Date: 2006-10-12
From: iron mtn. shelter

To: abington shelter
Miles today: 15.9
Weather: broken clouds

======2003======monday, march 31, day38 (written from damascus april 1)well.....i¢ll have to admit, i was a little nervous about the morning and the day ahead......the night had dipped down in the 20¢s.....the snow was deep and we had 16 or 17 miles to do to the next shelter (with possibly the same crowded, cold conditions)....the first test of the day for me was going to the bathroom*......fortunately, i had dug a hole the night before (as has become my habit)...but just to go out in the dark at 5 a.m., without disturbing the other ¢sardines¢in the shelter, in icy-cold wet shoes, try to ¢relax¢ and accomplish the feat, and then bury the whole business using a heavy, frozen shovel.....then go back and crawl into your slot in the ¢sardine can¢ without waking anyone.....well.....all i can say is....it can try one¢s commitment to trail life...BUT....i did it!....yea for me!i couldn¢t go back to sleep, however, so i just laid there, worrying a bit, i confess, about how the day would go.....the second test was the later challenge of getting dressed (did so underneath our sleeping quilt), trying hard not to elbow killeen¢s nose to my left and firewood¢s eye to my right.....but my mission was finally accomplished without too much damage to the other hikers and we were soon even eating breakfast (cold granola without water added to the milk part because we weren¢t able to get any the night before)....which brings me to charlie¢s first test of the day: going out in not quite 20 degree weather and collecting water from the spring! (mercy! i thought MY ¢test¢ was bad!).....when my ¢water hero¢ got back, he ¢cheered¢ me with the ¢delightful¢ news that he was unable to actually filter....our system was frozen! (and so was killeen!).....so, for the first time we enjoyed straight-out-of-the-spring, unfiltered water....one of the other guys said he was doing that, too....we were up at about 4000 feet ...so we all figured it was probably a pretty safe water source.......i¢ll admit, our prayers that mornin¢ were a little less ¢rote¢ ....and as we asked the Lord¢s blessing on our day, our water supply got a little extra ¢coverage¢.....(so far so good....after 3 days we feel fine.....i actually boiled our water at abington)......well....while we were finishing up breakfast and trying to get packed and dressed (somewhere in the dark recesses of our quilt), a ¢commotion¢ on the other end of the shelter got our attention.....i heard holly say, ¢oh my god! is he okay?....whoa....he¢s NOT okay!¢......we poked our heads up and saw that walk-on was on the ground just off the end of the sleeping platform!....(stitch was, of course, immediately by his side)*....i thought he had slipped on the ice and had fallen and perhaps hit his head or something....by the time we got some handle on what was happening, he was sitting up again, all ¢woozy¢, and holly was questioning whether he had epilepsy....he assured her he didn¢t, but that he had, in the past, experienced passing out.... he went on to explain what had just happened....he was feeling light headed, he said, so he sat down on the edge of the platform and put his head down between his knees....it was then he went out and pitched over onto the ground......the only thing any of us could figure was that poor walk-on, having eaten nothing but m-and-m¢s and being all stressed (like the rest of us) about the morning, (and trying to squeeze into his COMPLETELY frozen boots), just buckled under it all..... i was prayin¢ like crazy under my breath !...amazingly, walk-on was the first to ¢walk on¢ that mornin¢.....and stitch was right behind him (said he didn¢t wanna be too far behind, just in case)....since we all were now obviously just a little more than tense, lex luther took it upon himself to ¢make some sense¢ of the situation.....he said, ¢okay folks....here¢s the deal..... i know it¢s a rough mornin¢ out here and everybody¢s feelin¢ a little shaky.....but listen......here¢s the bottom line........WE¢RE NOT GONNA MAKE IT!¢...........at that, of course, we all laughed and began to joke a bit, trying to make light of the blunt realization that we were ALL indeed ¢terminal¢....i think lex luther¢s humor saved the day.....it was enough to get us all back on track to survive our little ¢ordeal¢.....well, killeen and i were next out into the weather to face 17 miles to the next shelter....i think all the other guys were going to try to make it into damascus (including, we heard, shaman and ben, whom we had last seen shivering at the vandeventer shelter)....all these guys are young and bold and they really hike fast, so i was almost convinced they¢d really be in damascus by nightfall......we old folks on the other hand were gonna have plenty to deal with just getting that 17!.....but, you know, the day went well....it really did turn out to be a beautiful day.....it¢s hard to describe, really, the beauty of it.......it was trying its best to clear off (with the deepest blue sky we¢ve ever seen, appearing in patches now and then through what bill and diana taught us to call ¢sucker holes¢......but mostly it was gray for the morning, the ¢sky¢ sometimes hanging like a ¢scrim¢ in the snowy woods....sometimes lifting a little to reveal a brief glimpse of the valley below.....the first time this happened i was actually startled by what i saw! we¢d been trudging along, intent on working our way through the very white woods (the kind where EVERYTHING, every leaf, every twig, every rock was COVERED in deep snow),but it was getting more difficult to ¢see¢....what i mean is, that even though this winter wonderland was storybook-breathtaking, there was a sort of a ¢sameness¢ to it....not a sameness that bored you, but rather sort of ¢hypnotized¢ you....you got tired of ¢LOOKING¢, not because you didn¢t cherish or appreciate the uniqueness of the scenes before you, but rather because of the simple fact that human eyes just cannot take in an inch-by-inch magnificence such as this!....the soul can¢t digest it!.......it¢s too much....like c.s. lewis¢ description of the ¢weight of glory¢.....it¢s ¢HEAVY¢!.....and after a while you fade away under the exhausting effort of trying to appreciate it all.....anyway, we were walking along and suddenly, there¢s this ¢window¢ in the woods....a ¢triangular¢ opening, with two of the sides formed by opposing slopes meeting in a deep hollow at the lower angle, while the top side was formed by the ¢bottom¢ of the gray sky (which actually reminded me of how children sometimes depict the sky with their crayons when they color in the ¢heavens¢, the demarcation of which ends only an inch from the top of the paper).....this ¢triangle¢ framed a most incredible picture...a ghost-like ¢neverland¢, snow covered and farmhouse spangled......but the colors were what struck me most....in the surrounding woods all the hues were ¢cool¢....blues, blacks, steel grays....the distant skies and mountains tended toward charcoal (almost angry) and purple.....but this little valley that appeared so suddenly out of nowhere seemed ¢warm¢....the snow was taking on a rather creamy color, almost buttery yellow, as if the sunlight had oozed around the low-hanging clouds and slipped in under into the valley to mix with the mist and create an ¢eerie¢ golden hue that i had never seen before (not related to snow anyway!)..it was like an hour of the day that had never yet been born suddenly making its grand debut........ ¢killeen!¢ i shouted...¢look at THAT!....have you ever seen anything like it in your whole life?!!¢....after this initial glimpse of wonder, we soon began to be privileged to many more views of the snow-covered valley (which sort of reminded me of a grandma moses painting)....the best way to describe these scenes would be to imagine the landscape as someone¢s big, old-fashioned slate-gray front porch visited by a clumsy painter who spills a huge bucket of eggshell white all over it!....picture the ¢enamel¢ running and puddling around the ¢porch¢....around the foothills and ponds, fencerows and roadways...its ¢dripping¢ and ¢spattering¢ was running wild around iron-gray ¢christmas trees¢ and ¢lint-ball¢ oak groves......the houses and gardens were barely escaping the creamy flood, except for a dribble now and then on a chimney or a sideyard.....occasionally, an energetic spatter would plop itself onto a distant mountain peak, (though it seemed a little more blue than the dairy-colored valley).....i have been fascinated all along by the tiny farms and villages that lie nestled in the foothills of these mountains...but never so much, i suppose, as when i saw THESE scenes, made even more magical by the snow!......anyway, i was saying....the trek through the snow was beautiful AND difficult.......i went out on this second morning (from the iron mtn. shelter) PRAYING with every step....and trying not to let my fears get the best of me......and boy! did those fears ever lambaste me!......i was afraid of getting frostbite...of not making it to the next shelter...of not having enough water or energy.......but we warmed up after about the first half hour of hiking and were actually able to enjoy the beauty that was everywhere around us.....once again i was reminded that most of the time my fears are unreasonable......i noticed as we walked along that the snow can mess with your perception of the images and objects around you.....once i saw a ¢pointing springer spaniel¢ (it was a log to which the splotchy snow had given ¢ears, eyes, nose¢ and the patchy coloring of a lovely dog painted brown, black, and white!).....another time a ¢horse¢ appeared before my eyes.....(or maybe i was hallucinating! ha ha)...by late afternoon, the sky was really beginning to clear......we could hardly walk for looking always upward to the DEEP blue above us.....there are no words to describe this BLUE!...it was like ¢electrified azure crayon pudding¢, so rich and thick and luminous it was!.....and then, of course, the more the sun appeared, the more blinding the snow became....so looking into the depths of the sky also offered some relief for our tired eyes....by evening, it was just as i had begun to imagine it might be (and more!).....the shadows of the bare trees began to stretch out in long, lovely lavender ¢ribbons¢ across the golden snow....in some of the hollows of the shaded woods, the snow nearly matched the color of my purple fleece hat.... as the sun dipped lower, peach and rose tones came into play as if someone had whisked out their watercolors to wash the clean, white page of snow with a playful, rainbow-like cheeriness!....it was just what we needed to face the chilly night ahead....the colorful evening helped to chase away any fears or dread as we began to anticipate the welcome sight of the shelter ahead....i was pretty certain that the other hikers could not have made it on into damascus (a 30 mile day for some) and that would mean, (i supposed) that we would again be crammed into a shelter with them all....oh well....WARM bodies!...we trudged on through drifts that were sometimes knee to waist high...