Date: 2007-08-02
To: Crocker Cirque Campsite
Miles today: 7.2
Weather: clear sky

mi. 7.2sleep hammockdest. Crocker Cirque Campsite Day 21Today marks my 3rd week on the trail. Pretty crazy how tomorrow I will bepassing the 200 mile mark. Not too shabby. I think that makes something like a9+ average miles per day. Thats adding my my zero and couple short days. Allin all I'm happy.I was going to get started early today, but I got the worst night's sleep yetlast night. I had the hostel all to myself. There was a northbounder Hoosierand a flip flopers Spock staying in the motel part. I stayed up late by mystanderds watching I,Robot on TV. I get hooked into movies pretty easy.I went to bed around 11. I found a decent country station and tried to fallasleep. I just couldn't get relaxed. I finally fell asleep. but I kept wakingup all night. The bed wasn't too bad. I think what is happening is I am usedto sleeping in my hammock on the trail. Anything else just doesn't feel right. I can think of worse problems to have. I'll deal with fixing it when I getback.On a side note there are a lot of new country songs that came out in the 3 weekssince I left. I think when I get back I am going to be left in the dark on allthe movies, tv, songs, and current events. Oh well, I can think of worseproblems to have.Before I left I had a good conversation with Hoosier and shared some of mycoffee with him. Thios stuff is really good and really strong. You can tastethe espresso blend in it. Sue the woman running the hostel said it was herfavorite blend.I also made a great breakfest. A 4 egg omlete with 5 slices of fatty chz, .5lbs of sloppy joes, all fried in olive oil. A great 1200+ meal with tons of fatand protein.I also finally made my AT hiker to town sign for hitching rides. I was ging towrite it on the bottom of my sit pad, but the hostel only had a blue marker andmy pad is blue. I ended up using the back of a pizza box. It's in my packhanging on my hammock support lines. I'll let you know if anything chews on it. Didn't think about that at the time.Today's hiking wasn't bad at all. I went up and over both peaks of Crockermountain. I think just about every mountain I go over has mulitple peaks. Idid however almost run out of water again. The profile map shows a stream onthe way up, but the contour map does not. Luckily there was a spring. Itdidn't look to shady. So I finish my half liter left and filled up both.On the way down I hiked with Spock a little. I can tell I really don't likehiking with other people. I hiked faster on the up hill, but slower on thedownhill, and about the same on flat. I only hiked with him for under a mile. Plus I don't really see anything when I hike with someone. We make too muchnoise. Plus I like to take a lot of breaks. Stopping for a second to catch mybeath or wipe the sweat off. Sometimes I just don't want to walk and drink. Ididn't think it at first but 200 miles has made me a solo hiker. End of the dayis a different story.Originally I was shooting for the top of the next mountain. On top up {prettymuch straight up} Sugarloof mountain is a ski resort. They leave one of thebuildings open for hikers to stay in. It is only about 3-3.5 miles away. Butthere is a wicked uphill rock scramble before it. I got to the side trail forthe campsite at around 3pm. I decided that if I pushed on I would not amek ituntil 7 or 8pm. So it was an easy decision to stay. I found out Spock whopwanted to push past that stoped just ahead by a small stream.I got to the site to find someone by the name of Steve. He already had his tentset up on one of the tent platforms. I talked with him for awhile. I made somecoffee, of course, and he said it was the best cup he had in awhile. He addedin a rice crispy treat. Great snack. I am packing 8oz of coffee so I think I'mset to share for awhile.I talked with Steve for a coupkle hours. He was asking my a lot of questionsabout school and my research after I told him that I was studying and almostdone with grad school. It turns out he is also an electrical enginner and worksfor Bose out of Mass. He gave me his card and told me to shoot him and email ifI wanted him to pass my resume along. He does a lot of work that is similar tomy grad research.He is hiking all of the 4000 footers in the area. He already did the 48 or howmany is in N.H. and is working on the 14 in Maine. He has hiked a lot in theWhites that I will see next month. He gave he a great breakdown on the differnthuts, trails, and campsites I will see. He also gave me a really cool dayhiking loop to do around Mt Washington.I have been thinking that I want to do more side hikes and really enjoy myself. I regret not doing the 5 mile Gulf Hagas loop in the 100 mile wilderness. It isa huge slate canyon just of the AT. I am thinking an extra day or 2 for sidehikes in the whites is on the agenda.Crazy how things worked out in the end. I almost moved on. I would have misseda lot of good info and conversation about the whites and hiking. There is also afather and son staying here from Maine. Them along with Steve had some reallyinteresting insite into Maine and preserving the wilderness up here. It isreally different politically up here in terms of wilderness and preservationthat I thought it would be. I really hope I get a chance to talk to localsalong the trail to get diferent presetives all along the trail.I did hear the the northbounder staying here, in a hh {hennessy hammcok}, thatclay, clint, and jason pushed on to the ski resort. I saw them in stratton andthey said that is where they where headed. Nice guys but I thionkl they aredrinking a little too much in town for me to hike consistantly with them.There is supposed to be afternoo thunderstorms tomorrow. I am going to go atleast 10 miles to the next shelter. If it is looking good I will press on 4more to the next to make up for today. If not I have enough food. I wasoriginally going to push on to Andover. But now I think will do a fly by stopat Rangely a town 20 miles before. I should only need a day or so of food. Butthey are supposed to have an ice cream place and doughnut place. Both I havebeen craving. So it will work itself out. I think with my current pace I amgoing to keep and extra day of food on me. I have a tendency to stop early thefirst day out of town.Btw. I just realized before typing this that somehow I lost my entry foryesterday. Kind of annoying. I'll have to type it up tomoorow. Once againtyping after dark in the hammock and can't stay awake any longer.