Date: 2004-06-02
From: Crawfish Valley Campsite

To: Jenkins Shelter
Miles today: 26.7
Weather: broken clouds

It was the morning of 6/2/2004. Last night had been a late one. The rain came and went throughout the night. This morning the sound of water droplets hitting the tent had caused me to roll over more than once and sleep in, perhaps for the first time on this whole hike. Finally, the sun came streaming through the leaves of the trees and rhododendrons in shafts of light illuminating the air thick with the evaporation of last nights cloud bursts. It was just gorgeous. We, Buick, Tarzan & myself, were all up and about our business when we had surprise visitors. Morning Star and Phoenix had arrived. They were hoping to catch up to me and were a bit disappointed not to find me at Davis Path Shelter last night. They must have gotten a pretty early start to get here this early. OK, maybe it wasn't that early after all.A couple of days ago we had met. It was on my birthday. Phoenix had said, ¢If I'd known I would have brought you a beer.¢ Now, granted, I don't drink but the thought was nice and since he didn't have one at the time, it seemed a mute point anyway. Well, now here he was with a beer in hand that he had packed in for about ten miles. It felt bad giving him the news of my nonalcoholic life. He didn't mind and opened the beer for himself. Next he told me the guy I hitched a ride with yesterday had found stuff I'd left in his truck. The guy drove back to the DQ. He was worried I needed the stuff. Phoenix offered to take it to me. Of course the fact was that I had intended to tell Howard to keep the stuff since it was more than I needed. We're talking about a jar of Tang, a box of powdered milk, some hot chocolate, some Hersey Nuggets (special dark with almond) and some popcorn flavored puffed corn. It felt even worse telling these great folks that I really didn't need or even want this stuff. I said I'd take it but would be happier to share it, well, all except for the puffed corn. Everybody split up the booty and I took the puffed corn. I think everyone was pretty happy with the outcome. What great folks.Puffed Corn:Pop corn was my favorite snack food for years. Somewhere around the age of 30 I broke a tooth on a kernel. That landed me with a root canal and capped molar to the tune of about $600. A year or two later this happened again and I gave up my favorite snack food. It's been tough since then. People used to give me popping corn, poppers and popcorn cookbooks. They kept it up for years, not knowing I'd quit. Then around the mid 1990s, on a western adventure with Chris Gardei, there was this snack food. It was like a cheese puffs with out the cheese in the shape of popcorn and with butter flavor. This was great. No kernels to break teeth. To this day I have never found these goodies at home in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire but happily I did find them in Bryson City near NOC and yesterday at the supermarket in Marion, Va. They only came in a pretty big bag and it was more than there was enough time to eat in town. This was the one thing I had not meant to leave in Howard's truck. These were stashed in my pack to provide munching pleasure for the next couple of days. Mmmmm!It was a pleasant morning for hiking with a somewhat late start what with the festivities of reunion and the rain. There were forests and cows and fields. The trail crossed the North Fork of the Holston River. Things got pretty soggy near the river on the approach to the bridge. The Handbook mentioned an alternate road walk in the event the bridge was underwater. From the looks of things, it was probably under water yesterday. A picturesque farm with cool old out building was just upstream of the bridge. There was a dilapidated old barn right on the water. It looked like there was some renovation under way. That was nice to see.My pack carried a package of instant chocolate pudding to celebrate tonight. Hopefully there would be someone to share it with. Where to land was a tough call today. Chestnut Knob Shelter was an old fire warden's cabin perched on a 4,410 foot high summit but it had no water. Also it would only make for a 16.7 mile day. The next shelter, Jennings Shelter had water but it was another ten miles making for a 26.7 mile day. All that could be done was to keep on walking and see what the day would bring.The 1/4 Mark:According to my calculations, the Holston River was the 1/4 mark on the trail. That was exciting. It was noon on June 2nd. This was 545 miles from the start. This was only day 32 on the trail. At this rate the whole thing should take 128 days. That sounded pretty good. That would be 4 months or just over 18 weeks and would put me on Katahdin on September 7th. Wow. That was way to far away to think about. But, there is plenty of time to think about most every possibility on the trail.At about 1:30pm the day brought Knot Maul Branch Shelter. This was a fine shelter. With my solar charger working on some batteries and a shot of me sitting in the shelter and at the picnic table, it was time to eat. The shelter log provided entertainment until another hiker arrived. This guy was strange. He asked strange questions and talked about strange things. I can't really remember what he was talking about but he planned on getting high and spending the night here. It was barely noon. He made me very uncomfortable. This had been a long enough break and it was time to end. Buick showed up but he didn't stop. Boots, get me out of here.Before too long the trail returned me to happiness and washed the thought of that mad man from my head. A few miles further on, the trail was climbing pretty steeply and it was pretty hot when it crossed a little stream tumbling down the mountainside. The only thing I really miss by taking a town day without a town night is a shower and clean clothes. This seemed like a good spot for both. It wasn't like this was a big enough cascade to get into but the pools were fine for dunking my shirt and shorts into. Mind you I would wring them out away from the creek . Then with the help of my trusty pack towel the rest of me got scrubbed too, LNT style. That felt much better but now it was time to resume the climb.Soon the trail broke out onto grassy meadows near a seemingly broad summit. The views were great. They showed ridge after ridge that seemed to run on and on to the horizon. Soon the trail came to the little pond suggested as the not so close water source for Chestnut Knob Shelter still 1.8 miles to the north. There was an implied decision to be made here. It was either to load up on water here and spend the night at Chestnut Knob or skip the water and push on another 10 miles past this shelter. The pond didn't look so great and it was still early or at least the sun was still up.Chestnut Knob Shelter is actually an old fire wardens