Date: 2003-05-31
From: PA183 (1400') (Deer Path Hostel) 

To: Windsor Furnace Watershed 
Miles today: 20.3

Aloha! My, my, my, my, my, my, my! What a day! I'll tell you what; if you're going to take the time to read this you might as well go ahead and get a cup of tea or coffee, find yourself a nice comfy place to sit, and prepare yourself for my longest entry yet. It seems only fitting that my longest day out here should also have the longest entry. UPs and downs to beat any roller coaster!   Going back, you may remember that it all began something like this:   Quasi: Aloha, how about we stay here another night if Lucy will let us and we slackpack tomorrow?   Aloha: I've only been out here less than two weeks, I can't take a zero yet.   Quasi: Not a zero but a 15-mile slack from Port Clinton back to here. Rainy day, hot shower, warm bed, great food, wonderful people...   Aloha: Humm... if Lucy agrees and I can get what I need accomplished in Clinton then.... ok, I'm with ya!   Our wonderful hostess with the mostest was not only agreeable to our plans but actually offered to, and did, leave her Suburban at the end of the trail so that we might have transportation for the three miles back to the hostel. Now how unbelievable and awesome is that!   While chatting with Lucy the night before she had asked what motivated me to either hike the AT or long distance hike. I tried to explain that many years ago I had read a short book entitled A Woman's Journey by an author named Cindy Ross. I couldn't really explain what it was about that particular book that inspired me to actually follow a long time dream but it did; as it has many other women for that matter. A book written by what seemed to be an average every day gal showing that you could live your dreams if you truly wanted to. I later read several other books by Ms Ross that just continued to add fuel to the fire. (If you haven't read the book yet, pick it up and do so. The charcoal sketches are also quite good.)   As I was attempting to explain this to Lucy a big smile played across her face. It just so happens that she is a good friend with the author and she lived nearby! I repeat, how unbelievable is that! It gets better though. This morning Lucy called Ms Ross to see if we could get together briefly and meet. (No, I'm not a groupie.) She nicely consented and that was to be our first stop of the day! One more time - how unbelievable and awesome is that!   With Lucy, Quasi, Bono, She-Ra, Tubs and me loaded into the Suburban, we arrived at Ms Ross's fabulous home. Cindy and her husband have literally built a wonderful log home from ground up by themselves. Excluding the actual curing of the logs they did everything, and I mean everything, else. Over a 4.5-year time frame they built a gorgeous large log cabin, wood burning sauna, and studio one log at a time. All completed by hand to the tune of raising one log per day. She explained that over the course of the building something like 42 people helped them but only two did so more than once! Hard work! It truly is a lovely and unique home. Say it with me, how unbelievable is that!   Cindy, married to another long distance hiker Todd, is an artist, writer and mother of two - Sierra and Bryce. She originally completed the AT over a two-year period; much like I am. Since that time she has also completed the 2600 mile Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and the 3100 mile Continental Divide Trail (CDT) with the whole family and their llamas. Yes, you read that correctly - llamas and kids. She also spends time teaching backpacking courses and lecturing on the AT and long distance hiking. Somewhere in between all this Cindy has authored 4 books. As you can tell, I was completely wrong about Cindy. She is in no way an average woman! There's really nothing average about her. She's quite the opposite and that's awesome. Go ahead and say it again - how unbelievable... very good, you got it. In short Cindy was a pleasure to meet and I send my mahalos (thank you) to her for taking the time to meet the bunch of us. It was appreciated. As for Lucy I owe her an even bigger mahalo for having taken the trouble to set up my being able to meet the very author that inspired this Grand Adventure to begin with. A very big Mahalo.   From there it was off to Port Clinton to the post office and outfitters. The first down came when I found that my food mail drop had not arrived as anticipated. Dang! No tasty freeze-dried meals and surprises! I did receive a second package from home consisting of numerous items with one of them being a new memory card for my camera. I have since mailed the used one home so maybe there'll be some pictures for all to see in the near future.   Along with the card I also took the gamble and mailed my winter clothing home. I've kept the heavier sleeping bag for the time being and that will be my warmth if necessary. Keep your fingers crossed for drier and slightly warmer weather.   After a quick stop at the outfitters to purchase a compression bag for my sleeping bag and another pair of sock liners, Quasi and I were on our way. A hik'n we shall go. We arrived at the first sign indicating the trail and, as we have done several times before, commented on the fact that all the signs in PA were drawn UP at one time stating Maine to Georgia. Sometime later the north and south arrows were added above each indicating the correct direction. This method often makes the signs look to read Maine is to the south and Georgia to the north. And sometimes they're correct. Humorous.   Anyway, we looked at the sign, laughed and headed to Georgia. We were hiking back to the hostel.   We chatted up a storm as we trudged UP the starting mountain out of Port Clinton. We chatted as we hiked along the ridge, down into a gulch, and back UP the other side. We continued to chat over stream crossings and through the misty rain. We chatted past the sign stating Windsor Furnace was 1.1 miles away. We chatted... wait! Windsor! That can't be right! Windsor is north of Port Clinton and we're going south to the hostel! A quick look at the map showed us to have just walked 5 miles away from the hostel! Yea... you can say it here too - how unbelievable...yeah, yeah, and yeah.   