Date: 2011-06-03
From: 0.1 miles before Alec Kennedy Shelter

To: Darlington Shelter
Miles today: 18.3
Weather: clear sky

(In which I supervise the Cumberland Valley Challenge)In the morning I walk up to the shelter to use the privy and am surprised to find none other than Lemur sleeping in the shelter. Buffaslow had checked out the shelter the night before and found it empty and since nobody passed us at the campsite outside the shelter, we had assumed that the shelter was empty all night. I poke my head in the shelter and Lemur sits up. He tells me his story, and it turns out that by a bizarre series of coincidences we managed to just miss each other several times the day before.Returning to the store to get his half-gallon challenge spoon, he met a newspaper reporter who had been waiting all day to meet an actual ice cream challenger and spent half an hour interviewing Lemur. Hurrying to catch back up, he must have passed us while we took the side trail to Poles Steeple with Ghetto Sheep. He then accidentally hiked past the turn off to the shelter where he ended up sleeping, giving Buffaslow a brief window of time to catch up, check the shelter, and then hike back to the campsite. When Lemur realized his mistake and hiked back to the shelter, he saw German Shepherd's entry about hiking on, saw Buffaslow's short entry below it and assumed that we had hiked on too. Worried that he would pass us in town and never see us again, he laughs when he learn that we were camped a quarter mile away and is jealous when he hears of our camp fire.We all hike the four miles to Boiling Springs together, stop at the small ATC building and then head down the street to Caffe 101 for breakfast. I order a pecan waffle ($2.75 with bacon) and a croissant ($0.75), and the food is delicious, easily the best deal on the trail since the diner in Hot Springs.The next 14 miles of trail contain no shelter and are the first long section of the trail so far to not allow any camping, since they go through the Cumberland Valley with active farm land. This means that once we leave Boiling Springs we will have to hike at least an 18 mile day. This would be short by old standards, but is dangerously long for Team Slow, and Buffaslow and I have to remind ourselves not to get used to such long days again.The elevation profile shows that the 14 mile stretch is nearly completely level, flatter than any stretch on the first half of the trail. To make the afternoon hike more interesting, Cayenne comes up with the idea for the Cumberland Valley Challenge, which involves buying a 12 pack of beer in town and drinking a beer every mile for the first 12 miles. Buffaslow is all for it, and he and Cayenne head to the nearest tavern to supply for the tavern. Lemur buys a six pack of Mountain Dew for his version of the challenge and I carry the page of the guidebook with all of the mile landmarks carefully marked out to pace the drinking.The tavern doesn't sell cans, so Buffaslow and Cayenne each load 12 glass bottles of beer into their packs, stuffing every available pack pocket to its limit. The completely flat trail is a pleasant change of pace from the normal ups and downs, and the challengers tuck their poles in packs to free their hands for easier drinking. We marvel at the luck of having a cool, breezy day after so many hot ones, and Buffaslow are glad not to be sweating out their water at the same time they are drinking a twelve pack each.Entertained by the challenge and competing with his sodas, the once speedy Lemur stays on the slow train for yet another day, much to our delight. He tells us about his first experience with pink blazing yesterday, slowing down on the trail so that he could flirt with a friend from college over SMS. Buffaslow decides that this new suave, slow Lemur needs a name to match, and dubs him Le'mar, the smooth, French, ladies man. "The best thing about it," Buff' says, "is that when he flies ahead we can change all his entries to Le'mar by just by adding the apostrophe".We stop at the work camp where the ridge runners stay, hoping to run in to Ghetto Sheep again, but don't see her anywhere. The work camp is near a wide creek that the trail runs along, and we stop at a clearing by the water so that Buffaslow and Le'mar can take a dip. Buff' runs along the shore upstream and then floats back downstream, only his face and feet poking out of the water.The day's hike gives me the first real opportunity to spend time talking with Lemur / Le'mar since the night at the one shelter in Tennessee, and we talk about what comes next for him after the AT. He is considering hiking the PCT next year, but is not sure that he wants to "put his life on hold" for another year. It takes me a moment to realize that he means a career and family. Some people see hiking the AT and other adventures as their real life, I tell him, and worry about having to put that life on hold for the sake of a job or other obligations. Cayenne, catching up to us after missing most of the conversation, tells us that when she told her mother about the hike her mother replied incredulously, "But what about your life?!"Le'mar says that he was worried what his father would think about the hike, since it wouldn't advance him toward any career. "I finally asked him about it when I went back home for eight days, and I was surprised when he said, 'Of course I understand why you hike -- it's impossible to read your trail journal without seeing how much fun you're having out there and wanting to be hiking the trail too'".The last mile of the day finally returns to the steep grades we've come to expect from the AT, and just before the top of the climb we stop at viewpoint where a bench constructed from large rocks has been built into the side of the mountain. We sit on this trail couch to admire the view and are all glad to be traveling with a lack of urgency that let's us sit there for half an hour without worrying about making miles. The challengers have all successfully completed their goal, and everyone is in a good mood.We look out at all of the houses beneath us and watch sunlight glinting off of the cars and tractor trailers on the distant roads. "There are so many houses down there," Le'mar says. "Like that red one off by itself. It just makes you wonder who lives there and what their life must be like. It makes you think about so many questions." We sit thinking about this before Buffaslow finally offers, "Like, do they have any beer down there?" We all laugh, then get up to hike the last half mile to the shelter.