Date: 2014-06-13
From: Morgan Stewart Shelter

To: Hammersly Ridge
Miles today: 12.6
Weather: broken clouds

Not one of my better days.......I was the last again to leave the shelter, but not as late as yesterday. Moaglee was planning on meeting his mom and sister in NYC, so his day was quite simple. Mine however was nothing but. If I thought the last few days were wet and damp then this one was just a deluge. It started raining right from the get go, and I had already prepared myself with full rain gear on as I left the lean-to. Full rain gear in the summer means hot and sweaty and miserable. I arrived at Nuclear Lake with my head down trying to think of anything else but this rain. The good thing however is when the weather is bad you tend to get in some good miles. No dilly-daddleing. Just plugging away. I looked up and saw a yellow blaze. Yellow? Ok, no problem. Pulled out my guide book and saw the this "yellow" blaze will reconnect to the AT in about 1 mile. So instead of turning around I just stayed on the yellow blaze. However what I didn't realize is that I was on the north end of this yellow blaze reconnect. I was heading south! When I got back to the AT I was frustrated. I just hiked about 2 miles in a circle in the pouring rain, and now I'm hiking on the same part of the AT that I did an hour earlier! I was only about a mile from the nearest shelter which I was looking forward to dry off a bit at the time of this redirection. Unfortunately that plan did not happen. I finally ended up at the Telephone Pioneers Shelter for what ended up being a 2 hour plus break. I just ripped everything out of my backpack and hung stuff on every visible nail and string I could find. (Check out pictures)I even tried to start a fire which was sort of successful considering the dampness of all the wood. (Cheater logs sure help) I stripped all my clothes off and tried to hang them above the fire to dry. I'm not sure if any of this helped, but the rain did stop a bit and my mental mindset improved with the break. I finally headed on and stopped at an intersection that had the largest oak tree on the AT. 100 yards to the west was a red house that offered water from their spigot. I left my poles against the tree and headed over to the house. When I got there, there was a trail magic box from a girl scout troop full off cupcakes and Dr. Pepper! I sat for a few minutes and enjoyed the goodies for at this time the sun decided to come out and the humidity began. When I arrived back at the tree to continue, my poles were gone! What? Who would take these trekking poles? I was only gone for a few minutes. I continued on a few miles to the NY train station that stops right on the AT to find about 8 thru-hikers I really didn't recognize. One guy asked if I was missing my poles. Sigh..... I could go on with this rant, but I'm deciding to let this go. After all they were waiting for some trail magic to arrive from a thru-hiker buddy who lives close by. Oh, wait..... these guys didn't offer any trail magic for me. No big deal. I'm just a thru-hiker same as you, after 1450 miles, heading to Maine, why would I want any trail magic? Your right, I wouldn't like a beer or anything. Maybe I'll go find another girl scout troop, maybe if I was part of your 'click'......maybe..... ahhhh, forget it. I won't rant, even though I want to.Not long after my poles were stolen and I was not offered to hang with the cool thru-hiker click, I started hearing rumblings of thunder in the distance. I did have 4G on my phone at this point so I checked the weather and saw a huge storm heading this way in about 45 minutes. I decided to pitch my tent and wait out the storm while I ate dinner. The rain lasted longer than I expected so I just stayed there for the night in my little stealth camp area. Song of the day, Private Eyes, -Hall and Oats