Date: 2010-03-12
From: Unicoi Gap

To: Cheese Factory Site
Miles today: 4.4

Today was the day that I thought it was completely crazy to be out here.When I was getting ready to leave Black Gap Shelter one morning a couple of weeks ago, I heard Set In Stone talking to someone. She was saying that people back home had told them that they were crazy to hike the trail, that all the people out here were crazy and escaping from their lives, which they couldn't handle. I looked over and raised my hand and said, "Hello! I'll cop to that."So this morning at eleven Joyce drove me back to Unicoi Gap. The weather had cleared earlier, but on the way up to the Gap, it started to pour. I thought, "oh great, look at the time I picked to get back out here." When we got to the gap I put on my rainpants in the back of the van. Joyce took my picture for me with the umbrella. (By the way, my friend Natalie attaches her umbrella with little bungee cords. I'm going to try that.)There was some great trail magic at the gap, put on by Laura and some others, but I was full and stocked up, so I didn't partake. I started slowly up the hill out of the gap and that's when I thought how truly insane it was to leave a perfectly good motel room to haul 30 pounds of gear up a mountain in the rain.But then a little later I was walking along and thinking, o.k., we're not who we think we are, that's obvious. And I had read recently that we are our decisions and that's good as far as it goes, especially if we actually follow through on them (hee, hee). Friar Tuck said we are what we do, which is kind of the same thing. And then I was thinking, really we are what we be. Or we are what we are, which is one of those things which is so true, but which inevitably lacks something when you try to put it into words. We are what we are. We are what we experience. I think that Eckhart Tolle says that you have to make friends with your experience. That's another way to put it.Anyway, I was filled with such gratitude. I was so grateful to have been born a human being. I was grateful for my life and for my experience. I was grateful to have the opportunity to be out here. In the gorgeous green rhodendron thicket, with the trunks and branches made black by the rain.It was only raining a little at first. I was a little too hot hiking up the hill in the rain pants and wondered why I didn't trust myself to walk in just my hiking pants. I came to a nice camping spot at about 1:30 p.m. and briefly considered stopping, but it was too early. Then I went around the bend and out onto the ridge. I don't know if it had been raining out there the whole time or if the beginning of the deluge coincided exactly with me stepping out there, but it poured. Sideways.I took the umbrella to the limits of its usefulness. And I was so glad I had the rainpants on. My legs would have been soaked. As it was, I was dry except for the right half of my top. The rain was coming at me from the right. The pack cover got wet on that side and I could feel the rain running down my back occasionally. Luckily, I was only out on that ridge for about 15 minutes. There was standing water several inches deep.I was back down a little lower when I heard a couple of thunderclaps very close by. I was nervous for a minute and then told myself, "You're o.k., you're down low enough. There's lots of stuff here taller than you, even if you are walking along holding metal poles."I got to the Cheese Factory Site about 4:30 and pitched the tent off to the left, out of the wind. When I opened up the tent it was pristine inside, (Thank you, Steve.) I didn't want to put my wet gear or my muddy self, inside. I only wanted to take my boots off once so I ate inside the tent with my boots on a plastic trash bag. Chicken and guacamole and chips! What luxury. After that I hung up the food bag and got settled in.I had had visions of hanging about in my tent, reading a shlocky novel, but it was too cold, so I went to sleep. Sometime later I heard other campers setting up and after that there was a big thunderstorm. I knew I would be dry so I barely woke up. I was up for an hour or so in the night and read some of my book by headlamp, inside the sleeping bag and the liner.