Date: 2007-05-05
From: Little Laurel Shelter

To: Flint Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: light rain

Saturday, May 5th, eveningWoke up to Ringmaster's alarm at 5:15. He had said to poke him if he didn't hear it (earplugs) and I said o.k., but I should have said no, because after I woke him up to tell him it was going off, he went back to sleep until six, but I didn't! He and Flaxseed were on either side of me and they started getting packed up. It was crowded in the shelter so I just stayed in my sleeping bag and waited. All the young folks except Oregon got out quickly to try for trail magic hot dogs and hamburgers at Devil's Fork Gap (15 miles away) at noon. When I was getting ready to go it started to rain hard so I sat and ate and waited it out. Left at about 8 am. The trail was a lot like yesterday at first - ups and downs, but nice, soft dirt path. I got rained on some, but not hard. It was about 55 degrees so I left my rain coat on and went slowly so as not to overheat. A couple of hours into it the trail got steeper and rocky. The visibility was only about 50 feet, but I felt like I was on a ledge, exposed, so I tried the cell phone again (I tried several times yesterday with no luck). I was so excited to see those little bars pop up! I talked to Steve and found out he purchased a bus ticket for me for Wednesday night. After hiking with Flaxseed yesterday I should have no problem making it to Erwin Tuesday night. I will need to do 12 miles per day. It's more than I wanted to do this stretch. I wanted to take it easy, but I set another goal! At least I seem up to it physically and I am not driving myself crazy. I thought my trail name should be "Goalless". Hiked 6.7 miles to Jerry Cabin Shelter in 4.5 hours. Spent an hour there (12:30 - 1:30) eating lunch and chatting with April, Oregon and Chris (?). April and Chris had spent the night there and had a fire going in the shelter. As they took off it started to rain hard again and again I waited it out. I gathered some wood and kept the fire going. I considered staying there, but when the rain let up I set out again. There were a couple of steep, rocky sections of trail, mostly up, which was good. Then the trail flattened out some, went through a couple of balds and down an old dirt road for awhile. Went past the Confederate graves. It went fairly steeply down for 1-2 miles, into a gap and then mostly along a ridge and slightly down to Flint Mountain Shelter. The last few miles headed southeast. I got rained on a little the last hour or so. My knees felt pretty good in the morning, especially the right one, but still hurt on the downhill. This morning, soon after I talked to Steve, I came to a blue trail marked "Bad Weather Trail". The main trail was marked "Exposed Ridgeline Trail". It was windy and wet, with almost zero visibility, so I took the blue trail, figuring that the ridge trail would be rocky (and I knew it would be wet). At the shelter this noon April told me I had made the right choice - the ridge trail was a rock scramble. At Flint Mountain Shelter tonight are Farmer (originally from Boston, now from Gardner, MA area), Mayo and Cobweb (from Chicopee, MA) and one other man - a really nice crew. Farmer let me put my food bag on his bearline and he has made a great fire. I'm very happy tonight.