Even in high school Geof was unlike anyone I ever knew. He did not have the best life, but he always smiled. When we were winter-camping together Geof knew how to make your frozen feet not-so-bad. When we were lost deep in a cave in Newport, Virginia, Geof showed no signs of worry, while I openly panicked.
After walking the AT Geof joined the Navy, and when a slot opened up he became a Blue Angel...not a pilot, but still a prestigious position with a flight suit as a uniform. He married his high school sweetheart, and after the Navy, moved back home and became a police officer.
I had totally lost contact with Geof, and was working in IT across the street from my local police department. As I was walking to my car one afternoon I saw Geof standing in the parking lot. We chatted and caught up a bit, and then lost contact again.
The next time I heard Geof's name was years later. He had committed suicide. I almost want to say that he didn't have a choice. You see, he had watched all of the other males and one female in his fathers bloodline be taken away by Huntington's Disease. I found out later that Geof was in the early-stages, and it was easy to deduce that he needed to take action while he was still able.
We were all from the same hometown. I knew his Uncles and his Aunt, and watched what Huntington's did to them, and I was there the day his father committed suicide.
I found Geof's picture on athikerpictures.com. He is second from the left. Blue pants and white shirt. I am certain that he made life easier for the three hikers pictured with him. His trail name was Alpha. Alpha Geof Allen.
(Here is my friend's picture: https://athikerpictures.org/hikers/22103)
Rusty had polaroids of hikers going way back, they lined the walls of every building, when he built new bunkhouses, he started new annual collections. There were thousands of them. Every night he would roll his truck down into the parking are blast James Brown and feed what he could to whatever he had or whatever hikers could bring. Wood fired hot tub, sauna, huge garden, it was a paradise after almost a 1000 miles on foot.
I hope the ATC was also able to recover Rusty's photos, because he had a real gold mine. The few years after hiking when I lived in the area I would bring beverages and hot dogs for the hikers. I lost touch with Rusty after I went west. I was hiking recently in Maine and talking to another thruhiker who went through in the 2000 and she said the Hollow is gone now which would be a shame of his archive could not be recovered.
Quite the effort! Always fun to see people come together for stuff like this.
They mention difficulty in trying to figure out names, dates, trail names, etc. I realized I'm so used to the ubiquitousness of social media and cell phones because my immediate thought was, "Why did these people not put down their numbers?"
Excited for a time I can just say screw it, and walk off into the woods for as long as I want. Always felt most at home living out of a bag, calorie starved enough to take immense pleasure in eating things I would never buy in my normal day to day - but filled to the brim with energy. The rush of hill after mountain after hill is greater than the most doomscrolling-optimized feed, and you feel it with all your senses.
I didn't realized until earlier this year that he passed away back in 2016. https://appalachiantrail.org/leadership/jack-tarlin/
And thruhikers never skip leg day.
Give me the shortest running shorts pls and I'll cut the extra fabric like pockets off.
The only brush you'll walk thru on the AT is off trail so just don't walk in poison ivy lol
I'm bummed, because I'd sure like to see pictures of some of the rest of the class of 2010.
It also looks like they might've stopped recording (or transcribing from photos?) trail names for a while. I was SOBO in '03, and found a bunch of familiar faces by trail name. A blank search for 2003 and a sort by trail name descending gives me 68 pages. For 2011, the same procedure gets me 2 pages.
Seeing stuff like this is inspiring to me.