Date: 2011-06-13
From: Matts Creek Shelter

To: Punchbowl Shelter
Miles today: 12.9
Weather: light rain

Wake Up the next morning and find Yoga Boy at the shelter. I give him back his shirt he left at the first shelter yesterday. It was his only shirt and figured he would miss it.All three of us run the 2 miles to the James River and hitch into Buena Vista for more food and a restaurant meal. We spend two hours eating large pizzas and stromboli while hanging out and charging our phones. Spend more time at the Dollar General up the street... Roughly another 2 hours. I try to fix my shoes by building up the inside sole of the shoe with extra foam from a sleeping pad and some duct tape. I'd have to say it looked pretty impressive and I could walk strait again. I have another good picture of this to show.We end up with a ride from a 90 year old man who was in three branches of the military and spent the rest of his life as a minister. Yoga Boy got a book from him that turned out to be a signed first addition copy (not sure what book). Achilles had his arm rolled up in a window for half the ride because our driver was too hard of hearing to know.We get back to the river around 4 or 5pm and Yoga Boy jumps off the bridge into the James. Wish I would have felt like getting wet that day.We hike four miles to a camp site and lounge there for an hour. We're playing with the idea of hiking what we should have instead of only hiking 6 miles for the day. What started as a joking hypothetical turned into a reality. We get into John's Hollow Shelter right at dusk and we start shoveling food and I chug a liter of water and a liter of ice tea to 'pump up' for our big nine mile night hike. I end up on the ground clutching my over hydrated stomach while laughing because my pregame strategy backfired hard on me. Yoga Boy and Achilles ate too much and are laying on the ground next to me falling asleep. Our motivation had taken another turn and we had no idea what we were doing.After a half hour of more debate and hypotheticals, we've recovered and start to night hike. The moon was near full and the temperature was a wonderful 55 degrees. Yoga Boy has decided to denounce technology and hikes without his headlight on. Achilles and I try this for awhile too and find that it is possible to see ' something' at night, but soon decide that 'something' isn't enough for us. We end up walking ahead of Yoga Boy so as not to blind his night vision with our lights. We make sure he's behind us every once in awhile by making bird calls in the night. We each have our own and can find one another down the trail by keeping in earshot. It's a habit we've been using for some of the trail already and night hiking made it a necessity.We also decided that we're going to learn to use echo location like dolphins to navigate the trail. Unofficially we've named ourselves "The Pod"and plan to skate on our tails backwards through the shelter sites at night. I didn't say we had the best ideas, but they're making these miles the best they've ever been.The forest turns into this black and white dreamland when you're hiking at night. The landscapes were lit up by the moon in this brilliant white light. You only see four feet in front of you and can't tell how long you're going up or down. Time and distance seem to stop existing. You're out there and you hike until you get there. No landmarks, no times, no milestones... Just get there when you do and not before. We came up with a hiking mantra "Don't worry, We'll get there". It answers every question in hiking we used to be concerned about. "What time is it" or "where are we" or "where are we stopping tonight" is now answered by "don't worry, we'll get there". It works. It takes all the stress out of it and allows you to trust in your body til it says to stop. We set no goals for the night, we set destinations to decide at. We'd get another 3 miles and reconvene to decide about the next stopping place. This system had proven itself to me to cover big miles with no stress.We made it to Punchbowl around midnight. We missed the trail the first time and backtracked uphill .2 miles to the right trail. We setup tents, I ate dinner, and went to sleep.