Date: 2013-05-20
From: War Spur Shelter

To: Sarver Hollow Shelter
Miles today: 12.2
Weather: light rain

Day Seventy Three - (12.2) War Spur Shelter to Sarver Hollow ShelterEven though it was wet out and I had to put on wet clothes I wanted to get going this morning. Within minutes of leaving we had to cross a stream on slippery logs. Melkie went first but Two Socks didn't follow fast enough behind him and when Two Socks got out to the middle Melkie turned around and I thought for sure that Two Socks was going in the water. Didn't happen though. We hiked up a killer hill this morning but it was cool because the trail went through a woods that looked more like a jungle. There was a cloud was about twenty feet up and if you looked to one side of the trail it was all misty and foggy yet the other side was all green and clear. There was trail magic left near a road crossing near the top of the hill. Thank you Special K and SuperDave for the beer and sodas! We stopped at a shelter for a snack and then moved on to a road crossing where we were planning on hitching into Newport. Amazingly I didn't need to hitch Twig was getting dropped off at the trailhead after being at trail days. They offered two of us a ride and while we were still talking a car pulled over and everyone else had a ride as well. We heard the bad news about the car that hit sixty people at trail days. I hope everyone has a quick recovery and is able to return to the trail. We had planned on restocking in town and going to a restaurant but it turns out the only restaurant in town is closed on Sundays and the resupply took place at a gas station. I got what I needed though and bought stuff to eat right there. When I came out of the store three women started asking us all kinds of questions about the trail we felt like celebrities again. We ate our food on the lawn and just before we started thinking of a ride back Blue Eyes (09 thruhiker) came over and offered us a ride back to the trail. How awesome is that! When we got back to the trail there was a bag of trail with sodas, water and tangerines, I took two tangerines! Melkie had trouble getting over the stiles today, I am glad there were other hikers around to help. By this point it was raining but I was still happy even when everyone else was grumbling. We crossed several open fields and it was nice to see what was around me after being boxed in by the woods. Unfortunately in the grassy fields are where all the ticks hide out so again I had to stop and get them off my legs and Melkie's face. Did I mention that ticks creep me right out! After a few small hills and several stiles later we came to the Keiffer Oak. It's over three hundred years old and more than eighteen feet around. It was impressive! Cub climbed it and I wish I had have, it would be cool to say that I climbed the oldest tree in the south on the AT. Soon after we crawled up another giant hill and when we got to the next shelter, even though it was 4/10 of a mile down a steep hill we decided to stay. It is a very cool shelter and I can still smell the cedar it was built with. Right now everyone is doctoring up Firefoot's (a section hiker and future thruhiker) blisters, it's funny listening to them arguing over the best way to treat them. Confessions of a thruhiker: "When you think you are alone out in the woods and drop your drawers it's a bit embarrassing to suddenly he's a woman laugh."Trouble"Go out in the backyard... Remember when we were kids and needed nothing to have fun. You can be that kid again! Go and do it!" Snifur on Whiteblaze