Date: 2012-05-22
From: Siler Bald Shelter

To: Day 7
Miles today: 22.3

It was a long wet day today. But pretty standard as far as the difficulty of the trail is concerned. I'm sure glad that I linked up with some other thru-hikers, some of whom are rather accomplished athletes and foster a bit of healthy competition in their lives. I'm talking about Daniel and Samantha of course. Sam is about my age; she's a college grad and a marathon runner and, from what I can gather, she's out here to figure out what to do next with her life and get uber-conditioned for marathon running while doing so. Dan is a little older, late 20's maybe, and he is much harder to get a bead on. He's a quiet, reserved, intelligent, school teacher. But he's also a good ol' boy who would rather be fishin' huntin' or muddin' than doing just about anything else. He also has incredibly light gear for such a novice hiker. I mean, he's spent his entire life outdoors, but survivalist/outdoorsman types tend to pack on the heavier-side. Anyway, suffice it to say that neither one of these two can believe or accept the fact that my drunk, stoned, cigarette-smoking ass is currently out-hiking them on a daily basis. And I'll be honest it feels good to be schooling these self-proclaimed athletes too.   The rain has died down to the level of patchy thunderstorms and the terrain has settled down to a fairly low-impact and predictable series of long steady climbs and descents. Good day for doing big miles. About 12 miles in to my day the sky darkened and the wet and the cold finally started to seep into my bones. I decided to pull over and take refuge inside of the Cold Spring Shelter to cook a warm lunch ans shiver myself back to an appropriate body temperature. While doing so a southbound hiker emerged from the woods. To my surprise, this SoBo wore a familiar face. Is that? WALKER! The SoBo turned out to be an old buddy of mine from high school. I heard that he was gonna be out here this summer but had no way to predict if or when our paths would cross. He's only out here doing a 100ish-mile segment and, for some reason, he though it would be a good idea to carry all of his food with him instead of setting up a re-supply. Kid has to be carrying 20+ pounds of food. I was happy to help him eat some of his 3.5 lbs of figs and 16 oz of beef jerky. We gossiped about mutual friends, chatted about old times, and exchanged tips about the upcoming section of the trail for a little while until Dan and Sam caught up. I gave everyone a brief introduction and then it was time for us to go our separate ways. Good luck Walker (a man who's real-name is as good as a trail-name!)   The next half of the day went by fairly quickly. I didn't really mind or care to notice the dilapidated condition of my body because I was still dumbfounded by running in to an old friend in the middle of nowhere, NC. Furthermore, after a fairly steep climb out of Tellico Gap, I was happy to run across a really cool platform-like observation tower near the summit of Wesser Bald Mt. The remarkable view from the tower gave me a moment of pause and reminded me of how right it feels to be out here doing what I'm doing.    Five miles and 2,200' of elevation loss later and I was pulling into the A. Rufus Morgan Shelter just before dark. This shelter is just a mile away from the Nantahala Outdoor Center and my next re-supply point but I figured that I should just stay here for free tonight and devote all day tomorrow to fun in the sun at the NOC. I'm sharing the shelter with an older fellow who claims to be a frightfully unprepared thru-hiker. But past experiences lead me to believe that he is just another wayward hobo who uses the AT to avoid the watchful eye of the law. This guy is fairly harmless though and I'm looking forward to some deep-sleep tonight underneath the pitter patter of rain on this tin roof.