Date: 2005-05-06
From: Tye River

To: somewhere south of Humpback Mountain (face plant)
Miles today: 16.6

start: Tye River (Dutch Haus B&B)finish: somewhere south of Humpback Mountain (face plant)miles: 16.6day: 60The Dutch Haus is so nice. The bed was perfect, and breakfast was even better - really good bacon, eggs, fruit, and lots of french toast, followed by fruit loops cereal, all chased with juice and tea.Johnny Blaze has been watching the Star Wars trilogy on the VCR since we got here last night, and is still watching this morning. The Tye River crew turned out to be the last shuttle, and by that time Johnny, Goldilocks and I decided to leave in the afternoon instead. Darcy is the only responsible hiker among us.So now I'm lazing in a recliner in front of the TV, wearing clean clothes. It looks overcast, chilly and windy outside, but I wouldn't really know Stumpknocker called here earlier wanting to know why I hadn't responded publicly to his recent guestbook entry in my journal. I had sent off an email to him right away, but he didn't get it. Hmmm, I wonder how many other emails aren't getting sent? Anyway, to his expression of "concern" I responded:"Why did I ever decide to keep a public journal? My innermost thoughts, from the depths of my despair in a difficult moment, openme up to ridicule from my so-called friends." My wife made fun of me too, implying I was whining too much. Boo hoo, poor me We DO plan to hike later today, and probably still do the 30 miles before the Waynesboro PO closes at 11:00 tomorrow.[much later...]Can you say "night hike"? Oh, no problem, we'll just start hiking at around 3:00 pm and do the 30 miles into Waynesboro. No problem. Well, Goldilocks, Johnny Blaze and I did the first 10 without incident, in the daylight, spotting Tea Break along way and convincing him to join us. We met up with Kodak near Maupin Field Shelter and she needed no convincing. Johnny, however was not committed to going past the shelter, and kept looking at the mileage - 21 miles to go and it's 8:00 pm. Johnny decided not come along despite our best efforts at shaming him into it, etc. "Come on, don't you wanna be part of a real hiker gang?" So the rest of us pretty much cooked and ate all of our food, leaving behind Johnny B., Coco Bean, Super Cheese, Iceman and VolFan.Well, we made good time until it got dark, then with no moon we ran into huge boulder fields and generally lots of rocks. Ugh, not good for night hiking. Goldilocks led valiantly using no headlamp, finding the trail somehow. I followed him, Tea Break and Kodak appreciating the faint glow from my long johns, which I was wearing over my shorts (remind me not to try hitchhiking dressed this way). At one point I had been watching the faint outlines of Goldilocks' legs moving, to see where to put my feet, and got kind of hypnotized, realizing I had absolutely no depth perception. As soon as I realized this, it seemed as if I was walking/floating 6 inches above the ground - and I almost fell.Tea Break proposed we should use headlamps - doh. Kodak gave me some lithium AAAs for my headlamp and it was like someone turned on the sun. But we were still only making about 1.5 MPH, and at one point We realized Kodak, who was bringing up the rear, was gone. Gone, you say? We saw her little red photon light wandering around in the woods way back there. So around 12:30 we decided to sleep, er crash. We were walking zombies. It was way past our bedtimes. Goldilocks and I laid in the leaves a few feet off the trail, immediately falling asleep, while Kodak and Tea Break, who had each hiked 10 more miles than us today, just laid down right in the trail. We set our "internal alarms" to wake up at 4:30. It was quite cold, just above freezing, as I fell asleep.