Date: 2009-05-21
From: Hog Camp Gap, VA

To: The Priest Shelter, VA
Miles today: 14.6
Weather: clear sky

Cell noneOG notesWe had a wonderful night sleeping in an open field last night. The stars were all visible, including the milky way. I'm sorry to say I don't know many constellations and my knowledge of astronomy is poor. I still enjoy looking into the heavens and seeing them.We worked our schedule out in order to be at a good pickup point tomorrow. We have a little less than 5 miles to do in the morning to reach the Tye River, our pickup point. Almost all of that hiking will be downhill so hopefully we'll make good time getting there.Our hike today went pretty well. Most of the hills were okay. The few that weren't were taken one at a time and at a slower pace. We are now hiking at a speed faster than 2 mph. The reason I know this is we're taking more breaks and we're still arriving at our destination either on time or sooner. We really gain our speed on flat ground or on well graded (gradual climb) uphills. We lose time on steep climbs and sometimes on steep downhills. It's 6:30 pm and we are in our tent to escape the flying insects. The mosquitos aren't out yet but these little guys fly in your face and drive you crazy. We have already eaten dinner and hung our extra food in a tree in our Bear Bags. They are hung at least 10 feet up, three feet from the trunk of the tree, and three feet down from the branch. We have 100 feet of parachute cord which gives us a lot more options in selecting a tree. Most other hikers have a lot less cord and have trouble finding a tree that will work for them. I tie one end of the cord to a stick or rock. I then set up the cord for throwing. I use a technique I learned in Life Saving. I use the technique that is used for throw lines and ring bouys. This allows me to throw the rope and have it release without tangling. I throw the stick over my selected branch. I usually get it on the first or second try. We then tie the food bags to one end of the line and hoist them up. We then tie the other e! and around another tree to secure them in the air. With that done I feel our food is safe from animals both big or small.C6 notesAlthough OG made it sound as if today's hiking was easy, I found it hard. I think it kicked my butt because it was hot and a fair amount of the time we were in the sun. I'm finding the heat to be a drain on my energy level. I hope I adjust to it before the real heat of the summer is here. We arrived at the shelter around 4pm. I like arriving before 5 or 6pm because it gives us time to relax before we go to bed. The bugs are annoying now because we get in our tent early to get away from them. Not a problem tonight because no one else is at this shelter yet this evening...just Red Leg and us, and he's in his tent, too, because of the bugs. When there are a bunch of folks we want to visit with them.An interesting thing happened as we were preparing supper...two F-16 jets flew over real low and fast. It looked as if they were doing chase maneuvers or something. We loved seeing them because OG worked on the F-16 avionics systems for many years. I haven't written about new thru-hikers we've met in a while because we seem to be in a void right now. The new folks we're meeting are hiking so fast that we see them when they blow by us, then we'll probably never see them again. Lots of folks got off the trail to go to Trail Days last weekend and lost a couple days of hiking, so that mixed things up. We did hear that a record number of people started the AT this year (we heard 3,000), but the completion ratio should still be about the average 10%. 10% of 3,000 is a larger than average number, so there are probably more people on the trail than usual right now. We aren't seeing a lot of folks, but that could also be because as we continue to hike so does everyone else, so the chances of us meeting new folks who might be going the same average speed as we are is slim. This weekend could change that, however, because we'll get back on Tuesday 3 days behind the folks we've been seeing all along.I'm looking forward to being with family this weekend. I hope I don't have anxiety about getting back on next week. We'll see.Old Goat & Check Six