Date: 2017-08-11
From: Shaw's Hostel

To: Long Pond Tote Rd
Miles today: 14.2

The morning started off with the huge breakfast that Shaw's is trail-famous for: eggs, sausage, pancakes, orange juice... so good. After breakfast and getting packed up I headed outside. The weather was pretty gray and it had been showering on and off throughout the morning. Of course, the showers were on when I walked down to the post office. I put Lost's package in the mail, stopped by the store to pick up a couple more snacks and then headed back to Shaws. I was able to get a ride back to the trail with a couple of other hikers in just a couple minutes and soon enough we were back on the side of the road.Just down the trail, out of sight of the road, was the sign. The "there's nothing for 100miles so you had better have 10days of food with you" sign. I obviously didn't have 10 days of food... I had 5ish, but that would be plenty. I grabbed a picture with the sign and then headed into the "Wilderness". Sidenote, its kinda amusing that the 100mi wilderness isn't actually a wilderness. A wilderness is a technical designation which applies to a piece of land in which motorized vehicles and tools are prohibited. The 100mi has several roads which cross through it and plenty of logging which happens near/in it, so it doesn't fit the bill. I'm still hopeful that it will be pretty remote. We'll see!Anyways, I headed into the wilderness and walked around several larger ponds which reflected the gray sky above. The terrain was challenging, not so much in terms of elevation, mostly in its unevenness and rocky and wet everything was. The trail climbed up and over a number of rocky outcrops which criss-crossed the landscape and with my shoes as well-worn as they were, I didn't have much traction left on the slippery faces and ended up on my back a couple of times. The slick terrain made the going slow and it took a couple hours to make the couple miles to the first shelter.I had lunch at Leeman Brook Lean-to, a little dismayed that it was already noon and that I had only done 3 miles so far. Lost had started at 7am, so I had a ways to go to catch her (again) and finish the 19mi that we had planned for today. While I ate 2 guys passed by SOBO, happy to be almost out of the 100mi wilderness and alerting me to trail magic about 12mi up ahead. That was all the motivation I needed and I hit the trail again, trying to move as fast and safely as possible. The trail wound around pond after pond, the water still and gray with the exception of the thousands of tiny drops falling into them. I passed a large waterfall and was amazed to see the rocks surrounding it. Geologists make, what they call, the assumption of original horizontality, which means that rocks are generally formed in horizontal layers whether by sediment deposition or other processes. So when you see a rock whose layers are something other than horizontal you know that something has caused them to bend/twist into that new orientation in the intervening years since their formation. Well, the layers in these rocks were oriented vertically. The long and tumultuous history of the Appalachian mountains had ended up turning these rocks a full 90deg, presumably as the mountains were compressed and uplifted. This waterfall had exposed some of the rock as it slowly cut its way through. Kinda cool. This also explains the terrain... the multitude of small ups and downs over rocky outcrops are what's left of these tilted layers of rocks, outlasting the softer surrounding rocks and jutting up into the sky and then being eroded away back to ground level.Though the guide had shown no large mountains today, I was surprised at how rugged the terrain was as it seemed like I was either going up or down all day, which adds up. I kept hearing reports of the trail magic from the hikers I passed as I drew closer. Finally I got to the intersection of... well, it might be generous calling it a road, but a dirt path that could probably hold a truck, and found Lost! She was holding a beer and in the process of scratching "Crusher" and an arrow into the dirt right in front of the sign for trail magic. We set off down the road, heading the 0.2mi to the hunting cabin that housed the magic. I asked her what was going on up there and she related tales of the burgers and hotdogs, the coolers of beer, and the small grassy area in front of the cabin. It only took a "so they let people camp there?" ... "yup!" to set our plans for the night... 17mi was close enough to the 19 we had planned, we were done for the day. The cabin was situated on a small hill and the "driveway" had a view of Barren mountain, which we'd hike tomorrow. A small generator provided enough electricity to run some lights and keep some water running and a small privy was set off into the woods. Already there was a good group of hikers at the cabin, some of whom seemed to have been there for a while based on the amount of alcohol consumed. The guys who provided this magic, Scout and Birdman, also had a yellow lab that would bark at new arrivals a couple of times before deciding that they weren't a threat and going back to lazing around. After introducing myself I was handed a burger, a dog, and a beer and settled into hanging out with the others.A group of NOBOs, Monkey, Silly Spilly, Pluck, Pudge, had also decided that they weren't going any farther than night and so we all hung out for the evening. Jam showed up as well as a couple of SOBOs, and they guys played cards while Birdman took the girls raspberry picking so that there'd be fresh berries for the pancakes in the morning. I really wanted to go, but there wasn't room in the gator, so alas I had to keep drinking and playing cards. We spent the whole night hanging out and drinking with good company, laughter echoing into the forest around the cabin.Not too long after dark we all started loosing steam and began scouting sleeping spots for the night. Lost had sent her hammock home (in the box I had mailed earlier that morning), since she had been sleeping in the shelters for the past couple weeks and needed to loose some pack weight to save her knees. So that left her shelter-less in a place that had no shelter. Turns out my tent is actually a 2 person tent as long as neither of the occupants has much of a personal bubble. Good day. Very much enjoying the "wilderness" so far. :)