Date: 2013-06-26
From: Four Pines Hostel

To: Catawba Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 7.9
Weather: scattered clouds

Wednesday, June 26 4Pines Hostel @ 697.8 to Catawba Mountain Shelter @ 705.77.9 milesThe hostel guest hikers were allowed to bed down all over the property. Most hikers stayed in the finished building behind Joe's house, like a mother-in-law suite, where cots were available for claim and several couches for laying. Some tented in the yard and others in the barn. I chose the barn, which was cooler than the building or a tent. Mountain Man and Nomad chose to tent and it got really hot with the sun beaming down on the treeless grass yard. I was able to take my first shower since rejoining the trail more than a week ago, so I was happy about that, even though I had to put my dirty smelly clothes back on. We were off to another early noon start, so we asked Joe if he would provide a ride to the store. He did and I got a barbecue sandwich and one more Diet Coke with ice, one of the things I miss most from being on the trail.   Thistle bought lunch and a bottle of wine for the McAfee Knob pictures we would be taking later in the day. The first part of the hike wasn't easy. We hiked close to Etcetera and Fat Tootles for a spell, hiking hay field after hay field. We had no shade from the blistering sun, all uphill on a scorching day. In addition we had to climb over probably seven or eight fence stiles, which are ladders that go over barbed wire fences. In order to get over the fence stiles, you have to climb up one side and down the other while holding your hiking sticks. It's a real pain in the rear. A smarter person, however, would lay their sticks across the fence and retrieve them when they got to the other side. Then the weather started deteriorating. When we hit the top of the mountain ridge, the lightning started with a crackle. Huge bolts of lightning began striking all around and loud thunder shook the ground. Rain fell in buckets, turning the trail into a river and getting everyone soaked from head to toe. I pulled out my tarp and we got under it to get out of the flood. This was severe rain from the leading edge of a line of thunderstorms. After about 20 minutes the gully washer turned into a lighter rain, something we could work with. Once the lightning finally began to dissipate we could finally relax. Lightning scares the crap out of me, especially when I'm in it. I am after all, a conductor. We continued hiking, soaked to the bone after the rain had finally stopped. We were no longer hot, and I even got a little bit cold, but we had to hike. We arrived at Campbell Shelter in time for supper. Not that I would want to sleep in any shelter, but there was a threat of weather, and it was too crowded anyway. It was a small shelter and four hikers I knew from the hostel were already occupying it with their stuff scattered all about. We opted for the campground so we could build a fire and not have to sleep next to four other smelly thru hikers. I ran out of alcohol for my stove, but brought some Esbit cubes which can simply be lit for a small cooking fire. Esbit cubes are lightweight and efficient, but I don't recall ever seeing another hiker use them on the trail. It still smelled like rain so I put the tarp up and prepared an irrigation system made of a log on the ground, and reinforced it with dirt and pine needles to reroute water in case of rain. My tarp has really been a savior keeping my stuff from getting wet while I sleep. When I went home for the wedding, I swapped my old tarp for a much larger and lighter nylon tarp that Deb bought me.When I started making a fire, the wood was wet and already picked over by the weekend visitors of McAfee Knob just up the trail. I even used Birch Bark to start it but I still couldn't get it going. I'd heard that hand sanitizer was flammable so I poured it on a napkin under the wet sticks and it started like a charm. It may not be the cheapest way to start a fire, but it works well in those times of need. Today I saw a garter snake, chameleon, a fawn that was trying to find mom, and another deer. Still no bears, but Malarky who was just ahead of us did see one. My time will come.