name, the pictures and the obvious energy between the three of you!
Chance meeting that was meant to be, I would say.. just added to the already great energy and entertainment value for lucky readers.
???
Those emojis translated oddly..
Supposed to be two walkers and a guy posing..
Very fitting! I like all the supporting photos. Bit my favorite is the umbrella pose!
The umbrella photo is Bubs’ and my favorite too!
The black and white one! ??
I don’t know who this Pinup guy is, but to have to put up with the K2 expedition he sounds like quite the saint. Awfully sexy too. I think he deserves a nice long back massage.
I was pretty sure Joey was the shy type just seeing the majority of the photos on this awesome trip. Makes sense he likes to pose, it is his alter ego. I think the name suits and my fav is the umbrella photo too. Joey, glad you got a little of the spot light. Us shy and more reserved folks can use a little highlighting occasionally. And I admire you just left your working life to see the world. May you live long and prosper. (I think that was Spock or somebody; not a trekky.)
Nice post Bubs. And glad to see LoveNote drop by (I’m a follower of your CDT adventure).
What a great post! From what we’ve seen I think Pinup is very appropriate for Joey!
Congratulations to you all on completing your epic Hayduke thru-hike! Absolutely inspiring! I’ve been following yours and Carrot’s blogs this entire time and they definitely helped me deal with the Seattle winter blues. Thank you!
Black and white one is my favorite. It looks like Joey/Pinup has some signature moves!
Happy peddling. Hope the ride is a good transition from the Hayduke to life beyond slick rock country.
Love, love, love it!
Pinup!
I hope to see more adventurous antics from this trio in the future. Welcome to your trail family, Pinup!
Ha! Love it! The only person I hike with usually is my husband and he refuses to give me a name…based on habits/quirks though I think I’m destined to be Snot Rocket (tmi?)
Great name for a great hiker. Thank you all for sharing your photos, hike, and blog. Putting on my ‘I Was There’ hat: the very first Trail names (on a long hiking trail anyway) that were not attached to a famous or semi-notorious hiker, were those of two women from CT in 1972 when they thru-hiked the AT. Their names were both from the Lakota language and I cannot even begin to know how to pronounce or spell them, but the name of the taller woman translated as ‘Bear’ and the other woman’s name meant ‘Little Mountain’. All the other hikers that I knew on the AT that year went by their given names, and the only Trail names on the AT prior to Bear and Little Mountain were people of some fame, i.e., SCOTUS Justice William O. Douglas (‘The Judge’ AT 1958), Earl Shaffer ‘Crazy One’ (the first AT thru), ‘Grandma’ Gatewood, and my fav hiker of all time: Peace Pilgrim (she flipped the AT in ’52 and was the first woman to hike the entire Trail in a season, but didn’t adopt her name of Peace Pilgrim until ’53 when she began her Pilgrimage. ( I saw her hiking along a highway in New Mexico in the 1950’s) So, Little Mountain and Bear, thank you for starting a tradition, even if I can’t remember how to pronounce Lakota. And thanks again to Bubbles, Drop-n-Roll, and Pinup for sharing your grand adventure!
You know I had a lot of time to think about shit like this following your tracks and reading the blog, and I wondered how he went from Joe to Joey and when or if it would evolve to a trail name. Pinup is perfect. I hiked with a Pinup PCT 2013 but Joey is waaaaaaay better at it. Why have you been withholding these photos?
Ah but the collection of photos is excellent.. I have several favorites, actually.
(I am now finished with your blogs.. well I’m into September 2014 at this point.. As a non hiker but having been in 48 states, some multiple times and driven cross country, hitting three coasts, I’ve been to many of the areas and small towns like Rawlins as one example and to some of the places like Grand Canyon, Jellystone, Yosemite, Death Valley, Mt Hood (ate at that same Overlook restaurant).. but all from such a different point of view. And following blogs by Nancy, Rockin, Wired, Carrot, She-Ra and yours I recognize so many of the names.. crazy.. and I think how much greater it is for you to all have this community of people who share your joy.. ok.. back to reading