Date: 2005-05-10
From: Thomas Knob Shelter

To: Lost Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 12.2
Weather: light rain

I woke up at about 5:30 this morning to Domino, JayPee, and Stilts frantically moving into their tents."Clouds are moving in," they called over to us. A possible overnight rain had been in the forecast, despite the clear night last night. Good thing we'd all set up our tents. David and I crawled into ours and snoozed a few more hours.I said it before, I'll say it again: this is by far a favorite section of the Trail.David left early, not hungry for breakfast, but I stayed behind and cooked mine. The other guys finally got up and we joked around the firepit until I packed up and was ready to go.It was kind of nice to hike alone this morning. I kept thinking I'd catch David, but didn't. Would have liked to catch him actually, but we never agreed on a rendezvous spot, so it's all good. More Maine-ish forest coming down Mt. Rogers; then all of a sudden the pines are gone. Shortly before Deep Gap the hillsides became carpeted with little white flowers. The leafless deciduous trees, these white flowers and their plentiful greenery, the flat wandering trail edged with new green grass--almost like someone landscaped! Fairy-tale-ish. I stopped several times for photos.Over the sloping pastures at Elk Garden and up Whitetop just in time for a thunderstorm. I desperately wanted a long break, my foot was giving me fits; but just as I was settling in next to David at Whitetop Mountain Road, the thunder started rumbling and clouds rolled in. I wasn't too keen on the idea of rain, but I hate that muggy pre-rain feeling worse, so "just get it over with" was my thought!We basically ran down the south side of Whitetop; lightning is one of David's biggest fears. I thought it was kind of fun being up on top, but it is totally exposed! Slightly dangerous...It's funny, some sections through here I remember so well, others not at all. I kept wondering why we were going down from the road when we were supposed to be going up to the top of Whitetop... It's almost more disconcerting to be somewhere you've been before and not recognize it than it is to be somewhere you've never been before!It rained on and off for the remainder of our hike. We stopped briefly at the last road crossing just before Lost Mountain and I soaked my feet; then it started to rain in earnest again and we started off. I think I'd told David it should be pretty much flat or downhill from there... It wasn't; there was a decided climb up to Lost Mountain. Not too bad though, and we arrived to find the shelter full of hikers waiting out the storm.I'd allowed the rain to put me in a little bit of a bad humor, I was tired, my foot hurt; I felt eager to get my stuff spread out and settle in. Change out of my stinky wet clothes into dry, cleaner camp clothes. Cook some chow. Consequently, I got irritated at the way the other hikers were spread out all over the shelter, sitting in the entrance, crowded around the table, doing nothing. A small thing, exacerbated by my mood, it passed. Five of those other hikers were SOBOs from last year, out to reminisce and relive the memories. Totally egocentric--they were all about re-bonding with each other, not much interested in the rest of us. Nothing wrong with that, they have as much right to be nostalgic as I do! They just had such a strong presence that they dominated the conversation for the rest of the evening. We were all thankful for their cowboy TV! A nice big fire. It was fun to hear their stories and watch them interact, to a point: but even "earthy" me (Mom!) got tired of the crude language. And they brought out the booze--definitely weren't going ultralight this hike.David tented out back; I sat and journaled some. Even the partiers were still hikers: as it grew dark we all turned in to bed.My feet had a hard time with all the downhills today.