Date: 2005-04-21
From: Calf Mountain Shelter

To: Blackrock Shelter
Miles today: 13.0

(A continuation of the record of my section hike of the AT through the SNP in August, 2003)Knowing we had a 13 mile day ahead of us, Spook and I got an early start on our hike, happy to be gone from the weird old coot who occupied the shelter. He had begun the morning talking to us, or at us, pretty much non-stop, and we could hear him continue to talk to himself for some distance as we hiked back up the blue-blazed trail to the where we picked up the AT again. We soon forgot him, however, as we focused on the challenge of the day ahead. It was very much a repeat of the day before, very hot, very humid, and with a number of pretty good hills to climb. We took it relatively slowly, but averaged nearly two miles an hour when we were actually hiking. Still, it was close to 5 pm when we found the trail leading off downhill to Blackrock shelter. Neither of us wanted to admit to the other how much the day had taken out of us, but the fact is that that second day pretty much whipped both of our butts. In my case, the main problem was my feet. In addition to growing blisters on both heels, I had developed severe pain from the toenails of my two little piggies which seemed to be banging against the sides of my shoes on the downhills. I also had sore points on my hips from where the hip belt was riding and on one shoulder from where the shoulder strap was rubbing. In addition to the exhaustion of carrying a nearly 50 pound pack, the friction was really starting to destroy parts of my anatomy. In fact, the major lesson for me from the entire SNP hike was just that: Friction is the enemy. If something is rubbing, STOP. FIX IT. Or you will very soon regret that you did not do that. After our experience with the occupant of the first night's shelter, we were rather hoping that the next one would be less worisome. As we started down the blue-blazed trail to the shelter, however, we began hearing a less-than-encouraging sound: kids yelling like wild indians. At first we thought that it might be a bunch of college kids, maybe a fraternity or something, staying at the shelter, as we could hear much whooping and hollering. Oh great, we thought. Just what we need. We were close: it turned out to be a group of about 20 boy scouts. They were a troop from Ohio, doing a section hike in the SNP, and having a pretty good time. Unfortunately, they were violating one of the principle rules of hiking in the SNP, and for most of the AT for that matter, which is that hiking parties are limited to not more than 10 people. They had taken over the shelter, leaving no room for me and Spook, so we had no choice but to set up our tents. They had also taken up most of the best tent sites, however, so we were left with less-than-level sites and just had to make do. We were WAY too tired to even THINK about moving on.Since Spook and I are also Scout leaders, we introduced ourselves and got to taking with the boys and their leaders. They turned out to be a pretty good group, and they had a campfire going, so it wasn't all that bad. Spook and I filtered water, cooked and ate dinner, and set up our tents. In talking with the Scouts, we learned that this was actually their second day at that shelter. They had hiked in the day before, and had taken a "zero day" that day, in part because two of the leaders were suffering from a bad case of dehydration. Dehydration can have an extremely debilitating impact on the human body, causing cramps, nasuea, headache, etc. -- just generally a miserable experience. And it's not something you recover from at the end of the day simply by taking on more water. I had experienced a reasonably mild case on my shakedown hike from Harpers Ferry to Snickers Gap, and that was one of the major lessons for me from that hike. Unfortunately, my hiking partner was not so lucky. During the previous day's 7 mile hike, while I had consumed 132 ounces during the hike, and even more later at camp, he had relied on water jars rather than the sip tube that I was carrying which made it much easier for me to continually take on more water. He had apparently become dehydrated that first day, and had not fully recovered. Day two, with twice the number of miles and twice the number of hours of hiking essentially did him in. After dinner he came to me and gave me the bad news. He said he had managed to reach his wife via his cell phone, and arranged for her to pick him up the next day at one of the points where the trail intersected with the Skyline Drive which runs through the park. He was appologetic, but I told him I totally understood, and that one of the main purposes of these initial hikes was precisely to learn what it takes to do a long-distance hike. We were both facing a pretty steep learning curve, and we just had to accept that experience was the only way we were going to learn how to do this thing right - and experience can be hard task-master. He asked if I'd be going on, hiking solo, and I assured him that I would. I was grateful at that point to have had the solo hiking experience the month before, as it gave me the confidence I needed to keep going.Soon after dark the Scout leaders managed to get the boys to settle down long enough for us to fall asleep in our tents, but not long after that we were shaken awake by a major thunderstorm moving throught the area. The lightening and thunder were truely awesome. While we weren't at the top of the mountain, lightening was definitely in the air and hitting nearby, and the thunder boomers were at times right on top of us. We just said a small prayer, and went back to sleep. At least our tents kept us dry, even if we had to keep climbing back to the top of our sleeping pad due to the unlevel ground. C'est la vie.Stay tuned, Longhaul