Date: 2014-04-29
From: Thunder Hill Shelter

To: Punchbowl Shelter
Miles today: 25.1
Weather: light rain

The rain not only continued today, it intensified. We got a late start due to the amount of lightning flashes overhead. At around 9:30 AM, after the storm had calmed and we had built up our courage, Birdman, Mumbles, and I finally took a deep breath and plunged into the rain.The rain actually provides an entirely different kind of beauty to the forest, deepening the greens and browns and covering everything in a reflective sheer. Of course, it also provides a new element of danger, as that reflective sheen also turns everything into a bar of soap. In other words, today was the day I finally bit the ground in a major way. I was paying a bit too much attention to the Cliff bar I was eating instead of the trail and placed a wet boot on what must have been a log coated in Vaseline and KY jelly. Within a split second I was completely airborne and horizontal, staring at the ground and thinking ¢Well, this is happening, no stopping it now¢. Birdman described the sound of my impact as if someone had dropped a wet pancake onto a plastic bag full of air, as there were really two impacts: first there was me, landing flat on the muddy trail; and then my backpack, smashing the air out of my lungs with a loud ¢Oomph¢!   All I could do was laugh at the situation, and I suffered nothing more than a scraped knee. Still, it was one of those moments where you realize just how little it could take to end your journey, as my confrontation with gravity could have ended very differently.Today was another day of large elevation changes, primarily because the trail dropped down to 678 ft. in order to cross the James River footbridge, the longest foot use only bridge on the entire trail. The river itself was magnificent, its banks overflowing due to the large amounts of rain over the past two days. The bridge was also a treat, as it offered great views of the river, the mountains we had just descended, and the climbs we had yet to traverse. In spite of the rain, or maybe even because of it, it was a beautiful morning.Birdman and I stopped for a lengthy lunch 16 miles into our day, bypassing a previous shelter due to an unfortunate event. The first shelter, Matt¢s Creek, has been closed to camping due to the death of a fellow thru-hiker in the shelter. This hiker had reported feeling ill to others and decided to stay in Matt¢s Creek until he recovered. Unfortunately, he never did. There are several rumors floating around in concerns to his cause of death, but it seems the Forest Service is (thankfully) making sure the situation is safe before opening the shelter back up to hikers. Whatever the case, I wish the family of this hiker my condolences.After lunch, most of our hiking partners (Hawk, Mumbles, and Sea Biscuit) had caught up ¢ they had left their shelter extra early due to exceptionally crappy weather. Together we all forged toward our destination of Punchbowl Shelter, gaining 2,500 ft. in elevation and trudging another 9 miles in the mud. Along the way, we found a memorial to Ottie Cline Powell, a four year old that died in these mountains in the 1800¢s. Supposedly, Punchbowl Shelter is haunted by Little Ottie¢s ghost, but all we saw was a nest of Eastern Phoebe chicks and their mother, who kept constant watch around us stinky hikers. We rested well knowing she would likely chase away any ghosts that might give us or her chicks any problems.