Date: 2014-07-18
From: Greenwall shelter

To: Governor Clement
Miles today: 14.6

Start 8:00End 5:30Temp 70Biggest complaint - Made a wrong turn.Best part - Ran into a guy coming back because he made the same wrong turn.Shortly after starting my hike I ran into someone hiking the opposite direction. He asked if I was a north bounder. Then he told me he was too and he thought we were off the trail. On his phone he showed me a map and the blue dot was where we were and that meant we were off the A.T. and on a different trail. We went back the way we came. That meant I only had to go back about 150 yards whereas he had to rehike 0.4 miles. Lucky for me he made the same wrong turn before I did. Actually we had went straight where we should have turned right. There was a small sign but not the customary double blaze warning of a turn ahead.A little later I met another hiker whose trail name was Shroomer. We ended up hiking together for a while. He was a through hiker but I was able to keep up with him. He said he doesn't hike fast but he hikes long. He gets up early and hikes all day. He also doesn't stop at all. We did stop to a talk to a southbound thru hiker so he could get any info he had about the trail ahead. Shroomer and I talked quite a bit. He's trying to thru hike the A.T. so he can be triple crowner. He's already thru hiked the pacific coast trail and the continental divide trail. He's written articles about backpacking and organized get togethers for people who have thru hiked before. I'm going to send his email address to my brother-in-law Mike who plans to thru hike the continental divide trail. Shroomer actually lives across the road from where John Muir lived. John Muir was a Scottish- American naturalist, author and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. The John Muir trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California was named after him. I told Shroomer I couldn't keep up with him any more and we stopped for lunch. Shortly after we started up again we parted ways. The rest of the day I was tired because he had wore me out.A short time later a guy with long hair passed me. He was carrying his snacks in a quart size plastic bag he held in his hand. A little odd but if it works for him. We didn't chat but he asked how much my packed weighed as he hiked past. Then another guy passed me and I noticed he was wearing several items on his belt. Then I realized one of them was a gun. He then started questioning the guy who had passed me earlier and he informed him he was a police officer. There had been a lot of cars broken into in the parking lot we had just hiked through. Since the guy with the bag had dilly dallied in the parking lot the officer thought he was worthily of questioning. He determined he wasn't their man and let him continue. The guy was just taking his time getting started on his hike. The officer only spoke with me briefly on his way back down the mountain. The other day I came upon a game warden and a forest service officer. I spoke with them awhile. I wasn't being questioned. They were out patrolling their territory. They liked the joke I told them. They told me their names and we all said have a good day and proceeded to do just that.