Backcountry celebrity run-ins

Most of us get away in the backcountry to avoid the plagues of society, not necessarily H1N1, but more like vacuous TV, billboards, celebrities, talk radio and the like. So here I am asking if you’ve bumped into anyone “famous” on the trail.

A few years ago, hiking in Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park in the Canadian Rockies in BC, we had set up our backcountry campsite and were day-hiking to Windy Ridge, a high point for lunch (to escape the hordes of mosquitos assaulting our lake-side tent.)

Halfway to our destination we met a couple on the trail. I snapped a photo, paparazzi-like, of the two while we stopped to chat. Here they are:


Sepp & Barb Renner, who’ve run the Mt. Assiniboine Lodge in the Park since 1983. (I came upon this image today finding an alpenglow shot for another post.)

I recognized them from descriptions in articles I had read researching Mt. Assiniboine. For a quarter-century they and their children have managed the lodge now owned by the province that is accessible only by foot, horse or helicopter (there are no roads in the park.)

On the day we met them the helicopter was flying (it flies every other day or so in “season.”) They had decided to hike the distance (28K) simply because they still enjoyed hiking.

My how I envied them. What a life. He and Barb raised their three kids at the lodge. Andre their son helps him in his guiding (Sepp was trained in Switzerland as a mountain guide before coming to Mt. Assiniboine, summitting it, and staying in 1967.) Their daughter Sara won the Silver in cross-country skiing in the 2006 Olympics. What kind of idyllic life is that? Here’s a good story on them here.

Anyone else bumped into anyone on the trail that impressed them? I'm not talking about bumping into (or getting bumped off the trail by) Rush Limbaugh 40 yards from the traihead (can you imagine him 50 yards in?)

So many on this forum have hiked so many more miles than I have, I’m sure you can recall a meeting or two. I guess what impressed me with our encounter was how nice, warm and friendly these two were. Something about being on a trail . . .

On the hike to paradise from my Rainier summit we met Dave Hahn which was cool on its own but also having him congratulate us with much enthusiasm on a successful summit showed how humble he really is, very sincere, I mean how many Everest summits 12 or 13, dudes a witch!

bigb:

Congrats on the summit of Mt. Rainier, and meeting Hahn must have been the icing on the cake. Seeing his resume', I'm sure having a post-summit, on-the-mountain talk with Hahn was a great way to end your climb.

John Fielder taking pictures on Longs Peak.

Anitra "Nitro" Kass at Mt. Massive trailhead. She approached me to ask about my cuben fiber pack. Very nice young woman and easy on the eyes.

I have hosted Jake Norton when he spoke to our Rotary Club. I cried when he played the recording of Mallory's interment ceremony.

Fun question.

An almost-famous encounter. I was hiking the Yosemite backcountry south of Tuolumne Meadows in the summer of '84 when we encountered an older man and younger woman. We stopped to chat, first about hiking then the subject switched to the recently finshed Olympics. She seemed to have a lot of firsthand information about the games so I asked whether she was a participant. No, as it turned out, but her brother won a cycling bronze and her sister-in-law a cycling gold. They were Davis Phinney's father and sister, Connie Carpenter-Phinney's inlaws.

I don't chat much with others no the trail so all the famous folks I've seen remain anonymous.

I did know Galen Rowell, ever so slightly.

Cheers,

I really had to think about this for a bit. I've met quite a few celebrities, but I can't recall ever meeting one on the trail.

It's possible I have and didn't know it, but for now I'll have to say, "No".

No famous encounters while backpacking, but several "encounters" while cycling. Twice, I accidentally rode through the middle of a "Walker Texas Ranger" set in a little town south of me. Chuck Norris and crew were displeased looking as I glanced back, wondering what the heck I'd just done.
Then, one beautiful sunset evening while on a training ride through Cedar Hill, Texas, I caught up with a line of maybe 10 classic cars going about 15mph. They were all 50's-60's vintage. As I was passing them, the drivers were waving me off, and I just waived back, smiling. At the front of the line there was a rigged out pickup truck with a Panaflex camera and and a guy yelling at me...and the rest of the cars. I had just ruined a sunset shot of "Born on the 4th of July" with Tom Cruise. (didn't see Tom) I messed up somebody's commercial shoot out there once, as well. Film crews used that part of Dallas often.

Remember, they're visiting you and needed to act nice in your house. Maybe you should have been riding a vintage bike?

Yep, and they should have paid a guy to stay behind and politely ask people to wait a few minutes while they got they shot.

Masi Gran Crit. Red, with Super Campy.

I always rode the deserted roads or at times when road wern't busy. The film crews had the same strategy.

Once I was walking my dog on a park trail in Tallahassee when my senator jogged pass.

Though I didn't personally see her, I know of a group a few years ago that ran into First Lady Laura Bush with her friends in the Belly River area of Glacier National Park.

hey it wasn't in the wilderness, but I saw Madonna walk by in her underwear in a shopping village when she was in Sunnyvale many years ago.

Jim

You got me beat with that one! Madonna never comes to the Ozarks and walks around in her underwear

My neighbor, Randy, plays guitar in a local bluegrass band and his picture has been in the local paper quite a few times when he's doing that. I once saw him outside walking in his long-johns. He was taking the garbage out.

I still get a little queasy when I think of that

Not real sure if he counts as a backcountry celebrity or not, but after a weekend trip hiking in the SNP I stopped off at Weasies for lunch and got to meet and talk with Rusty from Rusty's Hard Time Hollow fame.

Furlough

I'm certain that I run into famous people on the trail all the time, but I don't recognize them. They all look like just-another-hiker to me.

Back in the '80s. I bought my first Bibler tent from Todd himself, in person. That was in a basement shop in Boulder Colorado though, not on the trail.

I didn't meet them on the trail, but I was privileged to visit gear pioneers Roy and Alice Holubar my senior year in college. At that time they were working out of their basement in Boulder, CO. Roy was a professor at UC and Alice did the sewing.

More info about the Holubars here.