Date: 2009-05-25
From: Marble Spring

To: Punchbowl Shelter
Miles today: 18.2
Weather: light rain

May 25 -- written May 26 - 08:25The good news this wet morning is the tent is dry and has kept me dry after a mile and a half walk in a thunderstorm off of Bluff Mtn which began around 19:45. Arriving here at the Punchbowl Shelter, named or its pond, complete with croaking bull frogs and an overabundance of very active, very noisy frog peepers, I set up quickly in now intermittent rain on a slant, again, my clothes soaked, my pack 0k. The shelter was full of noisy part timers, partying late, th rain splattered all night, the peepers were so loud at times that I couldn't here the rain, one of my tenting neighbors snored all night, all of this added to a bad sleep. I am not motivated here with coffee and bags of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, the most potent "food" that I could find in Glascow yesterday lunchtime. I crossed the James River Foot Bridge, actually named for Bill Foot, facing Trail Angel Ken, "Where're ya headin'?", spoken like he'd said it a few thousand times, I hesitated, did he mean ME, or..., "Inta town", I said, "Which one?", came back, it didnt matter, he'd have taken me to Glascow or Big Island because that is what he does! I bought my usual kilo calorie snacks for 2 days, wolfed a doublecheesburger, made a phone call and there was Ken, "Ready to go back?" Unbelievable kindness, he shuttled 6 of us, 2 trips, 5m back to the trail, where who drives up, my Park Ranger friend Eric from Jennings Creek, we both laughed. It was a long break to town, a little too long, it cost a walk in the rain, not bad, but the lightning/thunder times were almost coincident, too close. The once common Junkos have disappeared weeks ago, replaced by several species of invisible song birds, the most common I call the Roll Call bird. It has a catalog of 1, 2, or 3 syllable names that are repeated, in an order that I am not able to decipher, sometimes calling solo, sometimes more than one, but the names have tone and inflection that are reproduced, each bird having at least seven names. I've heard them for weeks, and recently the cadence is faster and the names said quicker. Is this a maturing attribute, or more northern dialect or something else? Featherfoot, Hulk, Hobbit, Knickers, Josey Wales, Joker, Many Names, Yak, etc, all day long. The Wood Thrush, familiar from backyard summer evenings in NJ is often heard in the still evenings and mornings. Their call is a remarkable combination of dissonant notes sometimes, sometimes spaced unevenly, in repeatable long phrases. I wonder if the early blues men working in the fields all day listening only to bird calls went home at night repeating the sounds and imitating them using a piece of wire stretched across a board. The nature of the open woods has also changed with the endless variety of song birds. The abundant maple has been displaced to an extent by more red oak, hickory and hackberry, tulip trees still present, and there are fewer thick groves of rhododendron, perhaps due to less frequent springs recently. Water sources are less common in VA, the bugs are more common and numerous, they must survive on blood then, and I've certainly donated my part.