Date: 2016-04-15
From: Asheville

To: Asheville
Miles today: 0.0

Took a zero day in Asheville with my wife, Susan. We went to the botanical gardens and identified some of the flowers, bushes and trees that I have seen on the Trail. We walked down side trails to a creek and climbed rocks. I was paranoid about not slipping and falling. How embarassing would it be to suffer a hike ending injury while zeroing in a botanical garden? My new found hiker BFF's would certainly give me a tough time. This was followed by visits to a couple of small breweries and then a great dinner. While I have access to a computer and wifi I will take this downtime opportunity to catch you up on a couple of thoughts from the trail. First, my rain pants episode.Most days I like to hike in shorts. However, in the 3 very cold days in the Smoky Mountains I wore my rain pants for extra warmth. These are the only long trousers that I have with me. I started hiking and my slick nylon rain pants kept slipping down. I felt like a rap singer walking along, hoiking up my pants as I went with my underwear presumably showing at the back. I took a break, took off my back pack, pulled up my rain pants as far as they would go and then tightened up my backpack hip belt over the rain pants to hold them in place. Convinced that I had fixed the problem once and for all I set off again. Within 20 yards it felt like my pants had slipped low again. I continued walking, legs akimbo, continually pulling up my pants. My range of motion was limited. Going downhill was not too bad, but taking large steps uphill was severely restricted. The weather was too cold to keep stopping, taking off my cloves and messing with it, so I kept going. When I got to camp I finally discovered the true problem. I had not tied the drawstring on my hiking shorts that were under my rain pants. The shorts had fallen down inside the rain pants and bunched up in my crotch region! It was the shorts that were limiting my walking motion. Another valuable hiking lesson learned. ALWAYS TIE YOUR DRAWSTRING. Hopefully it will remain warm enough for me to hike in shorts.Second, thoughts on trail laws.Hikers learn from each other and from scouring internet sites. Following are a few tips that I have labelled as trail Laws. 1. When resupplying and buying food, South Paw (a 2008 thru hiker that is doing it again this year) recommends only buying food that has at least 130 calories per ounce. This screens for food that has a high calory density and will provide the energy that you need to burn. This will lead you to foods with a lot of carbs, sugar and fat. However, a word of warning. If you follow this rule you will almost certainly not be adhering to the food pyramid, you will probably also contract scurvy and have your hair and teeth fall out. However, you will have the energy that you need. It is also difficult to get the fat that you need on the trail. I thought I was doing well by buying and drinking pints of whole milk (I've been drinking only skim milk for as long as I can remember) until I heard that at his first resupply stop South Paw bought a 16 oz carton of half and half and downed it on the spot!2. A pound of weight on your feet is equivalent to 5 pounds on your back. This is an adage that encourages hikers to buy lighter trail running shoes rather than heavy leather hiking boots.3. (I came up with this one myself) The length of time that a song remains stuck in your head is directly proportional to its banality and repetitiveness. I can't believe that Newton missed this one when he was pulling his laws together (unless maybe it doesn't apply to classical music).