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  1. #221
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shutterbug View Post
    All week I have been thinking about how much Baltimore Jack missed by dying at age 58. To many of you, 58 doesn't sound "young", but there is potentially so much life left to live after that age.

    I went through my "Done That" list and eliminated all the things I did before age 58. I was left with 510 things I would missed out on if I had passed on at age 58. The attached list is some of the things I have done after that age.
    Love, love, love number 7 - but surprised orcas are still out there. I thought SeaWorld had stolen the all and decimated their northwest populations and broken up their families decades ago.

  2. #222
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    Wonderful list though, Shutterbug. I think we in Boston tend to take the Customs House for granted. Glad to see others appreciate it.

  3. #223
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cranky-- View Post
    Love, love, love number 7 - but surprised orcas are still out there. I thought SeaWorld had stolen the all and decimated their northwest populations and broken up their families decades ago.
    Not to hijack the thread, but did want to answer the question about the Orcas... Yep, there are still (as of last month) 83 Orcas remaining in the J, K, & L pods of the Southern Resident Orca community. They are closely monitored by the Center for Whale Research (San Juan Island) and you can read all about them on Orca Network. http://www.orcanetwork.org/Main/inde...20and%20Deaths

    They don't often take a swim down toward Gig Harbor, so that truly is a treat! They tend to stay further north, but it does all depend on where their food (these particular pods eat salmon) happens to be at the time. They are truly amazing to view in their natural habitat.

  4. #224

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    Baltimore Jack at Mountain Crossings imparting his wisdom to prospective thru hikers - 10 April 2015. A real trail legend. RIPimage.jpg
    "No Worries" 2015 GA-ME; 2016 LT End-to-End

  5. #225

    Default I apologize. I didn't mean to highjack this thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Shutterbug View Post
    All week I have been thinking about how much Baltimore Jack missed by dying at age 58. To many of you, 58 doesn't sound "young", but there is potentially so much life left to live after that age.

    I went through my "Done That" list and eliminated all the things I did before age 58. I was left with 510 things I would missed out on if I had passed on at age 58. The attached list is some of the things I have done after that age.

    I apologize. I didn't mean to high jack this thread. I will start another thread to respond to comments.

    The point I hoped to make was for the younger participants on this board. Baltimore Jack missed a lot of his potential life by dying at age 58. But for the grace of God, I could have died early too. From the time I left the USAF at age 28 until I was 60, I gained one pound a year on the average. At age 60, I had my heart crisis. Fortunately, a doctor detected my blockage and I had a quadruple bypass. Since then, I have corrected the life style issues. I exercise regularly and lost 30+ lbs.

    My point is simply that Baltimore Jack had a lot of potential life experiences ahead of him. I feel badly that he won't get to experience them.
    Shutterbug

  6. #226

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    Answer to question about jacks past.
    jack taught history.
    Jack worked inhanover in the winters running a grocery store and doing work for the tree preserve in hanover where he kept a room and each spring drew his whole winters earnings at once for hiking.
    Up and down the trail beds belonged to him as he was a hardcore volenteer and stayed when he wasnt hiking at many of our wonderfull hostles.
    Jack worked at the outfitters in harpers ferry many seasons and had a place there as well as many many outfitters.
    He worked many years for winton and kept a room there at neel gap walasi yi center.
    i could keep going but its way too long of a list encompassing each of our 14 eastern seaboard states.
    To say jack worked hard for us is such an understatement.
    He thrived on working to hike or helping hikers.

  7. #227
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    lifes-journey-is-not-to-arrive-at-the-grave-safely-in-a-well-preserved-body-but-rather-to-skid-i.jpg
    I didn't think you hijacked it, Shutterbug. That was an awesome list. I got your point immediately: Don't waste it! Get out there and do stuff, you only get one trip around the block.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shutterbug View Post
    I apologize. I didn't mean to high jack this thread. I will start another thread to respond to comments.

    My point is simply that Baltimore Jack had a lot of potential life experiences ahead of him. I feel badly that he won't get to experience them.




  8. #228

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    Kincora was allways jacks retreat. Bob peoples his loyal friend allways.
    At daves place in damascus his room was the last on the left as you enter with the double bed.
    His work at bluff mountian for jeff and the family was instrumental in their successes.
    Jacks givin me many many gifts in the decade ive loved him.
    I think the one that trumps them all is the chewed unlit wooden match he left in room 23.
    He chewed them when he quit smoking.
    I framed it and its been just an intresting thing on my wall at the doyel, with its exsplanation i wrote under it.
    But now i think ill unframe it, have a chew and a cry.....
    And maby just toss it back under the bed where it fell from his wise hand.

