Date: 2004-04-11
From: Massie Gap (Dave and Karin's Place)

To: Lost Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: light rain

ClassmatesI woke up today prepared to take a zero day with Dave and Karin, since rain had been predicted for today and tomorrow. After I added to yesterday's journal a bit, rain still had not started, and the sun had even peeked out some. I began to feel the pull of the Trail, and around 8AM declared I was going to hike today. As a hiker, Karin understood the compulsive pull (I am sure that everyone who hikes the AT shares this compulsion to some extent. Otherwise else, why would an otherwise sane person leave a pleasant home to subject himself to 6 months of physical, mental and financial discomfort?). I hope Dave did too.By the time we got in the car, a light mist was falling. By the time we got to the trailhead, an honest sprinkle was falling. As I pulled my pack out of the trunk I was beginning to have second thoughts, but chose to go on anyway.4:30PM, 4/13 - DamascusI think that was the right decision, even though it was wet most of the day, and also chilly at the higher elevations. I was able to keep moving down the Trail as my compulsion was urging.With the mountains covered in fog there was little opportunity to stop to admire the view, and with the wet weather there was little incentive to stop and take breaks. So I basically just put my head down and hiked. And pondered over the previous evening's conversation.Several times during the evening, as one person's name or another came up, Dave mentioned that he was sorry that he had not taken the opportunity to get to know that person better when we were in school together. I have heard similar comments from other members of our class e-mail group, and had similar feelings myself after a very stimulating conversation at our 25th reunion.Even though during our student days we had so many opportunities to get to know each other, we also had so many ways to divide ourselves: fraternity/non-fraternity; men/women; public school/private school; urban/non-urban; academic disciplines, etc. Maybe we were each trying so hard to distinguish ourselves (or to know ourselves) that such distinctions were important to us. But now that we are no longer so driven by those pressures we can look back and see those missed opportunity with a feeling of sadness and regret. Those feelings are particularly poignant since the environment at Swarthmore was almost ideal for getting to know such a variety of very talented people.As I told Dave on parting, I look forward to our next meeting. We have barely scratched the surface.Hikers met today: Just heading out of Massie Gap - Talks to Trees and Mountain Goat; Near Rhododendron Gap, the highest AT point in VA - Zee and Chief Rachel (doing a flip-flop starting from Damascus, hiking to Katahdin then the part between Springer and Damascus); Near Buzzard Rocks - Slowpoke doing a 10-day loop hike; Sugar Daddy - We had exchanged e-mails before our hikes; Sylvan Poet - I liked that name; and The Pokey Puppies (also flip-flopping from Damascus, but much closer to my generation, as anyone in my generation can tell by the name. We shared Lost Mtn Shelter on a blustery night, only my second time sharing a shelter on the hike).Milestone: Today I passed 400 miles on the Trail.See you on down the Trail