Date: 2007-10-28
From: Rockfish Gap, VA

To: Williamsburg, VA
Miles today: 0.0

My last break has drawn to a close, and it's back to the trail in the morning. I'll get dropped off at Rockfish Gap, VA around 9:30, and have about 20 miles to do to get to my destination. The Companion says that there's only one mountain between where I start and where I get to sleep, so we'll see how that works out! I have completed the following gear changes:* leaving behind my beloved MSR Fling tent, will be carrying its ground cloth as an emergency shelter of sorts. Lose 2 lbs, 9 oz from tent body.* leaving behind my MSR Miniworks water filter; got some Aquamira at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports. Lose a pound w/ the filter, pick up 2 oz with Aquamira* picked up a Petzl Tikka Plus light, which is close to infinitely brighter than the Petzl E+lite that I am carrying now. As much as I hate walking at night, I think that it's now close to inevitable. Picking up about 4 oz.* purchased and will be carrying a new Mountain Hardware sleeping bag. It's a women's model, which they rather gleefully printed all over everything that it came with, but it fits me perfectly! My feet just get to the bottom, and it's nice and tight around my head; perfect seal around the face. They didn't have any men's shorts, which are the same size as women's shorts. It's 600 fill power down, and is rated to 20F. With my bag liner, I'll be rated down to 5F. If I have any 5F nights, I'm gonna have bigger fish to fry than worrying about cold feet! New bag weighs 2 lbs, 9 oz. Old bag weighed 16 oz.* swapping out my Columbia pants with zip-off lower legs with Patagonia Capilene 2 long underwear/leggings. The pants are heavy, the Cap 2 isn't. I can wear the Cap 2 under my super light shorts and have decent cold weather walking gear. Losing about 5 oz.So, by my estimate, I'll be losing close to 2 pounds from my pack weight. This doesn't seem too significant, but I think that it will help. I'm also going to go through all of the assorted junk that I've been carrying. I don't think that I need Gold Bond anymore now that it's cold. I am also going to take lighter sunglasses and get rid of some various things like allergy medicine. I was going to try to find a slightly lighter charging option for my iPod and phone, but that didn't happen. I will be going to my brother's place in Blacksburg a week from today, so I am going to send my phone charger and iPod charger with him (he's here at the house right now, too), so I don't have to carry them for the next week. I also finished the book that I was reading and don't think that I'll be carrying a book for this leg of the trip. With those small things, I'm hoping to shave close to 3 pounds, so 1 pound in addition to the bigger things that I can more easily count.I went to yoga today, which felt really good. The stuff that involved my legs was a breeze, the upperbody stuff was a bit tougher. I also got to catch up on the Caroline happenings, which was interesting. I am really looking forward to getting back to running EMS calls. I was invited to attend the EMS Symposium in Norfolk next weekend (it was a blast last year), but had to pass up because of the schedule and logistics. Anyways, it's off to bed. I tried to get ahold of Uly to figure out where people are at, but his phone is off. I hope to see people tomorrow or Sunday, so we'll see what happens. I completed the thing I came home for, which was coming up with a website for our family business. If you're bored, check it out, it's www.prestonhroberts.com. Southwest Virginia doesn't seem too big on the internet, so it'll be a good week until I can post an update. I was going to spend some time going back to correct errors in the previous posts that I have had to type really quickly due to impending library closures, but didn't get up the motivation; maybe when I finish.