  9. #229
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shutterbug View Post
    I apologize. I didn't mean to high jack this thread. I will start another thread to respond to comments.
    Please don't take what I wrote earlier as meaning I thought you were hijacking the thread. My comment was was directed at what I was about to write since it was only a response (to another poster) about the Orcas.

    Shutterbug, your words of reflection and wisdom are absolutely perfect for this thread. Your list absolutely belongs as a reminder that life is short and it is for living. Thank you for taking the time to share your list.

  10. #230
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    Quote Originally Posted by SnakeSession View Post
    Hey Ron, here's the YouTube video filmed this year by Eric Lutz, aka AppleJack. The playback starts at Jack's part with you on the bus...

    https://youtu.be/FJM_lyg8ntk
    thanks very much.

  11. #231

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    Wolfpaw just called from his farm in remote michigan to have a phone hug over jack.
    Felt like a far and wide moment.
    Wolfpaw felt a great disturbance in the force.
    As if the friend of thousands of lives suddenly became even stronger.
    Wolfpaws thru saw him scooped up by billville and spit out hiker trash with a smile.
    Hes growing organic crops and animals and invites hikers to build a life on his fourty acres.
    I will visit his family and exsplore a swamp on his property if i can sometime.its hard to reach into the hearts of folks far and wide and deep in the backcountry up nooks and crannys to tiny farms and dales....
    Jack made it look easy cause he was worth folks love.

  12. #232
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    RIP Baltimore Jack Tarlin

  13. #233
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    He is one of the people I always wish I could meet on the trail. RIP sir!
    KK4VKZ -SOTA-SUMMITS ON THE AIR-
    SUPPORT LNT

  14. #234
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    Quote Originally Posted by mayfly View Post
    I met this guy in 1995 on his first (and my only) thru hike, we shared stories of life (and his daughter), food and beverages one night in a shelter in Virginia before parting ways. I saw him again at several ALDHA gatherings usually giving Warren Doyle **** for his "expedition" style of thru hiking with support vans. I ended up un-friending him on FB for blowing up my page with his comments, but would always share a slug of bourbon with him. Truly a special soul and missed by many. RIP Baltimore Jack played the GA>ME @ 1995
    I came to know Jack through Whiteblaze. Loved his occasional thoughtful, philosophical missive here. He wrote fluid prose.

    We became FB friends, and that went well until it didn't. Caught up in some of the anger of this political season, he took to blowing up my FB page with what I considered to be misogynistic anti-Hillary stuff. After a while, having had enough, I unfriended him myself a couple months ago. I reckon he and I had a lot more in common than we had dividing us, but it's been that kind of political season. I'll choose to remember more his love for the trail and fine way of expressing himself when he set about to do so here. The community is poorer with him gone. I think of him whenever I pass through Hanover, as a few days back, and will continue to. Salut.
    The more miles, the merrier!

    NH4K: 21/48; N.E.4K: 25/67; NEHH: 28/100; Northeast 4K: 27/115; AT: 124/2191

  15. #235
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    Quote Originally Posted by chknfngrs View Post
    If this video doesn't capture him I don't know what would. I never met him but damn glad I found it on YouTube

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nAd6rlO2C-8
    This is how I envisioned him from his writings here at WB. Hiker philosopher, a free spirit, free man. Thanks for sharing this, CF.
    The more miles, the merrier!

    NH4K: 21/48; N.E.4K: 25/67; NEHH: 28/100; Northeast 4K: 27/115; AT: 124/2191

  16. #236
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    I came across this post over on Reddit. Pretty cool read. Enjoy!

