Date: 2006-10-16
From: lost mountain shelter

To: thomas knob shelter
Miles today: 12.2
Weather: overcast clouds

======2003====== friday, april 4, day 42climbed most of the day today....but the trip up from damascus so far has not disappointed (dave at the outfitters said it would be great!)....i guess the first really stunning part was after we reached whitetop mtn.....it was kind of overcast, but you could still see the valley and the mountains stretching off in the distance.....as we hiked up over the mountain, huge dark rocks jutted up out of "waves" of beige grasses and pale gray, thorny dwarfed trees (hawthorn?...locust?)...interspersed were ruddy blueberry bushes and occasional bare azaleas....the textures of this lovely "garden" were what made it so particularly striking....it seemed as if the rolling bald had come alive under the soft sky with "brush strokes" and "stipples" in varying earth tones that seemed to shine against the gray morning.....but i was looking for ponies!....had my camera ready just in case!....we walked on and not too long after whitetop, we came into the woods again....here we began to see evergreens once more (fraser firs?)....at one point the trail rose to a "magical" knob, like a bunion all covered with moss and roots and boulders, trees and rhodys and laurel.....again, it was one of those portions that reminded us of what tolkein might have imagined "middle earth" to look like....everything was wet and lush and green, dripping rivulets of crystal clear water over moss and fern covered stones.....the evergreens overhung the trail with the fresh scent of balsam!.....it all seemed so ancient....so mystical....i felt part of it somehow....that longing of the soul, i guess for the way things were originally.....they told us in damascus that this part of the trail was as much like maine as anything....if that's true, i can hardly wait!....(maybe it's as much like HEAVEN as anything!)....we soon came out to elk garden and walked up another "bald" to have lunch.....we were enjoying the ramp leaves we had gathered along the way....(i think they could become addictive!)....they are somewhere between garlic and onion as far as flavor goes....paw says they have an "afterglow"! ha ha!....we walked on up toward mt. rogers....there were beautiful "forest" scenes alternating with more open meadow sorts of vistas....paw said it all reminded him of montana....as we walked along late into the afternoon and came to the last grass/rock/and shrub-covered mile, a scene caught my eye that i know i will never forget!....as i was scanning the landscape, still trying to take in all i could of the horizon with its misty, fading mountaintops, and the foreground of soft, honey-colored grasses accented sparcely with bare trees and firs, i suddenly spyed way off in the distance the rustic image of what looked to be a log cabin....it was nestled into the boulders and firs (a few of which the withered spires seemed to have succumbed to adelgids or some other disease)....the beautifully raw and rugged mountainscape with the lonesome hint of a dwelling place, settled on my heart like home!....i thought, "now THERE's appalachia!"....it turned out that this cabin was our shelter for the night!WOW!....we spooked a couple of deer as we walked the worn and rocky trail over the next half mile....the snowbirds were active and chittering a welcome in the shrubs glowing in the late afternoon sun....walking that path was like coming home!....i felt suddenly like i was in another time....a pioneer coming in to visit kinfolk....and, indeed a very nice "cabin-dweller" named bill was on the "front stoop" (a boulder) to greet us as we unburdened ourselves among the birds nibbling crumbs at the picnic table....(bill wants to hike the AT someday,too, so he had quite a few questions for us, all of which we tried to answer in ways we thought might best help him realize his dream)....well....i don't know if it will rain (or SNOW!) tonight....a few dayhikers dropped by and said the forecast looked good, but, of course, you never know up here in these mountains!....we only have 11 miles tomorrow, so i guess we can sleep in a little if we want and enjoy our time lookin' for the ponies! (bill says he thinks we should see them for sure tomorrow).....i am fascinated with this place.....the changing evening sky....the sound of the wind in the firs......the happy little snowbirds quietly flittering around in the doorway....the distant watercolor mountains and the grassy "bald" that rolls off to wild horse habitat!...wow!....i'm so glad we're here!....we've both been in especially great moods over the last couple of days....must be the springtime!...actually we got downright "giggly" yesterday!....we had sat down beside the trail to have our lunch in the warm, delicious sunshine and we began to "review" our stay at the iron mtn. shelter (the one where the two of us stayed with seven other folks in the freezing cold weather)....we were remembering lex luther's famous words of "cheer" after poor walk-on's fainting spell : "listen up, folks...i wantcha all to remember when you go out today....we're not gonna make it!".....well...killeen and i, as we "re-lived" this unreasonably hilarious incident, just got "lost" in uncontrollable laughter.....we were almost choking on our lunch as we threw ourselves back into the leaves and held our sides as we laughed and repeated over and over again, "we're not gonna make it!...we're not gonna make it!"