Date: 2003-06-08
From: John's Hollow Shelter

To: John's Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

day 86now this is the kind of camp evening i have envisioned as being very memorable...sitting around a nice fire, a hiker (trailname; loser) playing his backpacking guitar and everyone (gazelle, mothman, jane and 3 others and me) listening...a rushing stream audible between songs. no rain, warm enough to wear shorts and shirt, no bugs biting, and right next to me a trail magic beer thats been cooling in the stream, unbeknownsst to me until i was offered it. and a pretzel rod between my teeth. if life gets better, someone please tell me how. tomorrow morning, spunky will meet me here as we resume the hike. alot of unexpected factors have put monkey wrenches in our northward progress in the past few weeks and days. but it looks like we'll be ALL GO in the morning. i am ready for some big mile days. besides, i also heard from someone that the last people to have started from springer mtn are at this point on the trail. im curious to know how many of us are still left. plus, since i guess im now at the tail end of the thru hikers, it will be fun to catch up and pass people ive met already and talk with them again.today i met spunky and princeton on the north side of the james river footbridge. i didnt know they were ahead of me, so i was surprised to see them here. we went to glasgow in princeton's car. i ate a whole pepperidge farm frozen cake (that wasnt frozen) doused in chocolate milk in the one quart rainbow sherbert bowl, as the sherbert (which was freezer burnt) sat on the bowl lid (and didnt melt), while i ate the cake and milk with my spork. mmmmmmm. if you knew me a few years ago and told me you read what i just wrote, as if you were a time traveler, i would probably have considered you a lunatic for saying that i would eat that much sugar. but today, thats what i did. i almost bought a big beer to wash it all down too. blasphemous!! (:the day we got back to the trail (thurs, 5june), we crossed the 1/3 mark of the trail, which is wilson creek shelter, mile 724.2. next year will probably be different. so thats one more landmark passed.tonite, i am under my tarp, which i configured a new way, which gives me way more room. its a silnylon tarp, 8X10. i set it up with a hiking pole in the front, like your typical pup tent or A-frame. then, 10 feet away at the back-or foot- end, i just staked the corners to the ground, no hike pole. this way my foot end of the sleeping bag wont get rained on, like it has been from the way ive been setting it up. my bug net from campmor and the next set of maps and a camera card is waiting for me at the p.o. in montebello,va. i should be there wednesday late morning. when you have a tarp, you have to think about a bug net. the net and my tarp together will weigh 20 ounces. how can you really get lighter?well, you may wonder if im sick of anything yet. sick? when i write in my journal/this pocketmail at nite with a headlite, all the bugs dive bombing my face and eyes is annoying. oatmeal in the little packets im tired of, so now i eat actual cereal, with powdered milk. and i drink tang too. but im not sick of anything. im enjoying the chance to experience what gear really works well out here, what the minimum is that you can get by comfortably with. its an education. take the tent/tarp question. i was a died in the wool tent man...now look at me. tarping it.very long entry...ending now. as they say out here, "see you up the trail".p.s.- later this nite. i was up around 0230am having to "water the flowers" when i saw something glowing in the dark. and it wasnt anything my headlite illuminated. i closed in on it to discover the strangest thing...some kind of jellyish fungus growing on a tree stump! ill get pics of it in the morning. little tiny fungus, too, like an inch or so wide. weird. never seen anything like that before.