Date: 2005-04-13
From: Painter Branch campsites (NC/TN?)

To: New Roaring Fork Shelter, (NC/TN?)
Miles today: 12.3
Weather: light rain

Day 31, in which Jess witnesses a near-brawl over a granola bar, gets hailed on and waits for the other nine plagues to follow, celebrates a month on the trail by getting soaked to the bone and hanging out in a privy, and attests to the world that she can handle nature: So here is the end of my first month on the trail and it is being duly celebrated by a) having passed the 250-mile mark and b) getting rained on hardcore.The morning was foggy but mostly dry, and I hoped it¢d clear up. Five miles in, we stopped for a snack at Groundhog Creek Shelter, where I wrote a longing missive to sunshine in the register and Linux got excited about some Clif bars that appeared to have been left on the picnic table (¢Free food!¢), only to be disappointed when the Clif bars¢ rightful owners came charging back from the bear cables, yelling DON'T EAT OUR FOOD. Oh, well.Back on the trail, about 7 miles from Max Patch, and then the rain started. And then it started coming down harder. And then harder. ¢I want EXTREME weather conditions,¢ said Pacman. ¢Bring it on, weather.¢ ¢No need to invite it,¢ I said drily (wetly?). ¢You¢ll have time.¢ It began to hail. On my neck. ¢Ow,¢ I said. ¢Invigorating,¢ said L. ¢Provocative,¢ said P. ¢Patch to the max,¢ I said, and a hailstone ricocheted off my sinuses. We kept walking. Stopped only briefly, first to put on a jacket, then to grab some food - too hungry to keep walking without it (¢I completely understand,¢ said Pacman) - and a few thunderbolts sounded right over our heads. I understand Max Patch is supposed to be a lovely place and all that, but today I saw a) grass and b) some stellar fog.Coming down Max Patch, we found ourselves faced with an interesting conundrum. The weather continuing to be vile, it seemed preferable to shelter rather than tent if at all possible. However, the nearest ¢shelter¢ - the New Roaring Fork Shelter, marked ¢under construction¢ in the guidebooks - was in fact a large pile of logs next to a fully constructed privy. And the Old Roaring Fork Shelter, presumably intact and four miles north, would, we knew, be full. So it would be tenting either way. And I wasn¢t especially excited about the prospect of walking four more miles in the pouring rain. We decided to stay where we were, but were reluctant to set up our tents right away on account of the weather. (¢I¢ll sleep under the 2 by 4s¢ said Pacman) Maybe if we waited twenty minutes or a half an hour, we thought, the rain would let up a little, and we could set up camp without soaking all our stuff. So we stood stiffly together under a clump of pines while the water sheeted down and collected in all the folds of our clothes, and Linux had to breathe on his hands in order to be able to work his zipper, and Scholar looked mildly wretched, and the rain showed no signs of slowing. Suddenly Pacman got a strange look on his face and peeled out from underneath the trees, turning sharply downhill. Linux and I looked at each other. ¢Is he?-¢ I wondered, and then Linux said, ¢I know what he¢s doing!¢ and then came Pacman¢s voice from down the hill, ¢Eureka! Come on!¢ And we turned and went, and sure enough, Pacman was delightedly ensconced in the completed privy - the only roofed structure in an eleven mile stretch. And the rest of us poured in, and so the five of us - Pacman, Linux, CJ, Scholar, and me- stood huddled around a toilet seat in a 3¢ X 3¢ wooden box, pleased about nothing so much as no longer being directly rained on. Even the pleasures of group bonding in a privy wear thin after a while, however; and the rain STILL wasn¢t letting up. So we tag-teamed tent setup - two people stretching out a rainfly over a third person setting up a tent - and managed to get everything put up without its getting too wet inside. It was awkward, and cold, with hands numb and clumsy, and I poured water out of my shoes when I finally took them off, but once I¢d changed into dry clothes and sat safely out of the weather, eating couscous and drinking hot chocolate, I thought: This is gratifying. I still don¢t think I¢d go so far as to invite the nasty weather, but here it is and I can handle it. I still wish the rain would stop, but I can handle it.