Date: 2008-08-31
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

So I just wanted to write about my super cool overnighter with Liz at the DWG in PA. She is also planning to be part of the class of 09. We had never met in person, but had exchanged several emails. Since we live very close by, we decided to meet for a short shake down hike and just talk gear all day/night. Ok, so we met at the trail head and got a start around 9:00 and we knew we only had to go about 7 miles. Well for starters, I usually hike with a few other people, and we tend to take lots of breaks to BS and what not (this will be handy info in a minute, I promise). Liz and I got to know each other as we walked, and talked SO much about gear, weight, price and the like. We shared some gear experience stories, talked about the things stressing us out about the planning, and anything else that has to do with hiking. So we are waking along and talking, and I realize we are making really fast timing. We keep chatting as we break for lunch on a fallen tree, and Liz says "hopefully nobody will walk by because we are blocking the trail." Just then 2 SOBO thru hikers walk up on. SO cool to see actual thru hikers that we could talk to and squeeze info out of. Their names were Spoonful and Skeeter, both friends from North Carolina, thanks for the info guys! Anyway, we pack up and get walking again, and not 5 minutes later we hit the shelter. Crap, it's only 1:00. We had an hour break for lunch, so it only took us 3 hours to push out 7 miles! (I'm sure when we are seasoned thru hikers, we will be able to push out 7 miles much faster) Now what, there is nothing to do but sit around and talk, right? WRONG! There was a retreat center directly behind the shelter that we sort of snuck into to use a regular bathroom, rather than the privy (shh, don't tell anyone). As we are sitting on a bench relaxing, a nice man comes out and talks with us for a while about hiking and about the retreat they are on. He informs us that there is a pond about a mile down the road, a good place to go hang out. So, rather than just sit around, we walked down to the pond. SCORE! It was SO beautiful with brightly colored plants and trees with an island in the middle of it. We notice a canoe that was begging to be in the water. So, yup you guessed it, we shoved that puppy into the water and paddled around for a while. Now, I'm sure we were illegally trespassing, but hey, the dude at the retreat center sent us down there to hang out, even though it was private property. Oh well, we put the canoe back up on the grass and went on our merry way back to the shelter. There, we meet yet another SOBO hiker, Timber, from Mass. Way cool all over again, we are so thrilled to have another persons brain to pick. So Liz and I went and claimed our tent spots, set up camp, then came down to the shelter to make dinner and talk with Timber. Such a cool dude, we had a really nice time talking with him. He even did his own trail magic and shared a huge chunk of chocolate to shed weight. All in all, it was a fantastic night. A full shelter of people to talk with, some section hikers, and one thru hiker. An A+ day in my book! The hike to our cars was just a matter of backtracking, so it was mostly downs and a few ups. I know I didn't mention any part of the trail up above, so I'll mention a bit about it here. It was very very rocky (yup, that's PA!). We passed through 1 or 2 rhododendron tunnels which I think are so damn cool, and we also passed a few sweet views. Those are what makes the hard hike up worth every second of it. Sometimes the hike up can really suck, but when you get up the top of a mountain and have a killer view, that very minute you almost forget how hard it was and say to yourself "damn, that was worth the work." On another note, I'd like to apologize for my lack of knowing where to end a sentence, or where to being a new paragraph. I also tend to jumble all my thoughts together, and may jump from thought to though, sorry! I will do my best to not suck when writing in "real" journal entries next year. I hope that whoever finds their way to my journal, enjoys them as much as I will enjoy writing them. Ok...back to reality and back to work. How many more days until March?