cabin with windows and a door. It was 5pm. It is in a beautiful meadow atop this knob with wonderful views. There was an older couple settling in. They gave me directions to some water they had found. Buick had signed the register and they said he had left about 20 minutes ago. For me this was time for lunch part two and with ten miles yet to go, both food and times were critical resources. After some eats and good conversation it was time to leave this 4,410 foot perch for the last 10 mile stretch of the day.Ten miles to go at 5:30pm. Boy, if that didn't sound crazy. But it's that craziness that can just get me more psyched. Fortunately it was mostly down hill to Jenkins Shelter at a mere 2,470 feet. OK, actually it was more down and up to 4,050 and down and up to 4,000 and down and up to 3,800 and then down to 2,470. At least those were the ups and downs noted in the Handbook. Certainly there were a few others too. Buick was headed to the next shelter. It would be fun to share my pudding with someone else who just passed the 1/4 mark today. That was another good reason to move on.About half way, there was a rocky crag called Garden Mountain. It was 7:30pm. This was a good time for a break and a nice photo op. It had a great view of the pastoral valleys dotted with farms. Of course this same view also revealed a tumultuous sky. It was down right threatening. The question would be to whom.Just to keep things interesting, about a mile from my destination, or so I hoped, it got dark. That wasn't good enough though. A bit later it started to rain too. It rained pretty hard in fact. This was becoming something of a theme. Let's get soaked just before getting to camp. Grrrr. It can't be far now and it's hard to see. Was this shelter right on the trail, off to the right or off to the left. These are the kind of details that always seem to escape me just as the Handbook page slips back into its stuff sack. It's like forgetting someones name just 5 seconds after learning it. That¢s right. It's to the left 200 feet. Look for a sign. Hope for a big one. Of course looking up meant getting rain in the face and the risk of taking a trip or even fall in these conditions. Cruising along the now swamped slightly over grown trail, something made me do a double take. Was that a sign? Yes. But it's so tiny. It's only about 3¢ by 6¢. Who's idea of a joke is this? It must be the trail to the shelter. Soon the faint glow of candle and headlamp emanating from a dry wooden lean-to greeted me. Buick was finishing his dinner prep on the right half of the shelter. There were two other guys, brothers, in the other half. Buick promptly offered the use of his stove since it was set up. I congratulated him on passing the one quarter mark today and asked if he would join me in a celebration by splitting a bowl of instant chocolate pudding after dinner. In response, he said that he had something else to celebrate. This was his one month anniversary on the trail. Astonishingly, I surprised him by saying, me too. Enough of this standing in the rain in front of the shelter. It was time to take off the wet rain jacket and take Buick up on his stove offer. He was carrying too much fuel anyway.Unbelievably, we had both started from Springer Mountain in Georgia on May 2nd and now here we were about to share a bowl of celebratory pudding 568 miles and 1 month later on June 2nd. That was pretty incredible especially since we had only seen each other a handful of times along the way. We began to share anecdotes in an attempt to put our hikes in order some how and to remember just when and where we had first met back when he was still just Alexandre. This was a kind of instant bond.This would not be discovered until I was back home this fall, but I took a photo with his Journal entry on the summit of Springer Mountain back on May 2.The younger of the brothers was trying desperately to sleep but the older was drawn into our excitement and curious to boot. He asked us a bunch of questions about thru-hiking and the AT. He was in his early to mid twenties and looking fit, maybe military. The younger brother was in his early teens and was on the chubby side. They were out for about a week or two. We later discovered from the older brother that he was hoping to get his little brother in shape on this hike. The kid was completely wiped out. That was easy for us to see. They were southbound. Big bro was planning a 19 mile hike tomorrow to Knot Maul. We suggested they stop half way at Chestnut Knob. It would be a tough climb. The kid was hurting. It was obvious. But he didn't want to let his big brother down. The big brother didn't back down but I think he heard us. Hopefully he didn't push the kid into hating the trail. Ya gotta have some fun.We shared a bit of our pudding with big bro and he went to sleep. Buick and I kept talking while we finished the pudding and packed our stuff away for the night. We talked about the dubbing of trail names. Trail Names:He told me how he had gotten his name, Le Buick Roadmaster. It happened on his way down from the summit of Clingman's Dome to Newfound Gap. His feet were a disaster. That section of trail was very rocky and rooty and it was wet from rain. He was concerned that a slip and fall just might do him in. The summit access road parallels the trail so he figured it would be a safer route and took it. Some kids in a car stopped to offer him a ride. He refused and told them he was hiking the AT. They were of course amazed. They joked about the idea of hiking the AT in a Buick suggesting that was his real mode of transportation since he was on the road. He thought that was fun and took it as a name. Days later some other thru-hikers, stunned by his speed, said you're not just a Buick, you're a Buick Roadmaster. Even later, some other thru-hikers heard him talking to his folks on his cell phone in fluent French. That was kind of surprising so they added the prefix, Le Buick Roadmaster. What a riot. We had a great laugh. Granted he had his trail name by now but still he got it late. We figured that those that moved more quickly didn't spend much time with any particular group and therefore didn't tend to get named. I told Buick it felt like time for me to have a name even though nick names had never been high on my list. This was probably because of the nick names my older brothers had attributed to me back in our younger days. We tossed around some ideas. Then it came to me. There was a name that folks had been calling me inadvertently for the last six summers. At camp I ran the Valley Voyageurs program. It was rare that we were in camp since the Valley Voyageurs was based on a summers worth of week long backpacking trips. As a result, when spotted in camp I was usually addressed with ¢ Hey, you're that Voyageurs guy.¢ I explained the whole thing to Buick. It felt good. It felt right. Voyageur. Yeah.