Date: 2010-05-25
From: Sarver Hollow Shelter

To: Craigs Creek Valley Rd
Miles today: 7.3

5/25Sarver Hollow Shelter to Craigs Creek Valley Rd7.3 miles plus .4 beastly miles up from the shelter to the trailhotelIt poured last night! I was so happy to be in a shelter. A really nice shelter, too. Sarver Hollow has one of those new shelters with the big overhanging porch and extended wooden floor. It's big enough for the picnic table under the porch roof, and lots of room to move around. And it has some built in shelving, and really nice hooks for hanging backpacks and food bags. Of course, it's a hella long way down the hill from the AT. And it's supposed to be haunted. But only the first of those two issues really bothered me.The shelter was really full and I managed to scoot around in the night so I was *right* up against Grasshopper. I'm pretty sure I kneed her repeatedly. Sorry Grasshopper! I didn't rush getting ready this morning. For one thing the weather was still pretty drippy. For another I only had about 7 miles to do by 2 pm. No problem, right? Hah!I got up to the AT by 8:15 or so. I was figuring an easy ridge walk, then a downhill of unknown quality to Niday shelter, then about a mile to the road to meet JD. Piece of cake. And it started out pretty well. The ridge was pleasant, if drippy. Then the rocks started. Big tilted slabs of rock. Possibly fun to play on if you're dayhiking, I wouldn't know. In wet weather, a threat to life and limb.********************Dear local ATC chapters,If you wouldn't want your Mom, your kid, or your spouse to try to hike on something in bad weather, please don't route the trail over it. Thruhikers don't have the option of waiting for good weather. And our balance is worse with those big backpacks we carry.thanks,Somebody who survived today, no thanks to you*********************Three miles of slippery slabs later, I was toasted. Fried. Done. I didn't fall down, by some amazing luck. Almost I fell down. But only almost. I was frustrated by the trail and by my slow progress on what I had imagined might be a fairly quick section. Once I hit the downhill things went more quickly, mostly, as there were more stretches of dirt to walk on. I stopped at Niday shelter for a break but there were many bees there being flylike. The problem with this is that you can shoo a fly, but you cannot shoo a bee. I packed up quickly and left, after leaving this entry in the shelter log:"No more slippery rocks for me, thanks. I'm all full. Burp."I had hoped to arrive at the road at 2, and despaired. Landmarks kept not appearing. Apparently AWOL was just wrong again, because I got to the road at 1:55. The landmarks must have been on holiday.I sat down to pull off my boots at the little parking lot at the road (not in the book, btw). My other pinky toe is also arguing with me, so it was both painful and a relief to get the boots off. I've determined to take a zero tomorrow rather than slackpacking, to give my feet some time to heal from whatever is bothering them. Most likely it's being wet all day, every day, and the sandpaperlike effect this creates in my socks. But rest is the answer to most problems so I'll give that a shot.JD drove up as soon as I pulled my boots off. And he had a surprise for me. A furry, yellow surprise. Doggie! I was happy to see her but it took her a few minutes to figure out who I was. Probably she had to sort through the sewage smells of my clothing and shoes before she could figure out the underlying scent.The three of us are holed up in a nice motel in Salem. JD, who is wonderful, brought all the fixings AND A TOASTER OVEN! So he could make me the home cooked meal of my dreams. Shake and bake chicken, baked sweet potatoes, and broccoli. Also he brought Corn Chex and soy milk for breakfast, though I think I'll check out the motel breakfast offerings first in case of waffles. The motel has laundry and Salem is large enough to have a good grocery and a Walmart, so tomorrow I'll hobble around getting chores done so I can head back into the woods Thursday morning. The other awesome part about JD's visit is that it delays me just enough so that the Homeplace will be open when I walk by, so I'll have the option of stopping there for a meal. It seems quite likely to me that I will want to stop. Oh, and he brought the scale so I could check my weight again. I'm now down 20 lb. I apparently have a steady 2 lb / week weight loss going. I find this weird. I seriously eat all day. And hiking has never caused me to lose weight before. Plus women don't usually lose weight while thruhiking. However I am not going to argue because I think it's kind of awesome. Go go gadget weight loss! Please continue while I keep stuffing my face.