Date: 2011-04-25
From: (34) Moreland Gap Shelter

To: (35) Kincora Hostel
Miles today: 6.0

Woke up in a field today. The sun was poking through the tree line and my sleeping bag was spotted with drops of morning dew. I looked over and saw that Helm was still asleep, and I couldn¢t help but laugh when I saw our joke attempt at bear-bagging. We had made a tripod out of our hiking poles and hung our food off of them. It was a total of three feet high; a grasshopper with the right amount of determination could have jumped the distance and eaten all our food, much less a bear. (We have given up on bear bagging. If a bear comes for our food then it is freaking ¢Go Time¢, and that¢s all there is to it).I laid back down into my bag and thought about how we¢d gotten here. Last night we had all settled in for a good night¢s rest, when another hiker arrived and asked if there was room in the shelter for one more. He seemed pretty worn out after a day of hiking in the heat, so we all moved over and made space for him, raising the total of shelter inhabitants from 6 to 7 (excluding the mice). There was plenty of room, and after the time I had spent in the Smoky Mountain Shelters, I was more than used to giving up my space so that others may have a place to sleep. The others in the shelter with me seemed to feel the same way.Half an hour passed before creepy Jay returned from doing Tai Chi in the woods (Creepy Jay is as the name implies, but I prefer to call him a social retard). Creepy Jay approached the newcomer and told him in a stern voice that he needed to leave right now, on account of the shelter only being recommended for 6. Immediately the rest of us jumped in, saying that we didn¢t mind, but Creepy Jay kept at it until I thought that he and the newcomer were going to fight. Then another hiker told Jay that this is why people call him ¢creepy¢, which made Creepy Jay even more upset. He started rambling about how we were all going to get a scorning, and that he was going to report us. He took out his phone and started photographing us, still arguing that the shelter must only hold 6, not 7 (Creepy Jay only sees the world in unconditional black and white).I began to wonder if Creepy Jay was going to stab us in our sleep. Hopefully, he¢d get Helm first and the noise would wake me. Helm turned to me. ¢Want to go?¢¢Yeah.¢We packed and left, along with half of the others in the shelter. We walked through the dark until finding the field, where we rolled out our bags and watched the stars¢¦The next morning was filled with a short hike to the Kincora Hiker Hostel near Hampton Tennessee, and Helm and I both got a bunk. The Hostel would serve as our base of operations to prepare for the next day¢s 50 mile attempt into Virginia and the town of Damascus. Needing supplies, we rode into town in the back of a pickup (Helm loved this), and while there I ate the majority of a McDonald¢s dollar menu. Then we went back and lightened our packs to the bare essentials, dumping extra food, our stove fuel, cutting tags off of shirts, stripping down pens, removing the cover and metal spiral of my trail journal, and more. Around Midday Metric arrived, and he and Helm worked on making an alcohol stove out of a coke can. Creepy Jay also arrived at the Hostel, but then left. He was apparently insulted that the hostel allowed pets to run around.I spent the afternoon reading my book (A walk in the woods). I finished all but the last 40 pages, so I tore them out to keep and threw the rest of the book away. For supper, Helm and I cooked up a huge pot of spaghetti to load up on carbs, and ended up feeding many of the other hiker¢s there as well. The Hostel was very crowded by this time, as the owner had announced earlier that he would ¢never turn a hiker away¢, and he didn¢t. Helm and I went to bed early. Our packs were light, our stomach¢s were full, and after some rest we would be ready to launch!