Date: 2003-03-03
From: springer mountain shelter

To: hawk mountain shelter
Miles today: 7.6
Weather: few clouds

day 2today's my little sister's birthday. happy birthday kristi!i awake at springer mountain shelter having slept or not slept the coldest night that i'll ever sleep on the trail. i look to my right to notice with admiration grunt's saviness: he's in his sleeping bag all nice and cozy while cooking his morning oatmeal. well, i tell my self, "i'm gonna have to remember that one." i start getting my stuff ready and happen to notice that this humble looking shelter happens to have a loft. needless to say this is definitely one of those homer "ope!" moments (or whatever it is he says). to think that i could've actually slept that night instead of having frozen my butt off. well, just another one to remember, that's all. i've pretty much finished packing at this point and i notice that grunt's just about ready to go as well, so i opt to skip breakfast and just get some water. ah, who needs food anyways i think to myself. i've always considered it highly overrated, especially when you're burning 4-5000 calories a day.i get my aquamira solution ready and go down to the stream. my first attempt at a fill fails miserably so i decide to try again and dump out the 50/50 split of water and debris that i've managed to capture. the debris of course consisting of leaves twigs and i think even a worm. but don't hold me to the last one. it might've just been a figment of my delusional imagination. so i fill again and this time achieve a level of purity that probably won't choke me to death, or at least do it at a much more subtle rate. i go back to the shelter to find that my aquamira concotion has spilt over and that i must restart the process all over again. well, jee i think to myself. could the spill have anything to do with the 40 mph wind gusts that are still roaming around. nah, couldn't be. so i get the mixture ready, this time holding it in my hand, wait, and dump it in. i'm all set and so is grunt. "old blue," as he would later be known, is still in his bag, so i make one final sweep to make sure i've left nothing behind (except for the 1 lb bag of sugar that i've concluded i don't need considering i have one more just like it).everything is good, we say bye to old blue, and grunt leads the way. why he chose the direction that he did, i have no idea. but after about 10 minutes into our hike we come to a small clearing and come to realize that we haven't seen a blaze of any kind. worse yet the hose on my platy is frozen solid so i can't even wet my cold-morning-air dried throat. but no worries, where there's some amount of intelligence there's a way, albeit a sometimes painful way. i decided that sticking the hose down by back should do the trick. whooeh, that'll definitely "wake you up in the morning laddies," but it did the trick.we decide to head back to the shelter and there we pick up the trail. after walking for a couple miles or so, well, after grunt having walked a couple miles or so, me stumbling behind trying to keep pace, we arrive at a gorgeous stream with rhododendron all around it. i decide that this whole "food is overrated" philosophy may be a little overrated itself and tell grunt that i'm gonna have me some lunch, but not to wait. that i'll see him later. he heads on out with this weekend warrior that we've met who's been scarying the hell out of us for the last mile or so with tales about the pennsylvania rocks. rocks he says that we'll have to deal with whether in this life or the next. phew, i think to my self, better the next when i'm a dinosaur or something.so they head on out and i start fixing my mac and cheese lunch. a few minutes later i hear grunt yell out to me telling me that the trail goes straight ahead. phew, i think again. good thing he told me cause anyone can make the mistake of making a sharp left turn right after the bridge instead of walking straight ahead. i go back to my lunch and soon old blue cruises by and so does the yellow submarine. i know i wrote yesterday that i wouldn't see them for another few days, but i just remembered that i saw them that morning. so we shot it for a while and they headed out. soon enough i'm heading out as well and the rest of the day is uneventful. i realize that gooch mountain shelter, where i had initially planned to go with grunt was probably a little out of my range and i decide to settle for hawk mountain. at some point or another i pull over and take the very first of what would later become my infamous siestas. i rolled out my ridgerest, kicked off my boots and socks and just relaxed.woke up sometime later when i heard some people coming up the trail and decided that if i was gonna get some shelter space i'd better get. so i did just that. fixed myself up my first traditional lunch of peanut butter and jelly rolled up into a flour tortilla (hey, i meant traditional in that it wasn't cooked) and got the stepin' to the delight of having jelly drip down on to my pants and boots with practically every step. i made it to the shelter to the surprise of seeing about 20 or so people there. the shelter was almost packed and there were quite a number of tents in the back, but i got some space in the loft to my satisfaction considering the morning's observation. i unpacked and came down to meet some of these smiling faces. here's the score: i met mimi who'd later be known as "poptart;" malkovich (aka lance), because he looked like john malkovich or lance armstrong depending on your preference; swiftsandals, who grunt and i had passed in the morning on our way to get lost; joanne, chris and their other buddy; a few guys from jersey, one of which would be known as "bliss" because of the vicious blisters he packed; and a host of others than i now can't remember.as it turned out i already knew poptart and joanne (aka frustrated chic) from trailplace.com and it was kinda nice being able to place faces on these girls. all in all it was a really nice first day on the white blazes. the twin brothers called "the whites" (their last name), got a campfire going so we shot it for a while and i then got myself a good night's sleep. old blue gave me a snickers for dessert and swiftsandals showed me the complex and precise art of bear-cabling. and that's all folks.