Date: 2005-04-20
From: Tent, Spring Mountain Shelter

To: Shelter, Jerry Cabin Shelter
Miles today: 15.4
Weather: clear sky

Earlier in the day I thought this journal would be sponsored by the words - chaffage and ouch. But as the day went on I realized that today's journal was truly sponsored by the words - exposed ridge, Blackstack cliffs, rocks and #$@%!! I was still feeling sluggish since leaving hot springs. It seemed to take me forever to get to the Troll family's 1st meeting point. But magic happened when I got there. We followed the directions on a sign and the next thing I knew, we were sitting in a log home eating soup. Yummy calorie laden soup with chicken and sausage. The biscuits that accompanied the soup were filled with tasty bits of bacon, cheese, and walnuts. 2 glasses of ice-cold lemonade. The finale to this was a brownie covered in vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate syrup and a cherry on top. Fal and Hercules are former thru hikers who now provide awesome magic. It was really neat to talk with them. Fal has a great appliqu©d quilt that she is making. It is a map of the trail. She picked fabric that reminded her of each state (rocks for Pennsylvania, spring flowers for Tennessee, etc). As you can imagine it was hard to leave such good company and hospitality to go walk in the heat. The next part of the day was even more sluggish. It was HOT. The hiking seemed to be up. Did I mention that it was HOT? And there was no breeze. We eventually made it to Log Cabin road where we met Just Bob's wife. She gave us Gatorade. It was good. Hiking continued on to Little Laural Shelter. We filled up on water. Oblivious and I rinsed our shirts out in the cold spring. Boy, was I glad we did that as we climbed and climbed and climbed up to the camp creek bald fire tower turnoff. It was hot and there was no breeze. As you have probably figured out, the troll family men are hiking in kilts. Troll has a bear kilt in the Nova Scotia tartan and Oblivious has a sport kilt in the St. Paddy tartan. When we were in Hot Springs, I bought a mountain hardware men's hiking kilt. But since it is a plain khaki wraparound skirt with no pleats, I call it my man skirt. It is more maneuverable than shorts but there is a huge chaffage issue. Chaffage is a by-product of sweat, chubby thighs and friction. Luckily I seem to have those things in abundance. I am using my body glide stick (silicon lubricant for thighs), but it can only do so much. I have to get some bicycle short style underwear in Erwin. My men also get various degrees of chaffage. I think hotter days will bring more sweat and more chaffage. Ouch. We spent a mile and probably an hour on the Blackstack cliffs. It was a mostly exposed ridgeline. Imagine huge boulders that you climb up and down over and over again for about one mile straight. At one point, Oblivious said that it was like crawling up a Mayan temple to the execution spot. It was a full body workout. Definitely a stair master from hell. Every joint in my body south of my waist was really upset by this rocky roller coaster. The good news was that when we finished that torture, we got to go up a series of ups. You can only imagine the @#$%^&!! words that came out of my mouth during this process. We finally got to the shelter and decided to forgo the tent in favor of the mouse ridden shelter. After 4 Motrin my feet still ache. Looking forward to a less physically demanding day tomorrow. Least I forget. The highlight of Oblivious' day was getting a rattlesnake rattle. Marcello found it at the top of the cliffs. Oblivious thought it was way cool. Take care and we will see you on the trail