Date: 2019-05-24
From: The Scales

To: Trimpi Shelter
Miles today: 16.9
Weather: clear sky

Today I was feeling good and motivated. I decided I was going to do some big mileage. And once that was in my head, there was really no way around it. I decided to go 17 miles to a shelter. Salamander, Peetree, and Bananas headed out before me, but I wasn¢t too far behind. It looked like it was going to rain and there were fast-moving clouds coming in. I really wanted to make it to a shelter if it rained, and there was one in 3 miles, 7 miles, or 17, so I kept with the plan. The morning actually wasn¢t too bad. There was some climbing, but then it flattened out by some water sources. I passed by Cali at the second shelter and pushed on. There was a bit of a climb up to some waterfalls, and that was a bit steep. I stopped before and ate lunch. I actually ate well and it was great! There were a few guys that I passed that did not look happy. It was certainly a hot day. A fly flew down my shirt and died on my back. Yuck. I¢m killing flies here just with my filth, slightly concerning. Haha. The falls were pretty average. There was a sign on the short footbridge across them that said it was not safe to cross, and I had seen that in Guthook too. But the bridge looked totally fine to me and the Guthook comments said people had crossed it despite the sign. It was also probably 5 feet above the water, so worst case scenario it would not be a bad fall. The only way around was a 1.3 mile detour, so I went for it and crossed it. It was completely fine. I imagine a big group must have crossed it and that¢s why they deemed it unsafe, but for one person, it really was fine. The portion afterwards was not bad, but I kept getting covered in cobwebs again. This happens daily and it¢s actually so frustrating. I¢ve heard people joke and say you have to let other people go out early in the morning so they can clear all the cobwebs. Prometheus once joked that you should hold your hiking poles in front of you and wave them up and down the whole time to clear the webs. Haha. Sometimes that¢s tempting! I reached a road and parking lot and that would be the pickup spot to go to Troutdale, VA. But I didn¢t need to resupply, so I stopped for a minute and then carried on. I had 4 miles to the shelter and I was tired, but ready to get there.It started uphill and I ran into town day-hikers with their dogs. Eventually it went down a bit to the shelter. I was listening to a podcast about dogs today and how owners don¢t clean up after them and I remember this funny line ¢humans can no longer run around pooping freely in the wilderness¢. And I laughed to myself and was thinking, well I guess AT hikers are an exception, but I do poop pretty freely in the wilderness. Haha. I arrived at a sign for the shelter. It was off trail, but I wasn¢t sure how far. I walked down to it and saw a few tents set up before I got down there. I was so excited when I arrived because Caboose was there!! Her daughter joined her on the trail for a month and was there too, and they were both so nice. Caboose is the woman from Sweden. I met her for the first time all the way back on Blood Mountain, but have seen her a few more times since then. There was another guy named Super, short for Superintendent and another named Tsalagi, which is Cherokee. It was so buggy and unpleasant at the campsite. I went to get water and the bugs were just going nuts. I could see the mosquitoes just going from one part of my body to the other. I was so drained from the day and annoyed. When I got back from the water, Tsalagi gave me Deet. Now I know the risks of Deet, I¢ve heard many things about it. But it was unbearable to have that many bugs. I felt like I was being eaten alive. I used the Deet and could smell the strong chemicals that I was putting on my body, but it was worth it. It worked. The bugs stopped bothering me. I didn¢t bring any bug spray on trail because honestly it has never worked for me. I¢ll cover myself in Off or others and the bugs still bite, and that¢s when I¢m sitting at home in the summer. So if it doesn¢t work there, it¢s not going to work out here, where I¢m moving all day and sweating it off. But I realized tonight that I may need to buy something or I¢m going to go insane from the bugs. I set up my tent and went over to have dinner. A couple came in, Marathon and a guy who¢s name isn¢t coming to me. They seemed like those intense hikers that do 20 a day and they didn¢t even cook food. The guy just cold-soaked something. They were very nice, but made me feel intimidated and a little inferior. Super and I were having a funny conversation though. And Cali showed up and joined in. We had a nice time and then I headed down to go to bed, but I still needed to finish my Mountain House. It was a new one, and it was a Mexican rice one, but it was a lot like chili and I don¢t do chili, so I was preparing to bury it, but Tsalagi had made a fire, so I put it there. I know, not the best practices. But it¢s not the worst. The fire was really hot and burned the food right away, and bears hate fire, so they¢re not coming anywhere near. I¢m very conscious about my trace in the woods, but tonight I just allowed the natural source of fire to take care of this. Tsalagi is very cool. He¢s a bit rough around the edges, but you can tell he¢s a good soul and would protect anyone from harm. But because he¢s a bit rough, he was joking that he was going to put honey on Super¢s tent to attract bears. Super and I have not seen a bear on trail yet. It seems to shock everyone that we haven¢t, but I¢m just fine with not seeing one haha. I think it has something to do with listening to music or podcasts and not hearing bears because sometimes people see them and they¢re 100 yards down a hill. So I¢ve probably passed by them, but haven¢t seen one. With the food bag stories I¢ve heard, I really would rather not. Tsalagi and I talked a lot about nature and earth and our impact on it. He had a wonderful quote that I love ¢cover the earth with our footsteps before it covers us¢. And that¢s what I¢m doing! Trying to cover as much of this earth as I can see and really take it in and appreciate it. But sometimes it still feels so small. Only 2,000 of the east coast is just a sliver of America. It¢s so vast. But I¢m still covering a nice portion of earth and trying to minimize my impact by being out here on foot. We also talked about politics a bit and societal issues. We discussed the image that women feel they have to have, and it was so nice to open up to him about it. For a long time I¢ve struggled with that image and it¢s been refreshing to be entirely myself out here. Tsalagi told me I¢m a beautiful woman. I guess I don¢t really view myself as beautiful. I could pick out a million flaws about my appearance before I pick out good things. I have huge thighs, my smile is crooked from the tooth-surgery I had in high school, I have frizzy curly hair when it¢s natural, I have pale, freckled skin, I have man-feet, the list goes on. I appreciated his comment, but it really was hard to really hear that. My mom can say I¢m beautiful, but she¢s my mom. And friends can say it, but what really makes me beautiful? What makes anyone beautiful? It made me think a lot about image and soul and just being me. I really love these deep conversations I get to have with people I meet out here. It¢s so real and genuine and powerful. I¢m sure I¢ll conform back to society and it¢s ridiculous standards when I return, but for now I feel so free and so much myself. Cali sat with us for a bit and then we all went to bed. Some bugs made it into my tent with me, but I¢m sorry, if you enter my home bug, that¢s it. I¢m not sleeping with a big fly buzzing around my stuff all night. I still smelled like Deet and was itching all night, but I was so happy to have made that mileage today and had such deep conversations with other hikers. It was a good day! Little Debbie