    Now that he's passed, maybe I can tell a story, because he swore me to secrecy while he was alive.
    I met Jack at a much-anticipated day-long hiker feed/trail magic in NC. Like the kind where you saw previews written in the shelter logs, promising not just food, but a KEG of local beer from Asheville. The guy I was hiking with at the time and I were DEAD SERIOUS. We got there at like 9 AM, and there was just one dude sitting there, in a folding chair. I sit down, and he just casually introduces himself as Jack. I put two and two together, ask "THE Baltimore Jack?" and he pulls out that lighter to show me.
    I could talk for hours just about that day, but instead, I want to tell a story from the next time I saw him, a little bit down the trail at the NOC. Now, I don't know how much the NOC has grown since 2010, but when I got there it was total culture shock; I had adjusted to being in the woods, to the quiet, to the hiker trash stink, and here I was, walking into a loud-ass carnival. They were having some kind of kayaking competition, and there were townies everywhere, voices blaring through loudspeakers, just crowds and crowds.
    I'm looking for a place to camp, and who should I run into but Baltimore Jack. I start telling him how crazy this place is, and how culture-shocked I am. He gave me one of those famous Jack pieces of advice: "You want to leave here in the morning, just do the climb up to Cheoah Bald, and enjoy the sunset, night, and sunrise up there." Jack said it, so I was going to do it. (PS: It was worth it)
    But the problem remained of finding a place at the NOC to camp, and I'm seriously wondering if Jack shared this bit with anyone else. He literally told me to act casual, and follow his lead. We were walking right past the river, in the middle of crowds, and he made us stop right next to this weird, vertical hill, right in the middle of the NOC. We're doing this secret agent ****, making sure the coast is clear! He finally decides nobody is watching, and takes me around the left side of this unclimbable hill, and believe it or not, there's this steep-ass vertical/diagonal goat path up the side of it! He's frantically whispering to me to keep close, and we scramble up the side of this thing.
    And lo and behold, right in the middle of the crazy-ass NOC, there's an untouched, pristine hill, a GLADE, surrounded by trees that muffled the sound. We're up about 50 feet high, dead-center of the NOC, and Jack is just looking at me with this ****-eating grin. "This is where I always camp at the NOC. I agree, it's too ****ing loud."
    We camped there, and I got to watch his drill of how he unloaded his pack by just dumping EVERYTHING, got to see all the flasks he had stashed around his person, got to drink with the man and talk trail, the whole time, we were on total light and fire restriction because Jack said NO GOD DAMN WAY was anyone else going to learn about his secret spot.
    I mean, how Trail IS THAT?
    I got to have a night getting drunk with trail royalty, and so much of my memory of why the trail was great has to do with that night and many others spent in his company. I don't give a **** what flaws the man had. He made my hike an ADVENTURE every time I ran into him, and I will always be grateful.
    But I am curious if anyone else had the opportunity to share that secret spot at the NOC with Baltimore Jack. If not, then let this story and this sharing be a candle lit in memory of one of the greatest badasses ever to walk the Appalachian Trail. I'm drinking to your memory tonight, Jack. Here's to you, and here's to the Trail.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Appalachian...altimore_jack/

  17. #237

    Default ATC Tribute to Jack

    ATC just posted this tribute to Jack on our Volunteer In Memoriam page at: www.appalachiantrail.org/home/volunteer/volunteer-recognition/volunteer-biography-full-page/jack-tarlin-(baltimore-jack)

    Leonard Adam Tarlin, best known as “Baltimore Jack,” passed away unexpectedly in the A.T. Community of Franklin, North Carolina on May 4, 2016. Considered an A.T. icon, he was famed for his eight Trail completions, seven of them northbound thru-hikes completed every year from 1997 to 2003.

    No other A.T. hiker has reported as many annual thru-hikes in successive years, and few hikers have spent as many years completely consumed with the Appalachian Trail.

    After worn-out knees prevented him from hiking long distances, he devoted much time and energy to “giving back” to the Trail he loved so much. While there are some hours recorded in ATC's volunteer database, most of the ways in which he contributed were uniquely Jack’s.

    Helping novice thru-hikers succeed and supporting the individuals and institutions within the Trail community became his mission. Each year for the rest of his too-short life, he would start his pilgrimage afresh, working a few weeks at various outfitters or hostels along the Trail, beginning each time in Georgia and wending his way north to New England, spending his winters in Hanover, New Hampshire.

    In his free time, he spent countless hours advising hikers through the popular online A.T. discussion forum, WhiteBlaze.net. He wrote the site’s most popular article, a streamlined guide to resupply options that enabled hikers to free themselves of elaborate pre-planned maildrops and easily negotiate the maze of options along the Trail. This simplified the logistics of long-distance hiking for untold numbers of hikers.

    Jack's participation in the innovative and impactful Damascus “Hardcore” trail crew was part of the chemistry that made it so successful. The allure of his famous lasagna dinners, as well as his celebrity, charm, and wit, were an important draw of this groundbreaking volunteer effort.

    During his annual stint in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, he volunteered at the ATC Headquarters. If we asked him to move boxes, he’d jump to the task as if it was the most important thing in the world. Off the top of his head he could provide information that might otherwise take staff hours to research. He loved helping to process 2,000-miler applications, in part because he knew many of the hundreds of hikers each year who submitted trail completion reports.

    Jack was a brilliant speaker. He knew exactly what to say and how to say it to move people, make them care, and make them laugh. Those who judged him by first impressions might have dismissed him. In appearance, he was ragtag, even by thru-hiker standards. But when Jack spoke, people listened. He commanded respect. Whether it was at a trailhead, a campfire, or a lecture on thru-hiking, a crowd would gather. Laughter was guaranteed to follow, but he always had an important message to convey.

    A gifted writer and storyteller, Jack recently penned two memorable articles for ATJourneys: a story about Steve "The Ferryman" Longley, and an article about Bob Peoples and the Hardcore Trail Crew. He was an exquisite wordsmith and contributed content and ideas to ATC publications and documents and that are in use today.

