Date: 2011-06-20
From: Priest Shelter

To: Maupin Shelter
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 91 - I neglected to say yesterday that I was able to listen to ESPN's radio show during the afternoon and followed the U.S. Open which kept me occupied. Around 9:00pm, it started raining and raining hard. I had hung my wet clothes out on a tree limb and just left them; figuring they were already wet and maybe the rain would rinse them off. Around 3:00am the rain stopped and the wind picked up. Needless to say, I was happy to be underneath the shelter versus in my tent. As I have said previously, tenting in the rain is OK except for breaking camp and for the extra weight that a wet tent weighs. I did put on my extra set of clothes and hung the wet ones on the back of my pack in an attempt to allow them to dry out during the day. I have an extra set of everything except my hiking shorts. I was on the trail at 8:30am, it was supposed to be in the high 80's today so I should have gotten an earlier start but the sleep was nice too. This shelter is 34 miles from Rockfish Gap and Waynesboro and I gave thought during the day that if I did two 17 mile days, I could be in Waynesboro Tuesday night. The next shelter was 13.8 miles away so I had plenty of time to think through it. I stopped at Harper Creek shelter at 12:45pm after hiking 7.6 miles. I have mentioned previously that when it gets so hot I really do not have an appetite during the middle of the day. Not eating is not a good idea because of the calories that I am burning. So starting last week, I attempted something new. I bought hard summer sausage, a block of sharp cheddar cheese and crackers. The crackers are a little problematic to keep them from being crushed. This week I got the little mini sausages, individual cheese pieces and hard bread rolls. Even though it says to refrigerate after opening I believe the sausage has enough preservatives in them to last a couple of days. This really worked well and I was able to eat, it tasted good and is not too bulky. I passed several Mountain Laurel groves yesterday and today, all on the northwest side of the mountains. Prior to this, for the last week or so, they have all dropped their blooms. I also ate my first little bitty blueberries. I am talking about roughly half the size of a pea. There was hardly enough to taste but that should be a real treat the coming weeks if the bears do not eat them first. At 4:00pm it started to rain, so I had to pack all my electronics away and put the rain cover on my pack. I arrived at Maupin Shelter at 5:20pm and had to make a decision. Do I go on or do I stay with my original plan of arriving in Waynesboro on Wednesday. I was tired and better judgment prevailed. Once again, I stayed in the shelter as isolated thunder storms were forecasted for the area. There were two other hikers at the shelter, Luke a high school art teacher and Mountain Squid from of all places, Elizabethton. He was a 20 year veteran in the Navy and had section hiked the trail in 2005-2007. The day was tough; it was just a lot of ups and downs, all over rocks and basically just wore me out. I did 13.8 miles today bringing my total up to 833.2 miles.