Date: 2003-04-08
To: Slaughter Gap
Miles today: 12.8

8 April 2003Today Craig and I woke up at 7:35am!!! Wow! We are getting better at this early morning hiking thing! We left by 9:30am. We hiked 12.8 miles from Gooch Gap Shelter to Slaughter Gap. I have never hiked so many miles in one day! I am sore! My feet hurt! But so far no major blisters. My spirits are still up. This is Day 4 and my first day popping Advil. Not too bad. So, I valiantly took on the task of making coffee this morning. It was my first time lighting the stove. I don¢t like dealing with flame and gas. But, I figured I had watched Craig enough times and felt confident doing it. Our white gas stove is pretty sweet because we don¢t have to prime it. Well, I put the match to the stove and turned the gas on. Everything was going just fine until I put the pot on the flame and had to pump the gas to re-pressurize the stove. Suddenly I noticed a few drops of gas leaking out of the stove. Then it was all flames. The stove on fire, if you will. I am the only woman at the shelter, surrounded by all these beefy hiker guys watching me. Craig is off putting our tent away and filtering water. I am trying not to freak out. (I am also thinking that I am about to burn down the forest.) I calmly shut off the gas valve as the stove continued to be engulfed in flame. The guy next to me from MA (his name escapes me) told me not to worry, that the flame would die out as the gas got consumed, and that the stove would be fine. However, I did notice that he ran to grab some water just in case. The guys at the shelter were very nice to me ¢ they didn¢t poke fun and they didn¢t give me some sort of trail name related to fire. (Smoky, Firestarter¢¦ etc.) Plus they knew it was my first time lighting the stove. So, after that disasterous experience, I think I will wait to light it again. Of course Craig came back and relit the stove and everything went fine! I don¢t know what went wrong. The fuel tube was screwed on tight ¢ I did everything right. Oh well. Craig and I cook really yummy food. Or maybe it is yummy because we are really hungry and tired and we¢ve only been doing this for a few days. We had bowtie pasta primavera and cheddar broccoli mac noodles with tuna for dinner. It was really good! We had to hang our bear bags ourselves tonight in the woods because this Slaughter Gap is just a clearing with tent sights and no shelter or bear cables. Craig is funny hurling our rope tied to a rock over a tree limb. He has great aim. Our food should be secure. It is really cold and rainy out making chores seem harder and longer. But we are warm and safe in our tent. When will the rain end??? We hiked in rain all day. I like it because we have our great Marmot precip rain jackets and our windshirts. It is very muddy and slippery in the rain. There is this annoying couple staying in Slaughter Gap with us ¢ one of those couples that likes to point out all your flaws. They were the first to tell us that we were really sunburned and that we needed gaitors. Anyway, they are tenting here too and they¢ve been arguing all evening, really loud! It makes me feel better ¢ Craig and I make a great team! I give Craig major props because he filters the water each morning while I just have to hold our bladders and water bottles while he pumps. Filtering water is hard ¢ each pump requires major upper body action. I get tired out so quickly. I like to tease him about his astonishing muscularity. My hiking poles are awesome ¢ I can pull myself up the mountains with them, and they take a lot of stress off my knees. Craig and I hiked separately in the AM (I leave first and he catches up later on because he is faster than I am) and then we hiked together all afternoon. We have just 3 miles to go to get to Neel¢s Gap, our first stop. There is a hiker center there called Walasi-Yi. Right on the trail. We are excited to take a break from the rain!!!! We have had it all over these first few days: rain in the AM and PM, bugs, etc. We are holding up! I do enjoy the cooler temps.