    Many ATC staff members developed a real fondness for Jack and a deep appreciation for his role in the A.T. community. In the words of Andrew Downs, who summited Katahdin with Jack on his ’02 thru-hike, “Jack was a lot of fun, and someone who cared deeply about the A.T.” Brian King called Jack “a walking grapevine.” Jack was often the first to notify ATC of new trends, challenges, and opportunities. ATC’s executive director Ron Tipton gave high praise to Jack, calling him “a passionate advocate for the A.T.”

    The 35th annual ALDHA “Gathering” in Williamstown, Massachusetts October 7-9, 2016, will be dedicated to “Baltimore Jack.”

    The family suggests that those who wish to make a gift in his memory choose among the following ways to honor L.A. “Baltimore Jack” Tarlin:

    A memorial donation to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy
    A Memorial Brick in Damascus, Virginia, as part of the Community Pathway Project
    A donation to the Appalachian Trail Museum
    A donation to the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association

    If anyone would like contact info for Jack's daughter, email me at [email protected]

  18. #238
    Registered User Driver8's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by -Rush- View Post
    I came across this post over on Reddit. Pretty cool read. Enjoy!



    https://www.reddit.com/r/Appalachian...altimore_jack/
    That's a great story! Thanks for sharing it, Rush. This moves me, and doubtless will move others similarly. I saw in Jack a lot of kinship. A love and attachment to the trail, the community and the land. Especially a deep attachment to its places and a love of sharing that attachment with others. That, plus being somewhat a philosopher-hiker, one who enjoyed expressing the love in words.

    I have places like that I like to share - the craggy overlook on Talcott Mountain on an easy-to-miss spur off a herd path which, on a clear day, gives the only safe viewpoint off the mountain northward to Mount Tom in Western Mass when Heublein Tower is closed.

    It's like the story, famed among hikers in Connecticut, involving the same mountain, when Metacomet, native American sachem, known as "King Philip" to colonists, during the skirmishes between natives and colonists known as King Philip's War, is said to have, fleeing pursuers after setting the village of Simbury on fire, scurried up the mountain and scaled the ridgecrest's cliffs up to a cave 60 feet above their base where no one could find or reach him. Legend has it he watched the village burn from that high cave, which bears his English name, as does the 100 mile-long ridge bear his native name, to this day.

    That cave, for that time, was Metacomet's secret place, much as the hillock amidst the NOC was Jack's to share with friends as he saw fit and the perch on Talcott's north slope is "mine" to share, as I often do, with hikers I meet nearby it. There is something deeply, primally appealing to us as hikers about such "secret places" we claim. It is part of the magic of the trail, so much of what draws us to it inexorably.

    If I drank anything near like what Jack apparently did, I'd long have been dead by now, and I don't turn 50 until October. Fortunately for me, I never much smoked, a bit of weed for 15 months in my 20s excepted. But with a deep genetic heritage of diabetes, the drink would sink me fast, so I have quit it almost entirely in the past 6 years, and God knows I need to lose a lot of weight - vegetarian eating seems to help of late, when I stick to it. If I don't, I'll check out quicker than Mr. Tarlin even without drink or smoke.

    But whatever the case, Jack walked his own path, a path and an approach to it with which I find much kinship and much to admire. Heartened by his great love of the outdoors and fellow outdoorsfolk, I'm inspired to carry on in the way that works best for me, breathing as much fresh air and walking as much among the moss, the forest, the rocks, the water and the soil as I can. It nourishes the soul, and sharing it with friends and fellow hikers replenishes the wellsprings of the spirit. May Jack's breath long flow amid and among the Appalachians and may we always feel his spirit as we walk them.
    The more miles, the merrier!

    NH4K: 21/48; N.E.4K: 25/67; NEHH: 28/100; Northeast 4K: 27/115; AT: 124/2191

  19. #239
    Registered User ekeverette's Avatar
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    I hate for this post to end..... On my 2012 hike I met B. J., he was behind the counter at neels gap. He bought me a soda pop! I met all the white blaze celebrities!! I stayed that night listening to jack tell his stories.... I stayed at "pirates" place down in the hole. I met the owner Winston porter? the author of just passing thru...... Then at Damacus I stopped at the silver fox? B&B and asked the woman if she knew a lone wolf? She said no. So then I asked her did she know a wolf guy who just had a heart attack, she said yes, but we just call him wolf, he will be at the pizza place tonight. So I met Lone wolf! and his new girlfriend at the time. I was drunk, but he was very nice...... Boy I hit the W.B. celebritie jack pot..... ! But meeting B.J. was just so cool. He was a very intellijent man.
    eveready

  20. #240
    Registered User -Rush-'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Driver8 View Post
    That's a great story! Thanks for sharing it, Rush. This moves me, and doubtless will move others similarly.
    You're welcome. I'd love to find and camp this spot next time I'm passing thru.

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