The other day I met the Photobomber. Easily identified as a thru-hiker by his impressive beard and clunky backpack, the Photobomber was perched outside of Sanborn Library clutching a map and observing his surroundings. Overly excited to stumble upon one of these semi-mythical people, I ran up to him and eagerly, perhaps creepily, asked to hear his story.
The name “Photobomber” is given to those who hike the entirety of the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200-mile stretch from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. The AT runs down Hanover’s Main Street, making it the furthest north of the 10 towns who have main streets on the trail.
Thru-hikers are generally categorized by the direction that they are hiking. Southbound hikers, or Sobos, start at Katahdin, while northbound hikers, or NoBos, begin at Springer. Flip flop thru-hikers start somewhere in the middle of the AT and then hike to either end. Most start in Georgia in February, March or April and hike for about five months.
As a Texas native, I didn’t know what a thru-hiker was until I came to New Hampshire. Like myself, many Dartmouth students have their first exposure to thru-hikers during their First-Year Trips. Jennifer Cunningham ’17, whose trip took her to the Northern Presidentials, encountered two thru-hikers who called themselves the Glacier Bandits and shared their shelter for a night.
“I live in North Carolina, and the AT goes through part of it, and actually every year we hiked part of it for cross-country camp,” Cunningham said. “So I’ve kind of encountered some thru-hikers every once in a while, but never got to spend the night with one like we did on our trip.”
The Glacier Bandits even took a photo of Cunningham’s trip and posted it to their travel blog.
For the most part, thru-hikers take on a trail name that is self-made or given by others. During my freshman trip, I heard rumors of one “Disco Bob.” While his name was not in fact Bob, other thru-hikers named him Disco Bob because he carried around a disco ball and would play music in shelters from a radio. Bob, it appeared, just sounded catchy with Disco.
During his trip, Eric Siu ’16 met Robo Jesus, a carpenter who had a metal rod in his back. The Photobomber got his name early on in his trek while staying at a shelter in Georgia.
“I thought it was really cool that we had 15 people in a shelter and wanted to take a panoramic photo with my fancy pants phone,” Siu said. “Everybody was saying that I looked like the Unabomber because I was wearing a balaclava and a pair of riding goggles. After I tried to take my photo for, like, 10 minutes, someone said, ‘He’s not the Unabomber, he’s the Photobomber.’”
In addition to having a cool aliases, many male thru-hikers show their commitment to the trail by growing a beard to demonstrate how long they’ve been on the trail. The Photobomber I met started growing his beard out in January after landing an internship with the nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy. His coworkers told him that if he was going to work in the mountains, he better look like a mountain man.
Completion rates of the AT hover around 25 percent, the Conversvancy reports. While the hike requires months of planning, many thru-hikers attribute their success to the aid of trail angels, helpful strangers who offer advice and treats, also known as trail magic, along the way. While some offer shoe goo or trail mix, others even offer their houses and beds. Hanover is known for an abundance of trail magic, according to the Photobomber, who said that much of his journey came with uplifting stories of Hanover as a thru-hiker mecca.
The trail is in fact an integral part of Hanover. In the Howe Library, a May 2011 proclamation is framed on the wall, stating, “Hanover has been recognized and designated as an Appalachian Trail Community, and desires to continue to support this effort for no fewer than five years”.
Also at Howe, thru-hikers can find significant resources for their trek, including a thru-hiker guest book for sign-ins, a collection of frequently asked questions, a box to leave or take various helpful items like shampoo, a list of local trail angels with contact information and a wall full of hikers’ pictures and thank-you notes. The guest book is full of entries signed with trail name, hometowns and additional comments. My personal favorite comment was an exlamatory “AC! AC! AC! AC! AC!” from Dacks, Post and Lucky, all native to Yukon, Canada.
The Hiker FAQs is full of information about services that the town offers, including showers and laundry, restaurants, lodging and religious services. Some local businesses, like Ramunto’s Brick and Brew Pizza, offer free food to thru-hikers who show their pack, and others, like the Co-Op Food Store, give a special discount. Metro Bakery and Cafe offers a free bagel to any thru-hiker who comes by.
“I think it goes back to my philosophy that this bakery here is part of a community, that you can come here and hang out and not buy anything,” Metro Cafe general manager Denise Anderson said. “And that’s the same philosophy for the hikers, they come through and they are being introduced to our community and it’s nice to invite them to your place.”
These little things mean a lot to the itinerant wanderers. On the Howe Library wall, Onegreywolf left a note reading, “A big thank you from a once tired and smelly thru-hiker, for the welcome and help you and your staff gave me.” Another thru-hiker, Kristi “Happy Little Tree” Hamilton, commented, “You should realize that no one can hike the entire trail without the help, support and kindness of people like [the Howe librarians], as well as trail maintenance and volunteers. It’s nice to be treated like a human being and not some filthy vagrant (which is only partially true at the moment); many of us are professionals who just want to fulfill a dream. Thank you!”
While you may have briefly met a thru-hiker on your freshman trip, ran into one at a dorm party or just heard a crazy story about a bearded dude, it is evident that they are a unique bunch. At the end of our chat, the Photobomber left me with words of wisdom for those who are interested in hiking the Appalachian Trail.
“It really reaffirms your belief in the good of humanity because everybody out there has their own different walks of life,” he said. “Everybody has their own story and their own reason to be out there, but everybody has one common goal and it’s just such a positive environment. It’s the most challenging and most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.”
With that said, I pointed him in the direction of Wheelock St. and he trooped off to continue his journey.