...(i think we had reached that happy and carefree trail "nirvana' of insanity!.....that's what it REALLY takes to be out here, right?)....well....today was a little more sane, i guess, but we did have lots of enjoyable chit-chat along the way....it was fun just pointing out elements of the landscape to each other.....i think it's true....we really do make good hikin' buddies!....i finished another chapter in the book of john today....(Jesus on "trial")....."what is TRUTH?" pilate wanted to know....Jesus had given the answer to that question in a prayer (of the previous chapter) : "God's Word is truth!"....He had said.....TRUTH....real Truth is a PERSON, not an idea or philosophy....that's why it's absolute!....an individual is an individual....One is One....God cannot be divided and He does not change....He IS truth!....to know truth....to know reality...i must know HIM!....Jesus left this earth in body so that His SPIRIT of Truth might come and broadly fill everything everwhere with Himself (or that's the way i understand scriptures like this or ephesians 1:23)....so i look for the Truth....i pray, Lord, rise up among us, the Truth!....strong and clear IN us.....teach us!.....let us know and practice TRUTH!....(a little later on...)i'm flat of my back now on this shelter floor.....warm....snug....looking up through the opening that goes up into the loft.....the last lights of the day are playing upon this structure as fingers at a keyboard might compose a melody.....the mellow golden "notes" of a "not-quite" sunset are sounding on each rough hewn log that forms the wall here beside me....the reflected light under the eaves sings an almost greenish tune, echoing the firs i can see out through the doorway....they are emerald in the fading light.....above, a pale, almost "television" sort of light is blaring its way through the plexiglass and duct-tape opening in the end of the loft, highlighting the "percussion" of each rhythmic rung on the ladder that descends a shadowy scale back down to me again....ahhhh!....the music!...all this beautiful, quietly humming WOOD!... and all in me!.....but this is the 21st century!...is this a "dream song" or am i really here in a hand-crafted,pioneer style lean-to?....and how is it that it "speaks" to me?....i admit to not understanding the high-tech language of this present world....computers...science...politics....but THIS!....THIS i understand!....this cabin with its simple, solid timbers....i "know" the feel of the grain that runs through the wood.....i relate, somehow, to the tiny breath of wind that carries a cobweb in and out of the light before the doorway....i comprehend the comfort that the sturdy log walls supply, a haven for stronger winds....and the solace of the straight, simple, useful lines of the architecture which for me is more than design....it is PLACE!.....the smell,even, is old and familiar, like an old trunk in some grandma's attic...the shadows hold no fear, but are soft and enveloping like the quilt i snuggle under here with killeen...i KNOW this place (though we've only just met).....and it makes me know everything's okay....mmmmmm....i'm sleepy....(i could've sworn i just heard a wood thrush!*....but it's much too early, isn't it?.....======2006====== saturday, march 25, day 42 well! how do y' like this!....i can't believe it!....it's 7:47 and we're here under our tarp in wet, snowy woods and we're as happy as clams!....i had prayed earlier today that wherever the Lord wanted to put us, i WASN'T going to complain.....(i had prayed that prayer when we were trying to negotiate in atkins for a hotel room....let me explain...)the guy at the little motel wanted to charge us $115 for a room "because",he apologized, "it was race weekend"....i think killeen was about ready to accept the offer, but my vote put the nix on that....the next shelter was FREE....and besides, the fellow was nice enough to let us do our laundry there and that's all we really needed....alas, there were no hot showers provided.....anyway as we headed out of town, we met this old hiker, 'sticks', and he told us about this campsite (crawfish creek?) that he thought we'd really love...(indeed in good weather it would've been a perfect "stealth").....the sun was shining as we left 'sticks' there at the road (though a very cold wind hinted of what was to come.....looking back, if we had headed out just 20 minutes sooner, we would've been set up here OUT of the snow, before it actually started coming down....as it happened, when we came down the last leg of this section, the "bottom dropped out", pouring buckets of snow down in one of the heaviest snow squalls we had ever seen!....as the woods leveled out into a hollow we assumed was the site that 'sticks' had told us about, we turned aside from the trail and made our way into the fairly level woods.....killeen looked for water while i very hurriedly scouted out a place for us to pitch our tarp......i finally found a place we could sqeeze into as paw-ee arrived with the water....he was great!.....he threw that tarp up so fast it would make your head spin!....i, on the other hand, being dumbfounded by the weather, was no help at all!....fortunately, paw took control and per his direction i was finally able to crawl under and try to spread out our tyvek on the already snow-covered ground.....