Date: 2017-10-06
From: Spivey Gap

To: Rector Laurel Road
Miles today: 21.6
Weather: broken clouds

"On the AT I can¢t remember saying to myself, 'I¢m really having fun.'¢ Mango, our host Wednesday night, said this. He has hiked both the AT and the PCT. ¢Sure, the AT was interesting, at times exciting. But on the PCT, many days I remember thinking, 'This is a lot of fun!'¢ (Frodo: YES!)For myself, I do say the PCT is my favorite of the long trails, and not just because that¢s what Frodo wants to hear. But for me on the AT, I don¢t think a day goes by when I don¢t have a ¢real fun¢ moment. Even in the rain. Even on that Maine day when I fell 14 times. And not a day goes by without me thinking, ¢I am so lucky, so blessed to be out here.¢We are slackpacking all day today. Frodo dropped us off at 7:00 am. 49 degrees. 21.6 miles. We gave her our Subway sandwich orders. Tuna salad. I haven¢t had a tuna salad sandwich since before the trail. Frodo is meeting us at 13 miles and then at day¢s end after 21.6 miles. Dot and Franky will then pick up the rest of their gear and hike on a couple more miles tonight to a shelter. I¢m going back into town for a last night with Frodo and Aloha is coming back with us to spend a second night with his Erwin friend. Our trail appetizers today ¢ climbs, what else ¢ were Little Bald (which wasn¢t) and Big Bald (which was). As the green tunnel lost its hold, the trees shrunk in size and then petered out, and we came to an unusual sign. ¢The next 200 yards, don¢t ask questions.¢ Huh? Oops, that¢s a question. We¢ve read many ¢Don¢t¢ signs out in the woods. To date, the most unusual I¢ve seen admonished me, ¢Don¢t hang-glide.¢ As we walked forward, we saw long net screens for trapping migrating song birds. Then we saw field researchers ¢ do hikers really annoy them so much that they had to put up ¢No Questions¢ signs? Oops, there I go with another question.Quickly we walk into a school day field trip session they are holding for a Montessori class, grades 4 to 6.  Song birds are stored in paper bags closed with a twist. ¢This is a Magnolia Warbler,¢ says a researcher of my vintage, holding a small bird tightly in his hand. http://www.trailjournals.com/j... He bands it, measures it, and weighs it as each of the students take notes: 55 cm wing, hatchling, 8 grams. Eight grams? Why, that¢s less than three pennies; less than a third of an ounce. One of the students gets to release the gray, yellow-breasted song bird.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...Big Bald did not disappoint. But I know I better not get used to these 360-degree views. The other day I wrote about some current hypotheses as how these southern balds came about ¢ wood bison, elk, hard soil, Native Americans. I heard another one I really like. ¢They were first created by grazing woolly mammoths.¢ That¢s got my vote.Yay for trail maintainers!  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...The three youngsters¢ legs carried them ten to fifteen minutes in advance of me much of the day. For an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, absorbed in the Green Tunnel, I put on ear buds and listened to Pat Conroy¢s Prince of Tides. A scene between a discredited high school football coach and a tenth-grader who didn¢t make the team and doesn¢t have a friend at school, who the coach has been asked to work with one-on-one, nearly had me blubbering. I won¢t describe tonight¢s meal in town and I won¢t describe Frodo¢s and my last night before she flies back home ¢ except to say that a bottle of Prosecco was involved. This will be our last time apart due to the AT. (Frodo: and I will be VERY glad to have him home in less than three weeks ¢ knock on wood.)