Date: 2005-03-31
From: Standing Bear Hostel

To: Roaring Fork Shelter
Miles today: 18.5
Weather: moderate rain

Up late last night, didn't sleep well, and still felt the High Life from last night. Dragged myself out by 9 with a little help from others who made sure to wake me up. Plan is to get to Hot Springs (34 miles away) by Saturday morning since I'm expecting a package and the P.O. closes at 10:30 a.m. Oh, and today is Thursday, so I gots to do some miles and wanted to get an early start. Two mountains on the way - Snowbird and Max Patch. Snowbird was first and it was slow going. I was definitely not 100%. Rain was forecast for today, so we had overcast skies and a little drizzle here and there. Temps were perfect for hiking. I've been really dragging between breakfast and lunch lately, but I solved that today - high sugar breakfast before I start followed by a high sugar 2nd breakfast 2 hours down the trail. Mmm...pop tarts. Stopped for lunch after 7 miles and kept on truckin'. Caught up with Ian and Kerri of Team GB. Walked and talked with them for an hour or two before getting to the top of Max Patch, around mile 13. Max Patch is big, tall and bald, offering a 360 degree panoramic view of the world. I basked up there until the wind froze me off. Originally, I wanted to camp up there, but with weather rolling in, I thought it foolish to do so. So the next thought was to just move on to a nearby campsite. There were some on the far side, but nothing that would be protected in the storm, so I kept going. Next thing I know, it's only 4.2 miles to the next shelter. 4 miles I think is no problem. Still had a couple hours of light left to do it also, so no problem. Right. Longest 4.2 miles ev-er. Easy walking on a contour line at least, with lots of stream crossings. Blackbird was following along behind me. We saw the Brits up ahead and Bird yelled across a patriotic English tune. From across the ridge came back a few bars of America the Beautiful. Good for a laugh at least, since it seemed like we weren't ever going to get there. The last half mile or so we had a little trail revival. I broke out my best televangelist/tent revival preacher impersonation...Can I get a shel-tah. Amen. And so on and so forth. Exhausted, I came upon the shelter. Praise the Trail. My feet were angry. Eventually Tank, Eric and Red Rover rolled in as well. We all had personal highs today. Eric summed it up best, "What the hell was that?" I think we had all decided to camp somewhere but ended up being pulled along to the shelter instead as though it were a giant black hole in the middle of the woods. I'll pull a shorter day tomorrow and then a few miles into Hot Springs me thinks. It will take all of my will power not to go in tomorrow. Since my plan isn't to leave until Monday, I don't want to end up dropping more cash into the Hot Springs economy than I have to. To sum up: Today was somewhat of an accomplishment at least. I definitely haven't walked that far in a day and with 6,000 vertical ft. too. I don't plan on making days like this the norm. I'm definitely not in shape for that yet. But as I slowly get into better form and begin to sprout some hiking legs, I am pushing my limits a little further out. Three weeks ago, I was hating life after a 12 mile day over mostly even terrain. A week and a half ago, it was a 15 and a good climb that got me. Today I've gone a bit further and had more ups and downs in the process. I've survived. It's satisfying to some degree and definitely a confidence booster. On to the next challenge, eh.