Date: 2004-07-10
From: RPH Shelter 

To: Nuclear Lake 
Miles today: 13.5

We were fed again by the great guys of the Bascom Trail Club. Eggs, bacon, blueberry pancakes (mostly blueberries), fruit. The works! Thanks, guys! Needless to say we did not get an early start.But we did finally manage to pull away. DS, Lobstah and I were hiking together when a hiker approched from the north. Low and behold it was my buddy Sam, tracking us down. It was a cool surprise. We decided to hike down to his car to pick up some beer and continue on to camp at Nuclear Lake. Lobstah and I went first and found Hobbit and Longshot already camped out. We put up our tents as it was getting dark and Sam and Dragon Slayer came in under headlamps. We had a good time cooking dinner and hanging out by the lake. Great company and a nice vist by my buddy Sam: AKA "MailTragic". Guest author Sam--- Was contemplating driving down to Mount Rogers to go hiking for the weekend, until I realized that Pat was closer even though he was in NY. Go figure. So I decided to drive up and surprise him, and hike for a day in tick country. It's a bit tough to calculate where people are on the trail, but I knew he planned to stay at RPH shelter Friday night, so I decided to drive up to Rt. 55 and hike south. That way I'd likely meet him at the next shelter down around lunch time, if he got underway his normal 10-11 a.m., or I'd meet him soon after starting out if somehow Lobstah and the Slayer managed to get him up early. And if I got the shelter 3 miles in and saw that they'd already been through, I'd know I'd missed them and I'd hike back out, drive further north, and try again. But I wasn't too concerned with missing them. They would have had to get started awfully early, and this is Patrick we're talking about. Arrived at the shelter around 1:30, to find Red (long section hiker) and Nights Out (weekender), and learned that Red had indeed spotted them back at RPH. Shortly thereafter, White Lightnin' showed up and said they weren't too far behind him. Seems they had decided to stay at RPH for pancakes (after eating eggs earlier that morning, and steaks and grilled chicken the night before) and were (surprise, surprise) a bit late getting underway. But they were definitely packing up and heading this way... After 30 minutes or so, along came Pilot and Vapor Trail, who said yes, Pat/Lobstah/DS were behind them, but they'd passed the threesome on the road, heading into town for pizza. But he was pretty sure they were still coming. I'm beginning to seriously question the poor-starving-thruhikers myth... I figured I'd see them by 3:30, but when they didn't show I decided to keep hiking south, in case they had run into a Krispy Kreme shop on their way back to the trail and decided "Ya know, I think three miles is enough for one day" and then pitched their tents in the back with the frier. So I walked about another two miles or so south until I saw Buddy leading the way, followed by Lobstah and DS. Lobstah seemed surprised to see me. DS seemed happy to see me. Pat immediately started looking to see if I'd brought beer. Buddy took a nap. We hiked back up to the shelter, where they had planned to stop for the night (Nine miles? Puhleez.) But all I had to do was mention that I had beer in the truck three miles away, and the boots and packs went back on. Longshot and Hobbit hiked ahead to Nuclear Lake (no, it doesn't glow), the rest of us went to the car then on to the lake--Pat, Lobstah and Buddy first, then DS and I followed in the dark. (Our plan had been to go to the store then drive to the lake site to meet the others, but the access road was closed, so we hiked in.) Pitched our tents in a field along the lake shore; in the morning I would learn it was a beautiful site. Stayed up talking with Pat, then climbed in my tent and drifted to sleep to the sound of coyotes--and it sounded like LOTS of coyotes--howling and yipping on the other side of the lake. I was hoping they might wander into camp at night so I could see them, but if they came I slept through it.