Date: 2006-05-24
From: Whitetop Mountain, Va

To: One mile N of Wise Shelter, Va.
Miles today: 11.8
Weather: broken clouds

It was another cool night at about 40 degrees. Normally that would be great, but I've got my 45 degree summer quilt and not my 10 degree sleeping bag. Oh how I wish I had my 10 degree sleeping bag. :-))) I woke up at 6am and layed in my tent and watched the sun come up. It was right out my tent door and there are a bunch of may apples growing up around me. It was beautiful watching the sunshine hitting the large may apple leaves. I started my coffee and had a cherry pie and an apple pie for breakfast. Life really is so hard out here. :-)) The sun started warming it up pretty fast this morning, so I got packed up and walking at 8:15. It's another beautiful day. Shortcut and I got to Elk Garden at 9:40 and I walked back into the woods and got our food that we stashed there the other day. I always wrap the food up in a black garbage bag and lay it on the ground and cover it with leaves. I've never had any critters bother it. I had a 6 pack of sodas, so we drank 2 and packed out 2 each for later.It was nice being able to hide that food there because we are taking our time walking through Grayson Highlands and would have had to carry about 6 days of food. While I was eating a snack, Fargo walked by and said hello, then kept going and climbed the next mountain. We repacked our food in our backpacks, then went over and got rid of our garbage in a can that had Chief's name written on it. We put our heavy packs back on and headed up the mountain. Weeks passed by us just before we got to Deep Gap. We stopped just north of Deep Gap and took a break on a big rock. Billy from Philly walked by while we were there. We kept climbing until we got to Thomas Knob Shelter at 5,400 feet high. Billy from Philly and Weeks were there when we got there, but took off just after that. I ate a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and some crackers while Shortcut went around back and fell asleep in the warm sun on a big rock.I read through the register that was there and found where I had come through on my sobo hike last Sept 29th. It's always so nice to see smiley faces in the registers. :-))) I walked down to the spring and filled up all the water bottles. Shortcut woke up about that time and came around to the front of the shelter. Pickle Toes and Waterfall had come in and were eating and just before we left, Old Reb came in. Fifteen minutes after we left the shelter, we saw two short horses off in the distance. We kept walking and came up on 6 more short horses. I was busy taking pictures of them, then when we got over the next ridge, there were about 25 of those short buggers there and 7 foals. I walked right into the middle of them and started taking lots of pictures. Shortcut came over to take a few photos and when she pulled the zipper on her camera case, a short horse thought she had food and came right up to her. We walked on and saw another 10 short horses and about 6 cows just before Massey Gap. We stopped at a nice rock that was just right for a back rest and sat down and cooked dinner. The rhododendrons haven't bloomed yet at this high elevation. The trees are either just getting some leaves or don't have any at all yet.The Balson Firs really smell nice up here too. We stopped at Wise Shelter next and talked to Weeks for a while before walking on. We came up to 6 more short horses and 2 short foals. I got a few more pictures, but they took off and didn't want me to get too close to them. I had gotten water for the night from a good spring a mile back, so we started looking for a nice tent site. There were so many rocks that it was over a mile from the shelter before I found the one I wanted. I got the tent set up and got in for the night. This was the best day I've ever had in Grayson Highlands. It was also the most short horses I've ever seen in here. This was also the first day that I felt like I was going to be able to do a long distance walk in a while. I've been having alot of foot pain on my right heel since back in early April. I thought the rest I took might help it, but it was just as bad if not worse when I got back out here.I had cut a hole in my insole just like I did back in '03 for a heel spur on my left heel and that worked great. My left heel never bothers me anymore.It wasn't working on my right heel though.I was sitting with my shoes off while on one of the breaks today and I started feeling around my heel for the spur. I found it a little closer to the inside part of my foot than the one on my left heel was, so I cut a new hole in my insole and I had very little foot pain today for the first time in a long time.You can call me Dr Stumpy the foot doctor from now on. Ha!!! :-)))