Date: 2006-04-17
From: Harper's Creek Shelter

To: Maupin Field Shelter (Never got there)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

17 April 2006 - Destination: Maupin Field Shelter (6.2 Miles)I left the shelter headed for Three Ridges around 08:15 and the weather was nice. About a mile up the trail LumberMack passed me, having left a half hour after I did. I joked with him a bit that he would have a warm fire ready when I finally got there, and if not, he knew where to send the rescue crew to. After he moved on, the trail changed to pure boulders. Then the weather changed and I started walking in a cloud, or in a fog. The fog got so thick that I couldn't see 10 feet, and at times I couldn't even see the boulders I was slipping/walking on. I was trying to be very careful in the wind, fog and rain, and would usually put the poles into wherever I was going to step first. I was lucky I was doing this, because they went into the ground more than a foot several times, and the places were big enough that I would have put my leg in the holes. As it was I fell down several times, and was crawling several times when I thought it to dangerous to walk. The poles saved me from several serious accidents (and almost caused one when they slipped on a rock just as I needed support). The fog was really thick and I often could not see the trail, or my thumb if I stuck my arm out in front of me. The tendons in my right foot were screaming as I twisted my feet every which way to try and keep my balance. I finally made it up to the crest about 13:30 and took a pack off break for lunch (pb, gorp) and water refill, even though it was raining in the fog. The hat with the visor proved it's worth, as I had it on, and my hood stretched over the visor, so that protected my glasses from the rain. About 14:00, after I had rested, I hoisted up the pack and proceeded downhill from the crest. After about 1 hour going downhill I realized from a fairly unique tree blockage that I had surmounted coming up, that I was going back the way I had come. This tree was 18-24 inches in diameter, stretched across the trail, at a switchback, devoid of bark where it was over the trail, and had engraved in it the letters "GV". I remembered the letters from when I had come over this thing, several hours earlier. It was still raining, and still foggy. I looked up the hill and said there was no way I was going to spend three hours and reclimb that mess of boulders in this weather, with the tendonitis in my right foot already causing exquisite agony.15:30 - I finally limped back into Harper's Creek Shelter. Right after I got back, a couple of thru hikers (Mark and ?) who had left Springer in late February came through, going to Maupin. I asked Mark to tell LumberMack and Lee that I was all right and had turned back because of the boulders. I see from LumberMack's journal that the message got through. I made myself a hot chocolate and a bowl of oatmeal, and spread out my wet clothes to dry on the lines in the shelter. Someone had left a tarp and a plastic sheet in the eaves of the shelter and I got the tarp out and discovered I could string it up as a wind and rain barrier on the right side of the shelter. I did it, and then got into the sleeping bag.18:00 and I am finally getting warm, so I got up, bag balmed my feet, and puttered around organizing my stuff and thinking through if I really wanted to continue with my foot the way it was. At this point I truly decided to call it quits.18:15 Wally and Bryan came in for the night. They are section hiking for a week. They wanted a fire, but, as LumberMack had noted the previous night, there was very little available wood. Wally had an interesting 2 oz camp saw and he went out and sawed some dead wood from a distance, and then lugged it back. Wally and Bryan then produced a roaring fire, after some difficulty in starting it, and I used LumberMack's trick of drying clothes on my poles to dry off my gloves. I should have dried more stuff that way. Wally is a corporate pilot and Bryan is a tenth grade student wanting to go into aeronautical engineering via Virginia Tech. He brought along a book of, and was doing, sudoku puzzles. They spent about a long time around dusk trying to get a bear bag set up, similar to what LumberMack had done last night (and using the same tree). They couldn't get their bagged rock with attached string to successfully go over the branch they decided to use. Finally Wally succeeded after Bryan had tried some 20-25 times. To bed about 22:00.