Date: 2005-04-20
From: Hogback Ridge Shelter

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 26.9
Weather: clear sky

The morning started off nicely. When we walked the few miles down to Sam's Gap, Dan shuttled me and about 10 other hikers to a diner about three miles away. I had a breakfast platter and talked with Marsh, who had a lot to say about his earlier days, including how he once beat Michael Jordan in pool when they were in college.I got back on the trail at almost noon (needless to say, I walked until rather late tonight). Domino and I walked up to Big Bald together. It made the miles go by more quickly to hang out while hiking. We get along really well, there's something about this trail that makes friendships form quickly. It's too bad we're not walking the same distance each day; he's run in several marathons so will probably hiking more per day soon enough. Heading up to Big Bald, we passed some guys from the Carolina Mountain Club on their Wednesday maintenance crew. They maintain 92 miles of the AT, the Mountains to Sea trail, and about 50 other trails. One of them was a man from Chile who has been living in the US for 50 years; I'm always glad to get to speak Spanish with someone, all I do now with my second language on the trail is listen to my Latin American revolutionary songs on my iPod.I probably would have started crying if I hadn't been around other people when I arrived at Big Bald, the views were so amazing. It was like being on the top of the world.I hiked the rest of the day by myself, only passing two older section hikers the whole afternoon. When I got to Spivey Gap, thru-hiker Red Hat was there. She tried to convince me to get a ride into Erwin with Miss Janet, for whom Red Hat was waiting, and then Miss Janet would slack pack everyone the next day. Red Hat thought she was having a heart attack a few days but it turned out to be a pinched nerve. She had put too much weight in her Go Lite pack and so now she has purchased a new, heavier pack. Glad to see that she's alright. When I got to the NoBusiness Knob shelter, the only person I knew was Irish. He is hiking a couple hundred miles and did the trail in 2002. He hikes about the same number of miles as me per day but is more than twice my age. Just goes to show that so much of the limits and "I can'ts" we put on ourselves start in the mind.The short while I spent in the shelter was...interesting. I came in with this determined energy, knowing that I was going to walk another six miles. A few minutes after I got there and opened my tuna fish packet, this kid wearing a skirt rebukes another hiker for throwing the plastic wrap from his crackers in the small fire. He says, "Oh, don't throw trash in the fire. You know, you just made the hole in the ozone layer this much bigger" as he gestures with his hand. The other kid gets all apologetic really quickly, like he was guilty of murder or something and he did something wrong to the other guy. Someone else says, "Campfires do more ozone damage themselves than that". I felt really bad for the kid who apologized and kinda mad at this other guy. To me, watching our impact on the environment is important, but not nearly as important as leading by example rather than preaching. So I said, "So who lit the campfire?" thinking it was the guy who rebuked the other one. The answer was that it was there when they got there. Someone said that they thought I was about to start yelling at someone. I responded that I couldn't care less about it and was only going to start yelling if it was the guy going off about the ozone layer that started the fire. Everyone got a laugh from this and it seemed like the tension died down, but there I go making friends and influencing people ;-). I'm not second guessing myself, I felt like I needed to set the record straight by challenging the preachy guy to live out his own vision first before putting others in a place where they feel ashamed.Anyway, a long day, I'm in Erwin, looking forward to pizza and my new shoes at the post office tomorrow and a shorter day to come.