[kick]

He didn't say his name, though. At minimum it's a desire to stay pseudonymous, and I think it should be respected.

The idea that privacy can be violated like this solely because random Facebook users are interested in it and on the off-chance that family he hadn't interacted with in years might find some abstract comfort despite not being close at all is just incredibly bizarre.

[caturopath]

> At minimum it's a desire to stay pseudonymous

At minimum, he was using a nickname.

You might think it's likely that he was keeping private his non-trail identity, but that is not the minimum explanation.

(FWIW, knowing about through-hiker culture, I don't think it's even the likely explanation, but that's just my opinion.)

[kls]

I find it somewhat poetic that he was heading for the Keys. As this is exactly the person you meet down here, many people are known only by their given nickname and many times like this gentleman seems to be, have been successful and just want to get away from the world. You can sit in a bar next to a fishing bum and a billionaire and not know who is who. He is exactly the type of person the Key's attracts and it is ashame he did not reach his goal. Point being I understand the utilization of a given nickname, it is almost a second birth name of a new life, a new life that they themselves are seeking. Thus the name can sometimes become more important than their birth name.

[mathstuf]

I've thru-hiked and "no one" goes by their real names out there (for long). It's just not the way trail community works. There are many people I met and all we know name-wise about each other are our trail names.

I suspect those that didn't want to be on social media at all would have declined to be in the GoPro video for a longer discussion (as I likely would have, but I wouldn't have stopped a passing hiker doing a GoPro recording since that's more in the realm of a dashcam kind of thing). Fellow hikers tend to be respectful about such things.