Date: 2005-08-10
From: Glencliff, NH

To: Beaver Brook Shelter 
Miles today: 7.9
Weather: scattered clouds

This morning I was woken up by the ther hikers getting up at something rediuclous like 4 am to hit the trail early. I feel back to sleep easily and got up at the late hour of 7 am to head over to the post office.There were 8 pieces of mail waiting for me there. I made two trips to bring it all back to the hostel. Since everyone was goine I spread all my belonginga out on the floor upstairs and sorted through everything. I threw some stuf out, sent some stuff back home to Canada and bounced some stuff forward. I was going to leave right after that but UPS put on "13 Going on 30" and I got sucked into watching it. Since it was lunch time I ate lunch at the hostel before I left.This morning sorting through all mystuff I discovered that mycamera had gotten squashed in my bag while on the bus and the screen on the back smashed. It seems to take pictures but I have no way of knowing. I also have no way of knowing what the settings are. I think that I got the flash changed to automatic. I can also turn on the macro function and self-timer since they are only one button push and reset when ever you turn the camera off. I am really bummed now, but I am sure I am going to be more when I get the bill for the repair. On the plus side I managed to "fix" my head lamp by replacing one set of batteries. I knew the LED couldn't hav died. I'd trade that for the broken camera though. I cold just buy a new LED at Radio Shack and solder it in myself when I got home for five bucks.Today was the first time that I hiked abover treeline and it was absolutely gorgeous. It is a funny feeling noticing how small the trees are getting as you are hiking up. Soon you are walking through a hallway of spruce trees with the sky unobscuredaove your head. Today the sky was blue and puffy whte clouds floated by. The trees shrik away and the are gone and just alpine grass is growing. The AT is well troden into the ground but there are cairns (piles of rocks, sometimes with blazes painted on them) to mark the path. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then experiencing it and seeing the landscape is worth a thousand pictures. Nothing I can write nor the pictures that I take can do justice to the beauty. Everyone should take the time to experience it for themselves.The climb certainly kicked my ass though. Even more so after spending time immediatly preceding this in the relatie flat lands of Maryland and the Shenandoahs. (Notice I didn't say flat - VA is not flat - just relative to this) I got to Jennings Brook shelter and though "boy, that has been abit of a climb" only to look at the profile map to see that really, t was literally nothing and that I was still athe bottom of a very big hill. I guess my hiking and hill climbing indices need to be re-calibrated.Beaver Brook shelter is a fantastic shelter with a great view of Franconia Ridge. The water is good and very cold, but the privy (or "rivy" as the door says - pee in the woods not the privy) literally stinks and if absolutely infested with deer flies, not to mention very full. Yuck! I was the only here tonight - tear. I thought that after skipping ahead 700 miles I would be in the middle of NOBOs and wouldn't have anymor solitary nights. I had a goodnight reading Desolation Angels by Kerouac which I picked up in Boston at the train station along with The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger. I really think that I have re-discovered reading as a pleasurable activity after five years of reading almost nothing. In fact I can only think of 8 books that I read during university. Five are the Harry Potter books, two are Lance's books (he's famouse enought now to not need a last name now right?). The 8th was The Englishman's Boy by Vanderhag, a Canadian au! thour and well worth the read.I am very glad to have my 20 degree down sleeping bag back. It seems much cooler up here than the last bit of hiking that I have done. I got in wriggled around I felt so pleased with it. In fact, that is not a good enoght endorsement of my Western Mountaineerng Ultralight - If my sleping bag were a man I would marry him. And that is saying a lot, I'm a prety picky person.Well nature has turned out the lights, I guess it is time to go sleep. Bonne nuit!