Outside Reading (Trail Journals) - Kevin Covucci

As part of my research for my final essay I read a lot of different journals online through both trail journals.com and many other sources. Throughout my research I ran into a blog post that discussed the topic of trail names, and I found it very, very interesting. The author, Kerri Westenberg states, “some of these through-hikers wear boots scruffy from years of wear. Others come with gleaming new equipment they barely know how to use. They are accountants, mail carriers, schoolteachers, retirees, recent college grads. But in the woods, where most take on trail names, they leave those old labels behind.” (Westenberg, par. 6) This quote in particular really caught my eye because it really tied into all we have talked about in class. The taking on of trail names and leaving old labels and social status' behind is really the idea of Communitas in a nut shell. I like that while I am reading a completely outside source I can still find ways to easily connect things to what we are reading, and discussing in class. This ability to find common threads throughout all of the books, and blogs that I have been researching has really helped drive me to work on my final essay. It even helped spark my interest due to the fact that I can now work off idea's I already concretely understand to help myself comprehend other ideas.