Date: 2004-09-10
From: Route 52 Near Gorham, NH

To: Taking Evasive Action
Miles today: 11.8

This morning, I stood beside Route 52 in Gorham, NH and stuck out my thumb. A van pulled over and I entered it. Three women in their twenties were passengers. They identified themselves as southbound thru hikers on The Appalachian Trail. One of them introduced herself as Hippy Long Stockings. I had never met this person but knew of her. A few weeks ago, she had been hiking northbound. I told her that I had been hiking one day behind her for a long time back in Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. She had always left statements in the registers at the shelters. Her statements were dated. At some point along the way, her statements ceased appearing. Today, she told me that she had "flipped" and was now heading south for the rest of her thru hike.The hiking today was moderately difficult. There were lots of hills and mountains to climb, some of them with steep slopes, but the elevations were lower than in the Presidential Range.There were some nice views to enjoy, but they were not as spectacular as the ones during the last few days. There were no tree lines.The toughest part of today's hike was puddles of water and muck on the trail, and wet rocks, a result of the rain yesterday.On several occasions, I slipped on wet rocks and wet planks. At a marsh, there were planks situated over the water for walking. The water level of the marsh was so high that the planks were submerged when I stepped upon them.At 5:30 p.m., I reached the shelter at Gentian Pond, NH. The shelter was larger than most, and it was packed with hikers; many of them were students. Sardine had erected his hammock nearby. Hans the chess player is a hammock camper like me. We walked one hundred yards away and erected our hammocks in the woods.I strung up the hammock and cautiously lay inside of it to ensure that the chords were tied securely to the trees; that is my usual procedure. The tarp was not yet set up.A loud cracking noise caught my attention. I looked up through the mosquito netting. To my horror, the tree which held the foot end of the hammock was falling over in my direction. It was an evergreen tree about 35 feet in height. There were dead branches protruding from the trunk.As the tree fell, the bottom of the hammock¢and my body¢touched down on the ground. The impact was not hard.As the tree fell closer, I rolled to my left while trapped inside the nylon fabric of the hammock. The tree crashed to the ground where I had just been lying. It landed on some of the hammock and the tarp, but it missed me by inches. What a close call!I extracted myself from the downed hammock and looked over the scene. The tree had fallen over as a result of the weight from me lying in the hammock. The tree had broken up into three separate logs. My chord remained tied to one of the logs. I selected another tree and tied a chord of the hammock to it. There were no further problems.Afterwards I played a couple of chess games with Hans whose hammock was strung up near mine.I am lying in my hammock and composing this journal entry. It is cold tonight, mainly due to the wind that is blowing through the woods. The tarp above the hammock is a barrier to the wind, but I can feel a slight breeze moving inside the hammock. The time has come to crawl into my sleeping bag, get warm and go to sleep.