(i understood more then how the poor little woodland animals must feel as they try to hop or leap or skitter their way through deep snows!)....even though the trail was level, the snow required large steps, as one would take in boulder climbing....it was very tiring.....charlie said the drifts reminded him of soft-serve icecream (ah! thinking of food again!)....to me they were like the clean, crisply starched curves of the collars and cuffs of the shirts my dad used to order from the cleaners back when respectable businessmen wore only WHITE!.....the wind picked up and continued to sculpt these incredible shapes in the snow (as well as tried to blow us off the mountain! (i was glad i had decided not to remove my rain jacket when we stopped briefly at a shelter for a snack).....as the sun dipped lower, we watched anxiously for the abington shelter.....finally, after crossing the forest service road, we knew it was but one more mile and we would be ¢home¢ for the night....we were ecstatic when it finally came into view....and EMPTY!...... amazingly our friends had gone on into the bitter cold evening (which is probably what spurred them on!)......we could still smell the slight aroma of their cigarette smoke in the shelter and so we at first thought, ¢YES! a shelter all to ourselves! we can spread out and dry out our gear, etc...¢....but as we began to set up and prepare for our icy night¢s rest, it became more and more obvious how much we missed our new friends with their young and raucous laughter and their insatiable zest for life!....(i think we may have even been missing their silly ¢bathroom humor¢!)....it seemed exceptionally quiet and maybe even (as paw pointed out) a little ¢lonely¢......but it did seem just a little warmer than the night before, especially after we hung our tarp.....i was able to dig a good cathole in the frozen snow and ground (with the provided shovel).....and then we were able to boil some water (that paw so bravely collected) and get our supper.....it wasn¢t long till we were snuggled in to sleep (and very HAPPY for that blessing to say the least!)...during the night, the wind really picked up and was howling past the shelter and down over the lonesome mountainside....fortunately it was coming from the BACK side of the shelter so we remained warm and snug!....======2006======tuesday, march 21, day 38 (15.8 miles from damascus to lost mtn. shelter)well...i never got around to an entry yesterday.....guess i was too busy resting! ha ha!....we did have a wonderful day relaxing (and EATING)!....suzanne had taken us to the grocery the night before and we had purchased a few fresh things and some popcorn....we had eaten pizza at sicily¢s and had carried the leftover¢s back to the bunkhouse with us.....we had salad with our leftover pizza....yum!....this morning we got up and out around 7 and went to eat at the restaurant at the end of town....we stuffed ourselves so much that i didn¢t eat again till supper tonight! (which, by the way, wasn¢t very good.... ¢creamy pesto noodles¢....BLAH!)....anyway, we were really weighted down this a.m. carrying our brand new supply of 5 days worth of food.....i tried a new way, though, of putting my food bag on top of my pack by attaching it with a bungee cord ....it worked well, but i think i need another small bungee to go crosswise....it snowed in damascus yesterday....didn¢t stick but the flakes were the great big cottony kind!...very pretty!.....it had all turned to rain this morning though, changing to barely a mist by the time we finished breakfast.....when we got to the shelter here, however, the rain started up again....but that was okay because we were in and warm and dry and enjoying the music of the raindrops on the roof.....we only have 13 tomorrow but will gain some elevation to thomas knob.....it¢s definitely a favorite shelter, but i bet it¢ll be sooooo cold!.....praying for the Lord¢s continued help and special mercies.....it was a pretty hike over here today.....i love the walk along the virginia creeper bike trail....the stream is so beautiful!.....however, the last climb up to the shelter seemed LOOOONG!........oh!....we saw some sort of ¢critter¢ today off down in the woods.....paw said it was a deer, but i could¢ve sworn it was a coyote!....maybe it was a ¢deerote¢!ha ha!.....we also heard some owls way up on a snowy knob with lots of hemlocks.....that made for a very special moment on a dreary sort of day...we had carried a leftover biscuit with cooked apples on it from breakfast so that made a nice dessert for our supper tonight....well, i¢m gonna get over here and see if i can fix my backpack/bungee cord deal a little better....maybe....i am awfully tired....it¢s 6:30.....pawee is snoring already.....we¢re the only ones here so far.....but maybe rubin* will be in soon.....hope i have better dreams tonight than i had last night....*NOTES/OBSERVATIONS/COMPARISONS* ¢going to the bathroom¢....just an expression, folks!...there is no bathroom in the woods!* good ol¢ stitch to the rescue!.....i still harbor feelings of guilt for not having been quicker to help out with walk-on that rough, cold morning.....but i thank the Lord for folks like stitch who IMMMEDIATELY come to the rescue of hikers in need ....God bless you, stitch, wherever you are!* rubin....aka, mr. president....any of you 06-ers know where he got off to?