Date: 2015-04-07
From: NOC

To: Sassafras Gap Shelter 
Miles today: 6.9

I woke up at 5 and was wide awake so I ate breakfast and began to get ready to get back on the trail and was off at 6:30. I love to be the first one to hit the trail in the morning. I get the trail all to myself and I will often be singing along to my ipod which gets me going and helps my breathing to be better.( It also lets the bears and other nocturnal animals know that I am coming.) It reminds me of singing cadence at boot camp. It was a very strenuous and long climb up to the Sassafras Gap Shelter and I was slowed down from my usual 3mph to about 1mph. Along the way was a memorial to a forest ranger who had given his life while fighting a forest fire. Hikers had made it a cairn with small offerings and trinkets. The views at the Jump-up were amazing! At the shelter I met a great group of miscellaneous hikers who were cooking and getting high. They had music playing and courteously asked if that was o.k. which I said it was fine with me. I even pulled out my iPod and played some of my music for them. They called getting high "Having a Safety Meeting." They were fun just to watch and listen to as they would talk about getting hiking and then they would smoke some pot and then get the munchies. So they would break out the cooking gear and cook some very complicated, but delicious food. They shared some chicken quesadillas with me that they had made on 2 frying pans. The hiker had a grill that folded in 3 pieces with two parts of the grill as legs. They put two jetboil cannister stoves under and had two frying pans going at once! One of the hikers carried a machete, a hand blown glass pipe and a frying pan which he used to cook pancakes daily. Since it was just them in the shelter they had some good music on and it was very festive. I was (apparently obviously) in a great deal of pain from my knee and back and one of them, finding out offered me a hit of the pot, saying that it would help with the pain. The over the counter stuff wasn't working and I couldn't take Ibuprofen because I had donated a kidney. I was willing to try it and told them that I hadn't smoked pot for 21 years. This caused surprise and as I took two puffs in turn, they watched me intently to see what would happen. In no time the pain faded away along with my stress and so I sat crossed legged and put on my iPod headphones for awhile and played some Enya as the effects of the "safety meeting" were a bit intense at first but mellowed out soon. I shared how I was feeling with the hikers and they were happy to have given me trail magic. Eventually got motivated to break camp and hit the trail in a cloud of smoke. Eventually other hikers arrived including Mamma and Baby Bear,while Doc and the Bionic Woman passed through to a further spot. Giggly Goose and his crew spent the night and are a great group to visit with. Giggly goose went down to warn a hiker that he was under 2 dead trees, worried after the hiker had died in MD from a dead tree falling on him. The hiker moved his tent only a short ways and called it good. He told Giggly Goose that he had felonious amounts of weed in his tent and then proceeded to show him. We all agreed that he was "way too safe" so we agreed to keep an eye out for him in case the dead tree fell. I went to bed early listening to the Bible. What a beautiful day.