Title: Trail Skipping

General Information about Item:

• Customary/Verbal Lore, Superstition
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: John T. Brady
• Date Collected: 10-31-17

Informant Data:

• John Brady is Dartmouth student in the class of 2019. John is from the suburbs of Chicago, IL. He grew up north of the city in a nice suburban town which he described as very “bubbly.” John was part of a boy scout group growing up in the Chicago area. Every summer for about one week, John and his fellow boy scouts went backpacking. They backpacked all over the United States. His scout troop went to New Mexico, California, Wyoming, Wisconsin, and other places. One of his earliest backpacking trips was actually a section of the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina and Tennessee. The trail started out of Hot Springs, NC. His early experience with the Appalachian Trail sparked an interest for John to conquer the entirety of it.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: This superstition has a lot of overlap with other superstitions in life. It is thought to be bad luck if you skip part of something and do not complete a project. In this case, the superstition is about not missing a single inch of the Appalachian Trail.
• Social Context: This superstition is based along from hiker to hiker. If someone hikes the AT form start to finish but misses parts or skips parts, they are not looked at in the same positive light as someone who completed every step.
• Overall Context: John Brady’s early experience hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail encouraged him to later attempt to complete the whole thing. With his boy scout troop, he hiked a 40-mile section of the Appalachian Trail (AT), but he knew that the trail consisted of over 2,000 miles. He said that he saw some “weird looking Hippie dudes” as he described them, and thought that he may want to hike the entire trail between high school and college. John said that people are on the trail because they are in between things in life. “You are either in between school, love, or jobs,” John said. For him, he was in between graduating from high school and starting his new life at Dartmouth in Hanover, NH. John hiked the Appalachian Trail from March 5th until July 29th. Starting on March 5th was early in the season, but not too early where it would be uncomfortably cold. He also started early to avoid the large crowds that start the AT between mid-March and mid-April. It took John 149 days, or just under five months, to complete the AT. John’s preparation consisted of “googling” and asking knowledgeable backpackers about how they prepared for the trail. John did not spend a lot of time physically training for the journey but instead made sure he had a good plan of attack for the first month of the trail, which is most important according to him. Some people try to get ahead and complete many miles quickly but end up hurting themselves. John made sure that he set a pace that would allow him the most success. John starting hiking the AT with a lifelong friend of his that was also in his boy scout group. His friend was from the same hometown in Chicago, IL. His friend hiked for about three or four days before he got sick with a stomach illness and had to stop hiking. He hiked with many different groups of hikers going Northbound. The most prominent person that John hiked with was a man with the trail name “Werewolf.” Werewolf was from Tennessee. He was a grocery store manager and recently divorced from a long time wife. John and Werewolf got along very well given that Werewolf was around 40 years old. He also hiked with a mechanic named “Macgyver” from one of the southern states. He also hiked with two brothers named “Link” and oddly enough “Folklore.” the brothers were twins and were known on the trail as the “Arkansas twins.”

Item:

There is a common superstition for hikers on the AT to not skip any part of the trail. If you do miss some part of the trail, it can be seen as a “failure.” The point of hiking the Appalachian Trail is to complete the entirety of the trial. Therefore, there is a common superstition that something bad will happen if you decide to take short-cuts. There is also a sense of shame and regret involved in not completing the entire trail.

Informant’s Comments:

• “There are some people who are OK missing a quarter mile of the trail here or there for various reasons. Maybe they hitch-hike somewhere on a road and the trail follows the road for a bit. And the people will be OK starting at the next trail head. I was somebody who really tried to pass every white blaze which are the trail markers. I remember there was one section in North Carolina, where there is a loop out to a view. Sort of a U-shaped curve out to the view. I remember that I didn’t walk the very top of that U-shaped trail. I remember that as one of the very few parts of the trail that I missed. Whenever I went to a campsite along the trail and there were two pathways into camp, I would always walk back out the way I came in so that I knew I didn’t miss any trail.”

Collector’s Name: Colton French 

Tags/Keywords:

• Superstition, Shortcut, Customary, Bad Luck