The rain got us bad. Bunny was scared because of the lightening and thunder. I tried holding her to comfort her. She was covering her eyes and shaking. I have no idea what kind of trauma had to happen to make her so deathly afraid of storms. Since I was holding her, I wasn’t by my side of the tent to feel the rain coming in. I didn’t realize it until I saw water on the screen so I dropped the door. The damage was done.
About an hour later I had to go out and it was still raining. I reached for my umbrella on the backside of my pack and stuck my hand in an inch of water. Our tent was flooded. We didn’t know because our Big Agnes pads are 4” thick. We were on two pad islands. There wasn’t anything we could do until morning.
My pack was completely soaked. My dry sacks were not on the outside, but I had hopes for the contents. Our pads were wet on the back. To top it off, it was still raining while we were trying to pack up. We just threw everything in our packs and headed to the concession/bathroom area.
There wasn’t a lot we could do. I opted to forget about my woes with a porcelain visit. See how a simple thing like a toilet instead of a privy can brighten your day. We ate a little breakfast and headed on. If the sun comes out, we might dry some stuff later.
A couple of miles into our day, we met a sobo. I still haven’t met a true sobo this year. By that, I mean someone who started on Katahdin this year and is thru-hiking. They should be getting close to us by now, so I ask everyone I pass. This girl, Highlander, was from Scotland and only had a few weeks on the trail until she was going to meet her sisters in NYC. She did tell us that RPH Shelter was having trail magic all weekend. She had gotten there in time for lunch yesterday and decided to stay for supper and breakfast as well. No food tastes as great as free food prepared by others. We said goodbye with purpose. I told Highlander to remember, “there can be only one.” She said she knew of two others on the trail and she was on it. If decapitated hikers start turning up, I know why.
We got to RPH Shelter a little after 11. Achilles and Peppermint were already there snacking. This was really a work weekend for members of the shelter supporters but they would feed any thru-hikers that were around at meal times. Not a problem, lunch was at 12 and we could graze until then. I had watermelon, a banana, chips, Gatorade, and a couple of Cokes until the burgers and hotdogs were broken out. I topped it all off with a huge salad. I wasn’t really done, but Bunny was, so off we went.
During the two and a half hours we were there, I met Ralph Ferrusi, the founder of Ralph’s Peak Hikers, who saved shelter from being tore down. It’s the policy of the National Park Service to tear down all structures on acquired lands. Ralph though that was stupid, and convinced them that it was an existing shelter, thus saving the house. Ralph hiked the AT 45 years ago and is the 311th thru-hiker of record. The wanderlust that drove him to hike the AT, is also what has driven him and his wife to visit over 65 countries around the world.
I also met Woodchuck from PA and gained a lifelong friend when I defended the trail there. We are the only two people who think everyone else are crybabies when it comes to rocks. When we left the shelter, they were still trying to find out what I’ve been drinking.
We had heard more about the microburst of May 15 while we were there. The entire storm only lasted 15 minutes. The work weekends this year are all dedicated to cleaning up from that storm. We did enter a 2 mile section of downed trees (not 20 miles as some have hallucinated) that saw almost every tree of size all lying upturned in the same direction. The power of nature still dwarfs anything man can do. (All right for the science deniers, I mean in quick short bursts. Mankind has had an effect on the climate. Yes, the earth routinely heats up and cools down. We have increased the height of this sine wave of change. Climate change is real and we don’t know the long term changes yet. I’m sure the earth will return to normal once it rids itself of the plague of locusts currently consuming it. Pleasant thoughts.)
I was nearing heat exhaustion but Bunny kept pushing. I wanted to stop after 10 miles and go camp at a deli down a side road—warm meal, possible even a beer, and free camping. Not on the little lady’s agenda. We’ve got to make up all the time I wasted at RPH Shelter. (I do seem to recall someone, other than me, sitting in a reclining yard chair, drinking cold drinks, and eating free food, but I can’t quite place the face.)
We got into Morgan Stewart Shelter at 8 with almost everyone already in bed. We set up tent to dry and went to shelter to cook and get everything ready to put in the tent after it dried a bit. Everything was soaked. It was a nice thought to dry stuff out, but it didn’t work. No one was staying in the shelter because of the mosquitoes. We ended up just drinking a little water and having a peanut butter wrap before getting run inside by the hordes.
The mosquitoes were terrible to the point that I was willing to quit. I didn’t let Bunny know this because she would jump at the chance. I was just mentally and physically wore out. I threw up a bear bag before I joined her in the tent. Everything was still wet. It’s not a great joy sleeping on wet pads in a wet tent when your body is wet from sweat and your legs are chafing from being wet and rubbing together all day. We won’t have a chance to dry out for another day or two. Thank god I’m man enough to not be constrained by sexist roles. I’ve got my Vagisil and I’m glad of it.
EFG