Date: 2006-05-07
From: Lost Mtn Shelter

To: Wise Shelter
Miles today: 17.3
Weather: moderate rain

It started out as a perfectly normal day. Even with the fact that I had to take an extra 20 minutes getting my bearbag down, because 3 or 4 other people happened to decide to put theirs right on top of mine, which made my rope get stuck, even with that, I started off first from the shelter bright and early, and it was just getting to that point in the morning when the trees have stopped dripping and the sun comes out and you change into shorts, which I was getting excited about, when the opposite happened. It started raining some more. Now, if I had known better, I would have put on all my clothes right then, like I did on April 30th, and I probably would have been fine, but I was warm enough, and I didn't mind if my t-shirt got a little damp under my loosely-zipped raincoat, and I didn't put on any extra layers. Now, the part of Whitetop Mountain that the Trail goes over is called Buzzard Rock. It's rocky and totally exposed, and one of the things they always advertise about it is that 'there's always a cool wind blowing, even in the heat of summer'. Well, they sure had one blowing today, more like several, not to mention the rain, and I got up that mountain, and I commenced to look for a view, as I sometimes do on top of a mountain, and the wind and the rain tore right through my damp t-shirt and raincoat, chilled me right down to the bone, and I was shivering, and I said to myself, Steech, you have got to get off this mountain right now. And I ran. I ran as fast as I could, in my wet boots, on uneven rocky trail, I got back into the woods soon enough, put on a flannel shirt, and commenced to feel somewhat better about the whole thing. The next treeless stretch was out of the wind, and although I got wetter, I was reassured when Trickster and What!?, whom I hadn't seen since before Hot Springs, came up the other side of the mountain doing a slackpack and reassured me that there were no exposed sections on the other side of the mountain. I warned them to bundle up if they could before the summit, and we each went our own way. One of the things you tend to do, when it's raining and you're cold, is not stop to eat, or stop to drink, and by the time I got to the bottom of that mountain, I had been doing both for quite some time. I knew I needed to eat, to keep my warmth up, so I stopped under the partial shelter of an interpretive sign in the Elk Garden parking area, and, after figuring out how to unbuckle my pack with my numb fingers, proceeded to devour a good half hour worth of sustaining snacks. But... I had not been warm when I stopped moving, and, as vital as food is, I had lost a lot of heat when I stopped to eat it. I knew I needed to keep moving. I was very wet and very cold. My pack wasn't packed, there was food and clothes out. I kept looking at it, thinking, I'll never get that stuff back in. My hands were just too numb. I couldn't coordinate them. I was thinking too slowly, I knew it, and that's a warning sign, but I couldn't think what else to do. I was too cold. Two drenched section-hikers appeared at their car, about to drive away. "I need to ask them for a ride", I thought, "I need to get to a motel and have a warm shower. I need to get out of here". They got in their car. They drove away. I did nothing. I looked at my unpacked pack again. Then Catskill Eagle came, and I felt jerked back a bit into my senses. He wasn't keen on waiting around, being as it was much too cold and wet to do that, but I asked him to look back and make sure I got going okay, since I was really cold. I managed to get everything back in my pack, and follow him up the hill. Up the mountain. The second mountain, Mt. Rogers, highest point in Virginia. The uphill hiking warmed me up eventually, and, when we got warm enough, Catskill Eagle picked me some ramps, which I had never had. I commenced, once again, to feel better about the whole affair. Every thru-hike, after all, probably has at least one hypothermia scare. Maybe this will be my only one. I'm sure not going to hike in even a drop of rain again without lots of warm clothes on and full rain gear. We stop at Thomas Knob Shelter for snack, though I am glad to get moving again afterwards. We cross the Grayson Highlands in a fog of thick clouds, drizzle, and misty rock shapes. It's tough going, and I'm glad I'm not alone. We get to Wise Shelter and are delighted to see plenty of room, just three or four section hikers there ahead of us. After donning my driest combination of clothes, I cook my warmest dinner and devour about three days worth of snickers, pop-tarts, balance bars, etc., just about every loose calorie-containing item left in my bag. I go to bed the kind of warm where you're a little chilly but you know you'll survive the night. Before this trip, muses Steech, I had about seven weeks of total backpacking experience. The worst thing about them, in fact, really, the only bad thing, was always getting cold and wet, which I did a lot, as an inexperienced young person with a lot of rain, in some very cold mountains, (the Whites). This trip has been a lot better in that respect, in many respects, in fact. Mostly because it hasn't rained much, I guess. It rained all the time in the Whites. They say that Mt. Rogers is the last coldest place till the Whites, and that's a long way from now. Tomorrow I will be heading into lower elevations, and a warmer season, and I do hope, that the luck we've had with the weather - i.e. usually not raining during the day - will continue.