Date: 2008-04-29
From: Stealth Site .2 miles into Pine Grove Pk, PA

To: Stealth Site before James Fry Shelter .2 mi
Miles today: 6.8

Well, made it through the nite, it was 42 cold degrees when I woke. A branch above me actually fell off and hit my tarp, which is what got me out of bed around 7:00 a.m. Man was it cold, and putting on cold, wet hiking clothes is probably the worst part of the day. Of course nothing dried out, but at least it stopped raining. Still overcast and now windy. Ugh.As I was doing morning chores, I heard a vehicle, it was 2 people in one of those John Deer work carts, and they saw me, slowed down, but kept going. BUSTED! LOL A few min. later, a pickup drove by, so I was expecting a park ranger @ any moment, but nobody bothered me. Lucky again.So @ 8:15 I walked back to the big pavillion, used their privy, and tried to figure out what to do today. See, I had planned a short day @ 10.9 miles already, and I cut part of that off by hiking so far yesterday. I'm meeting Karen in Boiling Springs, PA on Wed. so I was in no hurry.I had 2 choices, a 16 miler with a short day on Wed., or 6 miler with the normal 12.2 on Wed. Because my feet are so sore and waterlogged, I opted for the 6 miler. If I keep hiking long distances w\wet feet, I'll get another one of those bad blisters.So @ 8:30, I was off. Overcast, grey, windy, cold, miserable, but NO rain..YIPPY! I hiked on a beach..for the swimming hole of the park. There's a detour for constructionbut it's poorly marked. I guessed where to head and figured it out. I was so out of it from yesterday, I didn't realize it was a short hike to the infamous 1/2 way marker (I think now it's a bit less than half, but who cares). A great marker showing Springer Mt. 1069 miles South and Mt. Katahdin 1069 miles North! I didn't know what to feel actually. Seeing Springer Mt. written in front of me   just didn't seem real. I just stood there for a moment and reflected on how much I've been through and how much my life has changed, and it all started on Springer Mt. It just seemed like a lifetime ago. I took a picture but was getting cold, so had to move on. The general store for the 1/2 gallon challenge is still closed. I have another chance @ another store tomorrow, but if it's cold again, I'm not sure I'll be able to try it. If not, I may try it when I go home.I saw a few deer today. They are beautiful creatures to me. How they can move so swiftly on any terrain. Usually all I see are their butts bouncing up and down as they run away though.Today's hike (short as it was) was easy too. Just one long hill to get over, and down to the next shelter. I stopped on top of the climb and finally got a cell signal, so I called Karen to whine about my day yesterday. As we were talking, the sun peeked out. Man do I love the sun. Makes me feel safer out here, but it was short lived. She told me about the 200 people in the Norfolk, VA area who were injured in tornados caused by that wicked storm I weathered a few days ago. So sad.My hands were freezing from the wind, while talking on the phone, so I had to move on.About 11:00 a.m., the sun finally started shining more ad I was noticing more blue skies....YEAH! I decided I was going to take advantage of the short day, and when I got to camp,I'd hang everything out to dry out as much as possible. The bottoms of my feet feel like someone has taken a metal file and just scraped the crap out of them from hiking in wet socks/shoes all day for 4 days. Glad I have the luxury of a short day.I got to this beautiful river and bridge and a sign said the shelter was .2 further, but this place was so perfect, I decided to stop here.I got everything out of my pack, used my bearbag rope as a clothesline, ad put my socks, shoes, raingear, pack cover, gaitors, camp towel, and superfeet out. I also put my tarp up and separately, my hammock with the underquilt flipped on top of the ridgeline and my sleeping bag hanging over it too. My down stuff isn't wet, but it can get damp from moisture in the air.The sun is now shining, there's a bit of a breeze, my feet and gear are drying, and I'm sitting on the bridge over the river typing this all warm, dry, and happy again. Amazing what 12 hrs can do huh? Tomorrow it's in to Boiling Springs, PA, and some time w/Karen..YIPPY! I had planned to take about 7-10 days off in May to go home and take care of some stuff w/deadlines that I didn't have a chance to take care of before I left. Well, it's all worked out perfectly to go from Boiling Springs and take the time now. Don't worry folks..there's NO WAY I'm stopping, I just need to do some stuff that will affect what happens when I get back. (like trying to see if I can complete that 2nd Master's Degree..I decided out here I'm going to try). Also Karen is now on break, so we want to spend some time together as well as get her gear ready to go, because when she brings me back up in a week or so, the plan is for her to hike with me for a bit, so I need to shake down her pack and make sure she remembers how to put up her hammock.   