Date: 2011-04-22
From: Hogback Ridge Shelter

To: No Business Shelter
Miles today: 20.7
Weather: light rain

(In which I meet U-Haul and melt my shoes)My tent keeps me dry through a second night of intermittent rain and I wake to rainy, foggy weather. I sit inside the tent draining my Kindle battery browsing the internet and hoping the weather will clear up, but knowing that I will likely have to face the facts and pack up in the rain. I am jealous of the hikers in the shelter, who can stay dry while they pack, but know that we will likely all get equally wet once we start hiking anyway. At 8am I finally grimace and run outside to grab my food bag.When I duck under the overhang of the shelter, food in hand, I am surprised to find all of the shelter occupants still in their sleeping bags. I take my breakfast over to the tiny side overhang so as not to disturb those who are still sleeping, standing up straight with my back against the shelter wall to avoid the rain. I eat a hearty breakfast to postpone leaving, but when I finally start hiking at 9am I am one of the first to leave.The rain is not too cold, once I start hiking, but my feet quickly get soaked. The trail seems to have more than its share of steep descents, each treacherously muddy. I see the tell-tale mud streaks of other hikers' slides and use these to successfully avoid the slickest patches of trail, though it is still slow going.When I get to the first shelter, it is later than I expect. The only other person at the shelter is U-Haul, one of the only black hikers I've seen on the trail, a large man with a powerful if bulky frame. As I start eating lunch we get to talking, and at some point he mentions slimming his pack down to 100 pounds. I have to ask him to repeat himself because I assume I misheard, but he says matter-of-factly that he used to carry 120 pounds in his pack but is now down to 100. I take a good look around the shelter, and begin to realize the scope of his possessions.He carries a two-person sleeping bag, he says, and I see the kind I've only ever seen couples sleep in. He carries books (I ask him how many and he has to think, "four or five right now" is his guess), canvasses and paint, but sold his computer for one hundred dollars in Hiawassee (this he says with just a hint of regret). He carries a collection of documents wrapped against the rain in dozens of yellow Dollar General bags that I recognize from Hot Springs. He has culinary certificates (he is from New York city but has worked as a professional chef in the UK), pictures of his abstract, impressionistic artwork (he describes himself as an "outsider painter", but has sold paintings for money), resumes and character references, and much more. He says that in Georgia he burned the papers that were weighing him down, emotionally speaking, including his old marriage license. He seems untroubled by the weight, and when he says that he started on February 12th, there is no impatience or regret in this fact.U-Haul has a calm, open personality, as if he has already made peace with whatever life might have in store for him. He is a genuine trail character, and I am astounded that I haven't heard of him, until I realize that, as the self described slowest hiker on the trail, no one I've met could have met him before. If he did sign registers, most entries would be pages back, or in some cases in journal that have already been replaced. By going slower than anybody else, he has effectively rendered himself invisible to those behind him, at least until the southbounders start coming through.I stay longer than I intend talking with him at the shelter, and before I leave, faster hikers who started later in the morning have arrived and started lunch. When I leave I shake hands with U-Haul and wish him the best of luck. I could be surprised, but I think that I will not see him again this trip.* * *I hike slightly faster than normal, anxious to get to the next shelter before dark or the shelter is full to avoid having to tent for a third consecutive night. At points when the trail switches back and forth several times I can hear the group of hikers behind me and I'm spurred on like a man pursued. When I finally reach the last shelter (the aptly named privy-less "No Business Shelter"), there is already a crowd, but everyone has opted to tent, as do all of those who show up after me but one.At the shelter I chat with Sam and Morgan, local college students out for a short Spring Break hike southbound on the AT. In the busy crowd of thru-hikers they are both quiet and reserved, but once most of the hikers have retreated to their tents, Morgan is open and friendly with a soft, sweet southern accent. She makes me realize how few locals I've met on the trip. They are both active climbers and hikers, and I am struck by the similarities of college students around the country and around the world.As Sam and Morgan work to hang their bear bag with climbing rope (no bear cables as well as no privy), I prop my legs up to dry my shoes by the fire. The shoes are still wet, and I can see steam rise off of them. Eventually I realize that it is not steam after all, but by the time I have pulled the shoes away from the fire, my feet still in them, I can see that one of the types of rubber in the shoes' soles has already completely melted. I pull my feet out in a hurry, lucky not to burn them, and am thankful that it is only five miles down to Erwin. In the morning I will inspect the cooled shoes to see if they will make it down the mountain (I can always go barefoot or borrow someone's camp shoes if necessary), but for now I will go to sleep, happy to have met new friends today, if only briefly.