Date: 2003-04-06
From: Three miles beyond Little Laurel Shelter

To: Flint Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 9.6
Weather: scattered clouds

Around 6:30 am, another bass beat awakens me. I don't mind this one. It is the drumming of a ruffed grouse in spring mating mode. The beating of its stiffened wings makes a deep thrumming that reminds me of someone trying to start a pull-type lawnmower. The "engine" starts up, catches a few beats, then dies off.The grouse drums repeatedly, hungry for a response. Lying on the ground as I am, the sound penetrates. I feel the drumming viscerally, in my bones. The sound travels through the earth as well as the air, and I didn't know this before I felt it. This lulls me back to sleep and before I know it, the hikers from Little Laurel shelter are striding past my solitary campsite. "It's daylight savings time," they invariably announce. For some reason, I find this hysterically funny. As if time had the same meaning out here!The sun goes up, the sun goes down, and incrementally each day lengthens. Right now, in practical terms, daylight savings is just a concept in the head.Still, I can't feel too superior in this regard. I am still struggling with Time - these are deeply conditioned habits. It seems the unhappiest I am out here is when Time is a factor. Take racing to the post office when it closes, or to meet a shuttle or a friend or even to beat a thunderstorm to the shelter. All day long I feel this self-induced pressure nagging in the background - hurry! You're behind!Even when the day is mine, that guilty little pulse beats in the background, often just below awareness: you're not advancing! Without a doubt, mileage has something to do with hiking the AT, but not as much as this nagging little voice would have one believe.Often, this causes me to push my frame closer to the red-line zone than is healthy. Then I trip and fall, turn something or heat up my feet and blister. I must keep reminding myself: I have time. Relax.Not feeling particularly ambitious today though, I practice "relaxation." I stretch out on my Z-Rest in the pleasant morning sun, munch salty handfuls of Hormel's pre-cooked Premium Crumbled Bacon and read a little Edward Abbey. I had been hauling Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" around for awhile, wondering why I couldn't get past the first chapter of this perfectly written, bloodless nature book. When I picked up Ed Abbey and got sucked right into into his world, I knew why - Abbey is passionate, irreverent, he totally groks the "awe" thing without being pious about it and is, above all, outrageously, hilariously FUNNY. I don't always agree with this iconoclast, but I am always provoked, engaged and entertained. Dillard got bounced forward. Maybe another day dear, I've got a date with Ed.I pack up about the time the White Brothers walk by, and I join them. These two are twin brothers, retired from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They are very gentle souls, yet they investigated the worst crimes - murder, rape, arson, kidnapping.The hike today takes me up White Cliffs and the peregrine nesting sites. Certain trails to the Cliffs are closed, marked with orange signs that warn the raptors are nesting. I scan the sky repeatedly but do not see any aloft.The wind roars overhead today, leaving me slightly uneasy. There is internal disquiet when the wind is blowing: it's subtle, but it's there.After lunch, the skies turn a fish-belly grey, bright but with the hint of rain.I ascend some rocky, peaty terrain that reminds me of the Long Trail. Another stretch has me picking my way over some very large boulders. I find myself wondering yet again how the blind thru-hiker Bill Irwin negotiated such treacherous terrain with his guide dog Orient.Another section over several miles had us walking through a forest of dead pines. The Southern Pine beetle had worked with hungry efficiency. The wind rattles the brittle limbs like bones. Much deadfall litters the forest floor. Large trunks slant ominously across the Trail, forcing one to duck. With the wind chattering the bare, silver tops, I consider the possibility that something might shake loose and fall on me. I hustle through the dead pines.I am not making very good time - that word again! - today. Everybody seems to pass me, and I sit and take off my shoes a lot. A few hot spots shape up, a middle toe protests endlessly, my bunions complain, the right tendon issues a few warning shots.If it seems like I focus on my feet a lot, okay - guilty, I do. They are my main equipment, see, along with muscle, heart and lungs. As my friend Suz notes, it's hard to enjoy life when what's holding you up is hurting. Or, as my friend Hammer notes, "they are your magic carpet to Katahdin."Three miles before the shelter, I cross the 300 mile mark. Hooray! I have walked almost 1/7 of the way. And I am still in the game, gimping along.It's hard to explain why I am enjoying myself despite near-constant physical discomfort. Every mile under pack is a burden on my lightly muscled frame. I am often wet, or cold, or worn out or my feet hurt like the dickens. Maybe I will turn my attention to the matter and figure it out in the upcoming days.I am passed in the last mile before the shelter, just as it starts to rain. Drat! The shelter will be full and I'll be setting my tent up in the rain. But no, when I get there there is one slot left. I cook and slide into my bag, as it is growing cold. When my poor friend Chief shows up ninety minutes later, we are crammed to the gills. He's done a 22-mile day, and now must sleep in the rain. None of us leap up and give him our spot either. The AT can be a hard place.