Date: 2010-06-29
From: 501 Shelter

To: Eagle's Nest Shelter
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: scattered clouds

~~~Hiker Weenie~~~Sugar Ray is one of those strong, lanky hikers that is up and out by first light. Stupid me, I followed him. The deal is that you hike early in the morning when it's cooler and if you can get 10 miles in by lunchtime, everything elase is hiker gravy. Well yeah, that work's pretty well for those who started three months ago in Georgia and who already have their hiker legs and stamina.Snoopy aka Stupid aka Hiker Weenie thought, yeah that's the plan. Get to the next shelter and then on to town the next day. So Sugar Ray, Dewlap and Ranier are up and gone. Kumquat eventually passes by me like I'm standing still (she is a lot younger than me, I reason to myself, and has legs up to her chin so of course, she can out pace me haha). Bee boping along and just about step on a rattle snake. It was slowly getting off trail just next to my left foot (they can feel us coming up the trail a 1/2 mile away at least) and didn't even rattle the tail. Just hunkered under a bush, curled up as if to strike and glared at me. Didn't scare me at all, that's how dumb I am. Took a photo and kept on going. Pretty neat, actually.Got to the shelter at 230pm really way too early after hiking 8 1/2 hours. No one there and the reliable water source is a teeny stream that I passed over on the way up to the shelter area so I set up in the shelter, take out my paperback and wait for others to come waltzing in. And I wait. And wait. No one comes. Not a single person. Did I mention that PA is hard on rocks and water? Let me reitterate that PA is very hard on the hikers and a darn big state to boot.So, by 7pm, I am completely freaking out. Part of the reason was because I spent a lot of time this day thinking of all of my family members who have gone on before me and how lonely I am and I pretty much set myself up for a dismal time (another reason I need a headset of any sort; way too much time to think out here). I have gathered enough firewood so that you will see it from space. I am determined that I will have a blaze to scare away ALL wildlife in the eastern side of PA. I am desperate and realize that everyone else probably did the extra miles to make it into Port Clinton and I would be alone, completely and utterly alone and I am so freaking out (hiker weenie).I am praying to God to send someone, anyone, even the one person I really don't want to see ever again who shall remain nameless but even this person would have been welcomed and in comes Little Aspin to use the privy way in the back that was out of order anyway and I rush up to her and, really start to cry because I am sooooooo happy to see not only someone but a person I know and like and she is SUCH the sweetheart. She brings Toothpick up and they were going to camp down near the trail but came up to babysit me and I could not have been more thankful. Krispy Kritter came up to sign the shelter book amd give me some much needed words of comfort, Jon of the Woods, a hiker I had met just once before came up and at last, Freeman, my sweet botanist, came up. So, I spent several hours crying in my paperback when I ended up surrounded by my hiker family. And THAT is what trail life is all about. No one is out here on their own. Each of us has something to offer and something to receive and boy did I sleep well in the shelter with Freeman. What a night.