Date: 2008-10-07
From: Pinefield Hut

To: Blackrock hut
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: clear sky

Tough day...I didn't feel much like hiking this morning. Up early to giggling from the troop of women who now sounded more like a troop of girl scouts. The woods was bringing out a childhood like giddiness amongst the group. I felt bad that they would have to go back to their jobs at the end of the week....suckers ...I kid, I kid, they were nice. I stopped to chat them up on my way out and explained I was beat last night with no energy to socialize(but enough to eat their food). It was a foggy morning and up the first incline it leveled off and I was moving again. I heard a loud rustling and turned to see nothing, I then followed the noise up to see a cub at the top of a full size pine. Like a fireman sliding down a pole to a burning building the bear was at the bottom in 4 seconds, breaking all branches on his way down. He took off in the other direction and I set my camera to movie mode ready if I came upon another bear in a tree. I hadn't done too many miles before I hit another camp store. I bought too much junk food and went out to the picnic table to engulf it. A few section hikers joined me and I told them about my amazing luck yogi'ing food in the park. 10 minutes ago a couple heading out gave me a large bag of granola. One of the guys then gave me his bag lunch since he bought food from the store. They laughed as I downed his lunch on top of all the fruit and pastries ice cream and soda I just polished off. This led to a food coma and subsequent nap. I trudged on to black rock shelter...black rocks was a pile of large boulders you could climb for a 360 view. Nice fall reds coming out in patches of trees. A parking lot was very close so tourists were crawling all over. One man told me "I've always had the desire to do the trail, but never the nerve." I'll never forget that line, nerve you can overcome desires don't go away. I watched the sun start to set then headed down tot he hut, I stopped to chat up a guy headed north and we exchanged the typical questions. "where you headed?" "Blackrock hut""you?""blackrock hut"lol I looked at him funny and could read in his eyes he found nothing wrong with us going opposite directions and going to the same place. "Well I'm pretty positive I haven't passed it, I think you missed it...do you stop and read the cement posts?""some of em" He replied as if it wasn't necessary I told him about the parking lot where he could find some flat ground to tent and headed on my way.At the shelter 2 section hikers came in and one sat down as the other started to set up camp. Shortly after I noticed the man sitting down looking like he was slipping into another world, like he had been in a sauna to long. I just kept an eye on him thinking he was going to need cpr any second. 45 minutes later he started to move again slowly coming around. He told me he recovered faster yesterday and he honestly trained for this hike."The highest point in my town (in ohio) is the overpass so i walked around the reservoir, once I got to the corners I would walk up and down once. (an incline of about 10-20 feet at all reservoirs I've seen)Ha A northbounder came in named Yazzi, said he tried to aqua blaze the Shenandoahs with a walmart raft and suprise, suprsie, it didn't work out. So he skipped the park, finished in ME and came back to do the section he skipped. I spotted him well before he got to the shelter, covered head and toe in hunters orange. I renamed him "don't shoot" and informed him there was no hunting in the park.