There was really little either of us could do but laugh and we did. Another look at the map showed our options to be to turn around and walk back the five miles or continue to the Windsor Watershed area and hike to the highway and hope for a hitch back to Port Clinton. We chose option two - hike north.   The mile went quickly as we continued to chat but this time with laughter over our major goof. How to explain this to Bono and She-Ra who were expecting to meet us along the way! We made it to the watershed area and entrance quickly enough. Our luck was holding, there were people in an SUV at the gate!   The folks at the gate turned out to be two Civil Air Patrol officers out looking for a group of their rookies on a survivor exercise. (Out for the weekend with no food, water, or shelter and required to navigate by compass to several points. One team was missing.) After a radio call to wherever they found they had time to run us back to Port Clinton. Chorus please - how unbelievable... good. The wonderful officers, names unknown, dropped us exactly back at our beginning spot of two hours earlier. Perfect! My mahalos to those very special trail angels.   It didn't take but a moment for us to decide that we still had time to hike the 15 miles back to the waiting truck. We were after all slackpacking which meant my backpack had nothing more in it than water but it was almost immediately - a 1000' climb in less than half a mile. Straight UP! I huffed and I puffed and again almost died! But didn't. We made it to the top and began our hike... the correct way - South to Maine!   For the most part the trail was great. Lots of flat fast hiking. There were several areas of rocks thrown in but none of them terrible. The weather is what was wrecking havoc on our hike. It rained, it poured, it fogged, the wind blew, it poured some more, it fogged some more, it blew some more, and it poured some more. I haven't been that wet since my long hike into Damascus with Monya for Trail Days in 2001. The weather was horrid.   The most interesting part to this hike for me was that we were going faster than I probably ever have over wet and slippery rocks and terrain, with mud sloshing over the tops of boots and I didn't once stumbled, fall or even stub my toe. What's that all about? I felt like a snow skier with my poles and knees swooshing from side to side, planting the poles and feet exactly where they needed to be. Totally weird. Had it been dry and sunny I'd probably have been beating my feet numb. So weird.   As we were flying along our moods seem to compliment each other. As one was getting tired or losing energy, the other picked up. We took time only briefly to stuff candy bars in our mouths for the sugar high and energy. UP and down we went. From one rock, mud puddle, stream or whatever to the next.Along the way though there were good points. We did stop to help a small Red Eft (a salamander in the second stage of life) off the trail before someone stepped on the cute little thing. We also stopped to discuss the poison ivy heavy throughout the trail. And we stopped to laugh at our dumb mistake. Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.   Approximately 4.5 miles from the end of our day we both became quite irritated. A half-mile earlier we met a group of four young boys with their two adult chaperones. We chatted but a moment in the pouring rain and moved on. Shortly thereafter Quasi heard someone calling out. His yelled response took us to two young boys looking exhausted, scared, wet and tired. They were with the group a half-mile ahead but had not seen them for hours. The walkie-talkie they had was not working. We chatted with them to ensure that no one was hurt, assured them of where their group was and directed them on how to follow the white blazes to find them in no time at all. They assured us that they would be fine and with great trepidation we let them go their way and we went ours.   Our anger comes at the adults involved with these boys. Common sense tells you that one adult should have been either at or near the front and one at the end as a sweeper. Never should they have left two young (11? 12?) boys so far behind the pack. Anything could have happened and where would they have been? Grrrrr... I don't know but if I were those boys I doubt seriously I'd ever go backpacking again! 'Nuff said. Grrrr...   The remaining part of our hike was uneventful. We practically ran out on to the highway yelling, "we're alive, we're alive" but there was no one there to witness our dramatics. The truck was there however and that was the most wonderful sight of all. We were in and on the road faster than fast - with the heat on full!   We arrived back at the house happy that we did 20 miles but even happier for the hot shower, great dinner, and good company awaiting us. Lucy and Tim had gone to a dinner party but left us plenty of things to keep us fat and happy. Her chips and homemade salsa hit the spot as I waited for Quasi to finish his shower. As strange as it may seem, it felt really good "to be home".   That was my day. A long UP and down sort of day. All and all though, if you can crawl into your bed or sleeping bag at night and still be happy then you're doing all right.   With that said, I'm good... and tired. You can get up now because I'm going down... to bed. Don't you just love roller coasters? Aloha!BS&T: if there were any the rain-washed them anything away before I could see it.A&Ps: unbelievably none; check with me tomorrow.M&Gs: hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!Critter count: 1x Red Aft, 1x tiny frog; everything else had the sense to come in out of the rain!