Date: 2004-07-12
From: Rausch Mountain Shelter

To: Route 501 Shelter
Miles today: 17.4

Rain. Drenching rain. Got wet. Rained all day. Stayed wet all day. I could leave my journal entry for today with just what I have written. Rain was THE big part of my life today and of course, hiking in it. But that really wouldn¢t tell you much about what the experience really held, so, instead, I¢d like to propose an interactive means by which you, too, can experience what this day of hiking on the Appalachian Trail was like for yourself. Just follow the directions. Trust me -- you'll have ¢fun!¢First, put on your lightweight polypro top and shorts. (I¢ll leave the decision to wear a rain jacket and/or a hat up to you.) Now put on your best leather boots. Put your treadmill in your bathtub and surround it with brambles and poison ivy and, if you¢re into aesthetics, a fern or two. You¢ll have to make sure that the brambles are high enough and close enough to the treadmill to be able to rake both your arms and your legs if you are not paying close attention with every step. Okay, now fill the remaining space of the tub with as many large rocks and small boulders as you can, making sure that the ¢point-y¢ part of each rock is facing up. Set the air-conditioner at 52 degrees, close the door and release a few horseflies, deerflies, mosquitoes and those dammed ¢no-see-¢ems¢. The last preparation step is to drop a small rattlesnake into the tub knowing that, if it behaves true to form, it¢ll probably bury itself in the rocks and you¢ll never see it or hear from it again. But, I can guarantee that you certainly won¢t forget it¢s there! Oh yes, I almost forgot, you need to strap a 35 pound pack on your back, or if you don¢t have one handy, you can tie two cases of beer/soda unto your back with a clothesline to simulate the effect. There! Now, all you need to do is start up the treadmill and turn on the shower, cold, (of course), get on it and don¢t get off except twice as described below for the next 10 12 hours. After two hours you you¢ve earned a break! You can turn the water off and take a twenty-minute rest (you¢re now under the highway bridge at Swatara Gap, near Jonesboro PA) BUT, before you stop, be sure to pour two gallons of muddy water into your boots (this simulates fording the flooded, knee-deep water of the stream you just had to cross.) After wringing out your socks and your top, put everything back on, eat a half cup of GORP and then get back on the treadmill (angled on high for the next hour), and don¢t forget to turn the shower back on, too. Turn it to full-force for a while and then vary it from ¢moderate¢ to ¢monsoon¢ intermittently for the rest of your hike.Having fun yet?It doesn't matter. Stay on the treadmill - in the rocks - along the brambles - on top of the rattlesnake - in the shower for another 4 hours and 15 minutes. Then you¢re ready to take another break (you¢re approaching the William Penn Shelter.) By now you should be famished. At the shelter, take off all your clothes and wring everything out. Put on your dry fleece pullover and your rain pants (whatever you do, don¢t wear your rain pants out in the rain as they¢ll get wet and so will you since there¢s not a pair of rain pants on the face of the earth that actually ever keep people dry! Save your rainpants for when it¢s raining and you want to take a break indoors.) Eat two sardine and cheese burritos and one entire package of Ramen noodles. Wash it all down with a liter of Crystal light iced tea. Relax for a few minutes, but don¢t get TOO comfortable because It¢s time to pack up, get back into your cold, wet hiking attire and get back on the treadmill in the shower for another hour and a half.If, when you¢ve finished this last section you haven¢t slipped on the wet rocks and fractured your skull, or succumbed to hypothermia from the cold and the rain and the exhaustion, or bled to death from the innumerable scratches of the brambles on your legs and arms: CONGRATULATIONS! You¢ve just arrived at the Route 501 Shelter and have just lived through what today was like for me and many others out there on the Appalachian Trail. But, WAIT! You¢re in for a really big treat! (And I mean a ¢BIG!¢ treat) The 501 Shelter where you are staying tonight is the one fully enclosed bunkhouse style shelter of its type on the trail that I know of. It¢s got a huge skylight for a roof and real windows and FOUR walls that keep out ALL the rain and noise. It¢s dry! Think of it as having the opportunity to sleep in your garage tonight instead of the woodshed as part of your virtual hike! Lucky you!Inside there are 10 bunk beds along the walls and a long table in the middle of the shelter with a TABLECLOTH AND CHAIRS! The bunkhouse is big enough to accommodate the number of people who are here tonight and between us and the two visiting Labradors, we generate enough body heat (and odor!) to make the room warm and acceptably comfortable. Everyone is in a mesmerized state and there¢s no more noise in this room right now than there would be in a reading room at a retirement facility around 10:00 pm Based on your bathtub experiment today, I¢m sure you can appreciate why. It feels good to simply sit in a device that supports your back!But, to make thing even better though, ¢T¢ (who is from Toronto) and ¢ Rally¢ (who is from Tipton, GA near where my daughter, Kim, was born) have a friend whose trail name is ¢Powderfinger¢ and she is meeting them here this afternoon with a car, and they will be going to town on a pizza-run for dinner! PIZZA! What an incredibly wonderful way to finish an otherwise pretty un-romantic day of slugging it out in the chilling Pennsylvania rain on the Appalachian Trail. (Ohh, go ahead and call Domino's if you want to feel like one of the gang-you¢re part of the vicarious hiking team after all.)Here in the bunkhouse reading room to partake in the pizza party are ¢Chef¢ (who, incidentally, is a carpenter from Litchfield, CT) and ¢Mountain Squid¢ (a navy cook with whom I also had lunch today) as well as ¢Bumpkin¢ (whom you might recall I met last week south of Boiling Springs) and a couple of women who were traveling with ¢Blue¢ up until just a few day ago, ¢Swan¢ and ¢Ursa Minor¢ and a few others whose names I didn't catch.So, bearing in mind that we still have no electricity or running water in our otherwise totally upscale shelter tonight, you, too, can gobble down your pizza and then continue your day¢s simulated experience of the AT by freshening up from your workout as best you can. If you need to use the ¢potty,¢ the privy isn¢t all that far from the shelter (but don¢t forget to walk through the shower to getting there and back as it¢s still raining out there. Be sure you take your own TP, too!) When you¢re finally ready for bed and have collected your thoughts for your journal on soggy paper by the light of your headlamp, say goodnight to everybody and remember, as you go to sleep with the sounds of the rain hitting the tin roof overhead, that tomorrow we get to do it all over again.(By the way, where DID that rattlesnake you put in your tub get to, anyway?)