Date: 2011-04-05
From: Hiawassi Budget Inn

To: Standing Indian Shelter
Miles today: 16.6
Weather: broken clouds

The storm front rolled in last night as predicted. Before the rain arrived there was a beautiful display of approaching storm clouds periodically lit by lightning. Just as the rain started falling the mountains lit up with a brilliant blue, unlike anything I had ever seen.Without any extra blankets or pillows I sleep in my clothes on the carpet. In retrospect I should have used my (10 degree) sleeping bag, but being warm when I go to sleep I don't think I need it. At 2am I wake up cold, and can't get to and unpack my pack without waking the roommates. So I take the extra clothes out of the stuff-sack I had been using as a pillow and sleep in all of my layers, with an extra sweater that had been lying on the floor used as a leg blanket.A few hours later, wishing that I had been in a shelter, I get up and walk down the street in search of breakfast. It's even colder outside, and a church sign flashing in the pre-dawn announces 37 degrees.* * *I catch the 8:30 shuttle to the trail head and walk with Oompa for the first mile. Since I didn't take a zero day in Hiawassi, I plan to take a few short days on the trail. The fact that Oompa says that he's only planning an 11 mile day and Trilobite is still in Hiawassi taking a zero makes my decision easier.As soon as I am back on the trail, the world feels right again. It's cold and windy, and there are many blowdowns on the trail from the previous night's storm, but I feel happy just to be walking. In the background of this happiness linger mall but perceptible worries of injury, keeping pace with friends and weather. I can imagine, but not quite achieve a mental state in which even the smallest worries cease to matter and I experience nothing but the carefree pleasure of the outdoors. Perhaps for some this state is achieved only in retrospect, when the distance of time renders the tiny concerns of the day invisible, leaving only the steady feelings of satisfaction and contentment.I cross over in to North Carolina almost without realizing it. I'm chatting with a man hiking with his two young sons when he points to a sign on the tree behind me marking the GA / NC border. As soon as I start hiking in North Carolina the wind gets even colder and fiercer and the trail gets steeper. I mean to keep a slow, meandering pace, but I learn that a crowd of fifteen hikers from the last shelter is ahead of me, and I want to get a spot in the next shelter where they are also headed. I pass them on the steep windy hills, which have snow on the edges of the trail. I keep my pace to stay ahead of the crowd, and find myself the first person at the shelter at only 2pm. The shelter itself is small, in shadow and cold. It's only 5 or so miles until the next shelter (I could stroll 1 mph and still make it before dark), Oompa has seemingly moved on, and moving seem like the only way to stay warm, so I keep going.The knee wrap I bought in Hiawassi is working well in terms of letting me hike pain free; whether this I helpful or harmful for long term injury prevention remain to be seen.By the time I get to the next shelter, Standing Indian, I am tired, perhaps from the limited sleep the night before. This being North Carolina there are no bear cables, so I have to spend some time preparing my bear bag hang.Oompa is at Standing Indian, and the crowd at the shelter fits the stereotype for AT hikers that I had before I started -- they're each guys in their twenties to early thirties who range from the macho athletic type to the carefree stoner. Individually each is as nice a person as you could meet, but together the testosterone filled group dynamics start emerging. While I'm collecting water and preparing my bear bag, they leave to sit around a campfire that a couple of other hikers have started at a campsite down the trail. I miss Trilobite and Oops, and wander how the trail demographic will change as I continue my hike.