I still can’t figure this damn alarm out. I thought I had it set to vibrate only. We were camped right next to Double Take and Kilo and I didn’t want to wake them up when I was supposed to start the coffee for my wife. Since we went to bed at 6:15 last night, I was already awake and waiting to see if I had it figured out. I didn’t. We managed to get out of camp by 8 with them still in their tent.
I was pretty down today. Partly due to the manner in which we got ditched, but when I reflected on how we left Cheesy Turtle at Paradise Cafe I felt a little hypocritical. I’ve decided to just it go. What was really bothering me was that we had a friend suddenly die a few weeks ago and I was afraid it might have been suicide. We received confirmation yesterday that that was the case. I’ve known at least a half dozen people who have committed suicide and each time it happens, I feel like I have been a shitty friend or relative that didn’t offer enough assistance.
The terrain was not bad at all today (as evidenced by our near 20 mileage). We got a little bit of everything on the trail today—snow crossings, desert walking, cold temperatures to start off with a pretty hot afternoon, lots of water available on the trail, and a couple of water crossings requiring acrobatic skills or at least changing into water shoes to cross. But what I needed was a real pick-me-up to turn my day around. The trail provides.
After a crossing where we lost the trail because we chose to walk upstream to find a crossing that didn’t require us taking off our shoes, we saw a sobo hiker coming towards us. Whenever I run into someone coming from the direction we’re headed, I try to get as much trail information as possible. I’m particularly interested in Mt Baden Powell trail conditions, as that’s our next major obstacle. While I was inundating the sobo with questions, I noticed a white blaze on his cap, so I asked him when he hiked the AT. Last year!
I dropped my pack and told Bunny to drop hers, we had to find our connections. I started with the obvious first family for us: Stickers, Lady Bug, Mizman, Geo, Summit…no connection. Gray had started in early March and finished in early September so we had to cross paths. I tried some middle trail friends and got a bite on Rampage, Savage, and Po, but he didn’t meet them until the Whites in NH. He started asking me about what hikes we had done. Halfway through my list, he said Boiling Springs, PA. I said we were hiking with Grey Squirrel, ET, and Wallaby then. Jackpot. He knew all of them. But it gets better.
When we got into Boiling Springs, we had gone to the Mexican Restaurant to eat on their patio. We met a young guy and he invited us to join him at his table. He was having some guacamole and offered us some. When he got ready to leave, I said we’d get it since we had eaten almost as much as he. Who was this random hiker? Gray, the sobo we were talking to right now. We had actually eaten dinner together. This was the pick-me-up I needed to make me feel good again. It really is a small hiking world.
Double Take and Kilo caught up to us while we were talking to Gray. We were about 13 miles into the day and I had been thinking about stopping but now that I was stoked, we decided to push on to a picnic area rumored to have pit latrines with (drum roll…hiker jackpot) toilet paper in them. I tried to talk them into 3 more miles than they had planned but in the end, they decided 16 was enough.
After we left them behind at Bench Camp where we were originally shooting for, Bunny and I started dragging. We were both out of water and had no energy. We started recounting what we had eaten today. Breakfast was light (just granola with carnation instant breakfast and a slice of bacon—Bunny is rationing the bacon). Since then, I had eaten a bag of nuts with 400 calories and a tuna salad sandwich which was only about 170 calories. Bunny had eaten less that that. It was Snickers time.
The extra 250 calories was enough for us to knock out the final 2 miles. When we got to Splinters Cabin, there were 3 guys with tents set up already. We were very relieved because one note said “no camping allowed.” If were going to join the outlaw side of society, we at least want to be part of a gang. One of the guys had also hiked the AT last year, but he was a “red shirt” to us because he had completed the trail in less than 4 1/2 months. No one we knew was in this lightening fast category.
We set up our tent, then Bunny did the homemaking while I retrieved water and cooked supper. We have our own picnic table right next to our tent. We are on a point of land between 2 heavily flowing creeks so there’s the sound of rushing water (hopefully my bladder is dehydrated). There are trash cans here. It’s a full moon tonight and I can see the privies glowing in the moonlight on the other side of the picnic shelter. We are living “Hiker Nirvana.”
EFG
I’m redrawing my privy plans, the open air design appeals to me!
I saw this design and immediately thought “Chip!”