(my sweet husband actually had to help with that, too!....i don't know what was wrong with me!...it was like i just went brain-dead!).......anyway, once we were under and situated on top of our groundcover, i did finally get it together enough to get our supper cooked.....and amazingly, i think i did it all without complaining!....YEA!....score one for the maw-ster!well, let's see.... i "wrote a book" today(in my head)...yes....i wrote a book on "complaining".....with "chapters" that showed what it might have sounded like if Jesus had ever been as whine-y as me (which i'm sure He wasn't)....it was a pretty silly picture!....(and then i realized how silly it is for me to complain as well!)......as i thought about these "chapters" on complaining, i had my eyes opened to some things.....for one, i determined that the reason i complain (bottom line) is that i simply don't TRUST the Lord as i should.....(if i did, there'd be no REASON to complain!....DUH!)....secondly, i realized i often complain because of the basic fact that i'm just plain ol' selfish and am often found grumbling when things aren't going MY way ......third (and there are probably many other reasons, but three should suffice here in this snow),i'm spoiled!...i've got it way too good and have come to expect that life must always be "good" or "happy" for me....(shoot!...i don't even know what the REAL good is!)...........i am also thinking that if i'm really convinced of the Holy Spirit being active and at work in my life then complaining has no place....not only would it be wrong in terms of faith, it would be impossible in terms of fruition!....the FRUIT of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, long-suffering, etc....does that sound like a life of complaints?!!!....the reality is, however, that i don't always live out this truth.....i sometimes (i'm sorry to say) complain.......why?....the apostle paul wondered about this too....in his letter to the romans he questioned why he sometimes did the things he didn't want to do....or didn't do the things he WANTED to do.....i think the problem is "carnality".....if we ever learned to truly walk after the spirit we would not complain....as it is now (for me anyway) i let my "soul", my mind, my reason, my emotions, my will, my senses, my appetites RULE how i behave (instead of my Holy Spirit directed HEART, i.e., the "real" me).....but do i just "check out" concerning all these other God-given falculties?....i don't think so....i think the question is one of WHO is in charge....me?....or my Lord!.....whew!...this is too much now for a small-minded, crazy thru-hiker stuck in under a tarp on a snowy march evening in the mountains!....i am serious, though, about turning this into some kind of a study or a book or something.....who knows....i might even eventually read it and learn something!.....also, something else that hit me today for a second time since bein' out here....i wondered at the possibility of killeen and i hosting a "soup-and-talk" sort of deal after church on sundays for folks who might want to know more about Jesus or our local church....kind of like an "after church altar call".....it hurts me sometimes to think that hungry people may come to the "table" expecting to be given Bread and then sadly go away hungry without anyone ever having offered them food.....i dunno....i'll hafta talk to eric about it.....well... the snow is really coming down......hope we can find the trail in the morning.....(i DID make a mental note of that big beech over there where the trail passes!)...Lord, would You be so kind to see to it that our tarp doesn't collapse under the weight of the snow tonight.....and if it's within your will at all, please let this wet, snowy cold weather move on out.....i do believe You have put us here tonight for a reason.....please help us to trust You without complaining....i also want to thank You, Father, for all the help and strength You've given us so far....amazing!....i was thinkin' today, Lord, how You even allowed there to be extra food at the thomas knob shelter....GOOD food!...extra protein and tasty snacks packed with calories!...juicy fruit cups for nutrition and energy!...You are a GREAT Provider and i praise YOU!.......~~oh the Lord's been good to me~~ and so i thank the Lord~for giving me the things i need ~ the sun and the rain and the apple seed~~ oh the Lord's been good to me!~~ **NOTES/OBSERVATIONS/COMPARISONS*a wood thrush.....its song... deep, haunting, telling....is one of my favorite sounds of the forest!....gerard manly hopkins said that it "did rinse and wring the ear"...it does more than that! it rinses and wrings the SOUL!....but one cannot hear this bird anytime....you must wait until winter is past....you must wait until spring is born....i always consider the song of the thrush to be the best of omens....a sign to be listening with my heart! * "the sun and the rain and the apple seed"......y'all know this song?....the "johnny appleseed song"!....(our grandkids used to sing it at mealtimes...)