It was nice to wake up without all that condensation inside my tent. It helped me to get up pretty early and start out for a 14.6 miler. The first half of my day was physically rough. My knees were sore, my lungs weak, my neck hurt, and I was sleepy. I pushed to continue to a water source before taking a break though. On the way there was a great open bald to gawk from. I look forward to camping on some balds when the timing works, more likely in the North.
At the water I refilled and ate to my hearts content. I finished listening to The Windup Girl, which was pretty spectacular, and started back with The Singularity is Near.
After resting up and eating up I threw my pack upon my back. That's fun to say in my head. The second half of my hike found me greatly rejuvenated. The brief respite had solved my knee and neck pain, and the food solved my energy problems. I dreamed futurist dreams while walking the green tunnel, feeling my hiker legs returning from Trail Days. All that partying and time in Damascus has us all feeling like we need to start to limit our time spent in towns. We need to forego zeros (barring any incidents) for a while, and get ready to increase our mileage. I finished at 3pm today with plenty of gas left in the tank.
Everyone else arrived at the shelter feeling similarly strong and energetic. We were joined by some new faces, as well as Golem, an elderly British gentleman (a wandering Brit, as he would say) whom we had sheltered with in the Smokies.
We heard thunder most of the evening, though never saw any rain. The shelter is full of bees, there's no privy or bear bag wires, and the water source is far and just a trickle. Not an ideal shelter, but it doesn't seem to get anyone down. Tapeworm started a fire by our tents, and Golem started one by the shelter, in an attempt to smoke out the insects.
After dinner everyone got everything ready for rain, hung bear bags, collected water, and then played stretching frisbee. Tapeworm plans to bring this frisbee all the way to Maine, and it certainly makes for a good end of day game. Everyone stands around and stretches, while we throw the frisbee around, and seems pretty perfect for the trail. Meta also showed James and me the lighter game, which involves throwing a lighter among each other, but throwing and catching on the back of your hand, not with your fingers. It's entertaining enough for trail giggles.
Around 7pm we all started to fade though, and it was unanimous that 7 is the new 9. Seeing as how I'm drowsily writing this from my tent, it's hard to argue. Tomorrow will be 7 miles into Erwin. Mr. Fantastic and I plan to throw some laundry in, do our food and fuel resupply, and keep on moving. I may take a sink bath, which still makes me laugh to think about. Warm water is nice though, as the streams on the trail are all quite cold. After that we'll do as many miles as we can with the remainder of the daylight. Now that the parties are behind us, and the terrain should be mellowing out some, we can really start to burn some leather.
I can currently hear a lot going on around camp. On the far end I can hear someone breaking up dead branches for a fire whilst listening to a radio. Next to me Meta is chatting with someone about the joys of a new piece he got for his hammock that means no more knots and much quicker setup/breakdown. Behind me at the shelter Mr. Fantastic, Optimus, Golem, and a couple others discuss how they all scoffed at people who counted ounces, but that now that they've been out here for a while they look at everything and wonder what they can get rid of. What's worth carrying, and what's just a waste of energy and space. All of these sounds are about as common as it gets for being out here. The conversations are so frequently the same, but always interesting and entertaining. If you can't share intimate thought processes about trail life with the people you meet out here, then it just isn't going to happen. Now let's just hope the storm passes next to us, and not over us.
