Date: 2005-10-12
From: Rocky Mtn Shelters 

To: Devil's Race Course Shelter (1480')
Miles today: 19.8

This day was great. It began with a Green Star appearance as we were packing up in the morning. He was supposed to be much further towards Harper's Ferry where he was "finishing" his thru-hike the following day. I say "finishing" becuase no one really knows how much of the Appalachian Trail he has actually hiked. Tataruga had no interest in his game but I was all for it of course. "Ahh, my head is drained. Is the spring flowing?" he asks. Tataruga gave him detailed directions on how to find the spring head and he stopped paying attention half way through. 20 mins later he returns to begin his bit for us. He says his usuall pile of lies about why he is now behind us and other nonsense. Tataruga goes to the privy , unwilling to listen to anything more he has to say. He tells me not to tell her about what he's been doing until he gets of the trail the following day and I agree to his terms. He confesses to have only done a few foot miles in the 100 mile Shenendoa section, instead having his mother bring him a bicycle for him to ride on the Parkway road - all the while following him in a car so that he would only have to ride the downhills, how scandalous! He said people he'd been hiking with saw him that day at a snack bar walking around with a helmet on. Comic Genius, I say to him. He's been doing this stuff for the entirety of his "thru-hike", convincing people he's doing incredible miles and then they would see him later on sitting around and get all worked up about how he was keeping up with their pace. I guess he cheated many times by using vehicles to yellow blaze miles. The funny thing is that other hikers get so wrapped up in what other hikers say they are doing or not doing as far as miles go. It becomes a sort of competition, loosely. Tataruga was done with him and didn't find it funny until the second half of the day. Turns out he's doing this hike with an endorsement from a Mormon agency where he is walking for Iraqi children. So he's totally a scam master, additionally scandalous is his upcoming missionary trip to Zimbabwae for 19 months beginning the end of Oct. Everyone says that he's well prepared to tell some good lies. In between shelters we found another thru-hiker, Jimbo, looking ragged and pale inside of a shelter resting. He's also getting off the trail in Harpers Ferry. In the afternoon, we crossed state's into MD and knew of the possibility of ordering pizza to the trail at Pen Mar Park. When we arrived at 4pm the ranger had left for the day meaning that there was no phone access. Tataruga and I, severly disheartend got into a debate about knocking on doors to use a phone merely to order pizza. She said it was over the line and I argued that most people wouldn't care and if they do care then they can always refuse. She said if I did the dirty work she would finance, so I remembered the lessons Steve Stegmaier taught me about sometimes you'll never get anything unless you ask and about knocking on the doors of random people and said I was going for it. We packed the pizza up to the shelter where Jimbo and a great character, Roaming Goat, had already gotten comfortable. That night we were awoken by sounds of wretching outside the shelter. Apparenetly Jimbo had picked up something nasty on account of him doing huge miles in cold rainy weather out of eagerness to finish his thru-hike. He was sick 3 times that nighyt and got a late start in the morning by his standars. A lesson about over doing it was learned.