Legendary Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, Jack “Baltimore Jack” Tarlin, passed away at much too young of an age last week. If you have spent any time in the past twenty years on the A.T., there is a good chance that you ran into Baltimore Jack. After thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail a record setting nine times, Jack spent his time at outfitters and hostels along the trail coaching new hikers on how to successfully complete the trail.
In 1997, Jack rescued my wife, Claudia, when she broke her leg on the Appalachian Trail several miles outside of Erwin, Tennessee. If I am not mistaken, 1997 was the year of Jack’s first completed thru-hike.
The July/August 1998 issue of “Appalachian Trailway News” carried an article I wrote about the 1997 rescue. It’s the issue with Bill Clinton and Al Gore on the cover doing trail maintenance. If you are interested in reading the article, a scan of it is posted below. I do want to point out that the article has a typo in the first sentence. (We started our hike in 1997 and not 1996.)
January 18, 2023 at 9:25 pm
This happened the year before I started my first AT hike. By then, Baltimore Jack was simply ubiquitous on the trail—nearly everywhere on the trail, he seemed to turn up or was either catching up to somebody or falling behind someone else. He was and is a legend on the trail. Many’s the night I’ve sat around a campfire (or a pub) while Jack told stories, mostly about history, and sipped Jim Beam bourbon with him. Or watched him do the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen. His ability to create a lasagna feast for hikers out of almost nothing was also special. I also witnessed other hikers asking Jack to notate their guidebooks…I wish I had kept one of those! There was nobody else who could give accurate information about the A.T. consistently like he did, just about anything you could ask him about the trail would turn out to be correct.
Or what about the stories associated with Baltimore Jack himself, like the time he found a dead body in the Doyle Hotel in Duncannon PA. Or the time he showed up at a high-altitude shelter and pulled a pair of lobsters out of his pack for dinner?
May 15, 2016 at 12:14 pm
Great read, David. Being a solo hiker, I always cringe a bit at these types of stories.
May 12, 2016 at 9:17 am
This is a great read, David, and quite a harrowing story!
May 11, 2016 at 10:27 pm
Great article! What an amazing account of such a harrowing experience. Baltimore Jack certainly played an important role in the successful end to this story. Thank you for sharing this important chapter in the book of your wandering tales.