Date: 2003-06-07
From: Rock Springs Hut

To: US 522
Miles today: 14.0

I did not want to get up this morning. It did start raining sometime in the middle of the night. I didn¢t really recognize what time it was but I was told it was right on schedule at midnight. I tried the best I could to sleep. I can¢t sleep well in the shelters and I am sleeping on the therma-rest ultralite. Which doesn't sleep very well on hard ground. It's especially hard around other people because I try and sleep on my side and it hurts to sleep on my side. Eventually I ended up rolling on my back and snoring up a storm. I know I kept checking the clock, about once an hour that I can recall. At 5:30 in the morning I was very, very tired. The sun started coming up and I totally recognized it. I was totally not willing to get out of bed...out of my sleeping bag. I could hear Bear Bait, who was in the level above me, moving around. Packing up his gear by 6:15 or so. I just kind of laid there doing my best to ignore the fact that it was already getting late. By 7 o¢clock in the morning, I just finally went ahead and pushed out of my sleeping bag. I was in my long johns and feeling cold. It was 51 degrees. I just kind of sat there, a little stunned, watching him pack up. Then the Ridgerunner started packing up and I finally started packing up. I decided I was not gonna cook breakfast. My intention today was to run as fast as I could from the Hut to US 522. I¢d already talked to Mark and Jan a couple of times and the arrangement we had made was for them to pick me up at 5 o¢clock at the post office in Front Royal and I modified that as soon as I could, because I knew I was gonna run as fast as I possibly could and I figured that I could get out to 522 by 2:00. I didn¢t eat breakfast. I ate a Mounds bar really quickly so I could swallow all my pills. Sucked up my pills. Got my stuff on. Went to the bathroom and started hiking. By the time I started hiking, Bear Bait had already started off 12 hour ahead of me. Then 5 minutes ahead of me was the Ridgerunner, Kellum. I got down to the first road which was about a mile away and when I was coming up to the road I saw a guy in a car who turned out to be Amble. He had his car there. He was sitting in his car eating. So, I kept on going. It was raining the whole time by the way. Non-stop rain from the minute I stepped out of the shelter..it rained non-stop. Two hours later, I came up across Bear Bait and passed him up going uphill. He¢d been standing around. Taking a break. I just kept hauling it and made it to where I was supposed to meet Jan and Mark. In the meantime I had called them along the road and realized that I was gonna be running even faster and told them to meet me at 1 o¢clock. It was a terrible hike basically. It was in the rain the whole time and the hike off the top of Compton ? Peak going down was not bad. Then I hit the Floyd Wayside Shelter which was a nice little place. Stopped in for 15 minutes. Signed in. There¢s all kinds of stuff laying around that people had thrown around. I pulled this blanket off, out of the rafters, and when I pulled it off, this whole nest of mice came running out of it. But, I signed in the register, got my stuff back on and hauled it again. The hike going down Floyd Wayside Shelter was horrible. Two big downhills. About 500 feet each, which were solid red mud. The trail was about 12 inches wide, about a foot wide at that point with nothing but slimy red mud. You really had to walk in the mud and with a stream of water running in the middle of it. You really didn¢t have a choice of walking on the side and trying to walk through the vegetation because all the vegetation was poison ivy and you were trying to stay out of that. Then at some point to red mud ended up having a layer of leaves on the top and you¢re going downhill through this red mud and water and a layer of leaves. Every step you take you would slide forward about 12 inches, which was great for the progress, but not good for the balance at all. At some point during each downhill¢¦.if you made a sharp turn..suddenly the red mud turned into black mud and rocks. The way the rocks were was that you could either step on the slimy rocks or step in between the slimy rocks into these muddles of black mud. So, there was a no win situation. I was very glad when I got down to 522 and saw Jan and Marks car there. They weren¢t even expecting me at that point because I¢d told them 1 o¢clock. I¢d managed to hike out by 12:30. Total of 4 hours and 15 minutes. Ok so for Saturday, June 7th. 14 miles in 4 hours and 14 minutes. Really fast run. From Rock Springs Hut to US 522. Anyway, I jumped in their car and they hauled me off. We stopped at a McDonalds for some food. We stopped at an outfitter. I think it was close to where they live. Close to Washington DC. But, we stopped in an outfitter. I was looking for some more liner socks because I¢d decided that the heavier socks weren¢t going to work for me anymore. Then we stopped at a liquor store and got some stuff and came back here. Oh, and Mark got some really fine cigars which we sat around and smoked for a long time tonight. When we got back here I took a shower. I¢m sitting here in his garage on the floor on an old rug listening to the dryer go round and round and waiting for everything to dry. I¢ve got everything spread out here and that¢s basically it for Saturday, June 7th. Tomorrow, we are supposed to be going kayaking. Then they¢re gonna drop me back off on the trail sometime in the afternoon for me to continue hiking on. But in the meantime, I¢m tired. It¢s 11 o¢clock at night. I¢m ready for my laundry to finish. It was a short day in terms of hiking time. A little over 4 hours. It was a bad day in terms of time and speed. That was the dryer going off telling me it¢s time. 14 miles is a long way to walk in 12 day.