Also, we're trying to coordinate some timing w/a few trips, a high school reuion, ad of course, her meeting me in Monson, ME and joining me for the final 115 miles to the Big K. We haven't had a chance to work all this out, so I'll be busy. And maybe, another week will get the temps up a bit. I'm right @ my low end of comfort out here, wouldn't mind consistent temps @ nite in the 50's.I also miss my boys Hank and Henry so much, and want to give them some major lovin time. Apparently, Henry has bee protesting my absence by whining @ nite, so I'll need to have a talk with him. If I have something worth saying I'll journal on my days back home, so don't worrry, I'm not disappearing, just takin care of life (which we all know happens whether we want it to or not).It's only 3:09 p.m., and I'm just chillin, which is nice. I think I'm going to go raid my foodbag now, I'm pretty hungry. If anything significant happens in my evening, I'll add it, but so far I'm alone and have seen nobody today.The best part about this life...hiking the AT, is that things change every single day, and it is easy to let go of what happened yesterday. Not a bad thing to practice in the real world if you ask me.Ok, it's now 6:00 p.m, and something SO cool happened! I was dinkin around camp ad saw a group coming down the trail, it was ALL women/girls! I was so excited to see this. I said hello, ad asked who they were, but the hiking leader spoke to quickly fpr me to catch it, ad her body language told me she wanted to get this group settled. So I just stood there as they passed and told them all how great it was to see women out here.This happened around 4:00, so fast forward to 5:30. I'm sitting on the bridge eating my Mexican Rice on a tortilla (GREAT meal by the way), and here comes a lone woman, and I assumed she was with this group. She was, so I had another opporrtunity to ask about it.It is a group that takes at-risk girls, age 13-18 through a 31 day empowerment program, includes mentoring, and this 10 day backpacking trip where they go from 3 miles a day up to 11 and end up in Caledonia State Park.I asked if you have to have a counseling degree, and she said no, just A degree (I've got that covered), and she said this group is based out of Boiling Springs, PA. So she told me to check out AEE (Association for Experiential Education) and she gave me her email, phone # and name! Oh, the group is called Daikon. So you have no idea how exciting this is to me. She told me there aren't very many programs for at-risk girls (becase we always tend to think girls are angels and it's the boys who cause trouble). She said they do a ropes course and other ativities. So I'm thinking....I don't think my town has a group like this, but there are plenty of programs that could piggyback off it, so my head is churning right now. Another reason it is good for me to take some days..to check into this. It's right up the alley I've been looking at.Again, I don't believe in chance happenings, and how ironic that I had the day I had yesterday, chose to keep today short, end up stealth camping, just to find myself camping up river from these girls. Even if it doesn't amount to anything right away, now I have a contact.During dinner, I meditated on a rock in the river. I really looked at it, noticing its orangy hue, how the water ran to its sides like parting its hair. I wondered how long it had been here, maybe forever? How many people have passed it while crossing this bridge? Has water worn it down over time and how may little animals have found shelter under or by it? I thought about how people are either water or rock. They are either in motion, changing things around them, moving downstream and affecting many many rocks, or they are rocks, just sitting, being shaped by the environment and water, still serving an important role of reflecting back to the water what it has changed though. And maybe some rocks get stuck forever and are slowly ground away to pebbles. I think I want to be water.~Certain