Date: 2009-06-11
From: Little Laurel Shelter

To: Flint Mnt Shelter
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: overcast clouds

 In the morning the bear bag has a hole it and the mouse or other rodent ate a bit of my burrito. That is all. It was a huge bummer, so big that I decide to call my Uncle Scott to tell this new random event that feels rare and ask what he thinks about the edibility of it. He say cut off a section to be safe, another small bummer. Yes it was tasty and energizing.I got to Big Firescald Knob moving quite well, a little on the fatigued side still though. It was raining quite hard the whole time. There was potential for a good view so I am looking for a break in the clouds and sure enough there is a nice flat farm community to see. 10 buildings spread out widely with huge green fields with a few scattered trees to break up any chance of boredom in the beauty. I am looking as I get soaked without rain gear on. I am not at all demoralized and I am just wanting to get another opening in the low vegetation. I regret not looking longer and stuff, but I do get another quick glimpse thankfully. I take a break once I am in the woods and the rain slows to maybe just a dip off the trees. I do some sort of drying out and eat something (forget what) and then hike onto the shelter. Win is there taking a zero due to a real bad blister. I am extremely low on energy again and I don't know when that happened because it was like 3.5 miles from the knob.I am have a conversation with her but I am giving tired short responses. Luckily, another thru-hiker comes (Dave) and he has a good conversation with Win. I am giving my 2 cents every once in a blue moon. I enjoyed listening to it since it was about life. Then he hikes on while I am hunting for a fabled piped spring 200 yard up hill. There is a sign for the spring in a ziplock tacked to shelter. The trail comes down to the trail so me and Win both think that it is on the AT but we both just over looked it some how. It isn't on the trail. It is going toward the water source and then a side trail that appears as you walk towards it. There is tall grass blocking it from view while sitting at shelter. There is a peeled bark arrow under the blue blaze to the crap spring points left and then 3 peeled bark blazes head up the hard to spot trail. I am like, Oh, sure enough, it goes up hill and there are like 2 or 3 wide spread blue blazes. I get my water and tell Win. I point out the arrow and blazes and explain where to go. She was confused still but she got closer and she was like, Oh, I see it now. Yeah it's hard to spot. Good job, thank you. Also some time during my stay at the shelter, before I moved on to the next in a storm, we talked about Education. She told me a good way to study: look over classes notes within 24 hours after the course and organized a routine that sets you up so that you can be in a good place to reabsorb information well. Take your time taking courses and don't over load on hard courses. Getting a good grade to have the good GPA is all that matters, not the time and path you take to get through your degree. We discussed other stuff about life that is useful. Simply hike your own hike and enjoy the experiences; which has been a major life lesson on this AT trip. Over half the time, the hikers out this late in the season are just section hikers or people realizing Katahdin is not that possible or needed to have the AT experience. Then it was out into a full throttle storm to get to the next shelter. I was no where near dressed for it and I pushed and pushed hoping to escape.