Date: 2008-04-25
From: US 220, Daleville

To: Full Hardt Knob Shelter
Miles today: 5.0
Weather: light rain

Day 1My trip began without fanfare, hype, or any profound thoughts. Dad drove me ten minutes from home to a nearby trailhead, where we parked in a gas station parking lot. I pulled my pack on and buckled myself in. Then he snapped a quick picture, for posterity I guess, we said goodbye, and I turned and began walking uphill into the woods, still adjusting my poles as I went.It was around 5:30 in the evening and I had five miles to go, hopefully before dark. I wasn't too worried, as I was familiar with this section of trail and knew it to be fairly easy. When I got to the part that crossed through a huge cow pasture, I was surprised find cows actually there. I've hiked this section over and over through the years and though there are always cow patties everywhere, I only remember there being cows once when I was rather young. I guess I'd just lucked out all those other times, because many of them were now standing right in my path. Now, I don't normally regard cows as scary creatures, but I was nervous that they might be startled by my presence and stampede over me, so I started singing out loud to make them aware I was there and avoid spooking them. Some of them looked up at me as I picked my way down the hill between them. One or two actually took several steps toward me, which worried me until they veered away. Finally I got to the bottom of the hill where I had to cross one of those muddy, chocolate milk-coloured pasture creeks. Fortunately, there were some wood planks laying across the creek to keep hikers out of the worst of it. UNfortunately, one of the cows was standing right in front of it. I moved closer, but she didn't seem bothered by this and just stood there looking at me. I stopped several feet away and began talking to the cow, hoping to cajole it into stepping out of my way. I asked her to "mooooove", then I laughed a little at my own joke. The cow just stared at me with snot dangling from her nose. I told her she ought to look into wiping that off (but not on me), and finally she seemed to want to be away from the odd-shaped human that kept making noises at her, so she finally meandered out of the way.About this time it started spitting rain, and by the time I got to a tree at the edge of the field, it was raining quite steadily. I crossed a street and began the climb up to Full Hardt Knob, all the while the rain volume just continued to increase until it was a full on downpour. I hoped the things in my pack weren't getting soaked, but I didn't want to stop in the rain and put on a poncho - I just wanted to keep going and get to the shelter. My shoes initially resisted the rain and I was surprised at how long they managed to stay dry inside, but I knew it couldn't last. Sure enough, after a good quarter of an hour, they simultaneously and thoroughly gave up the fight, and my feet were immediately encased in miniature swimming pools. It was warm out though, so I really didn't mind the rain. About three-quarters of the way up the mountain the rain finally slowed and after a while it stopped completely.I began to think of arriving at the shelter with butterflies in my stomach. I hadn't seen anyone on the trail, so I had no idea who might be there. I felt like a little kid on their first day at a new school. Would the other "kids" like me? What would I say to them? Would they want to talk to me? I had no idea what to expect. I had never camped at a shelter before, and I had never been out camping on my own.As I followed the short blue blaze up to the shelter, I could eventually see people moving around and smoke from a campfire. I got closer and people started greeting me, welcoming me to join them around the fire. They were all very friendly and began introducing themselves. Five of them were section hikers heading south, a group of three named Downhill Donna, Waterman, and Alf (who had just gotten his trail name the day before), all around my parents' age, and a pair of girls around my age named Wonder Woman (because of the WW shirt she wears) and Diana Prince (her alter ego). Both groups had been doing sections of the AT for years. The other two hikers were a college couple, thru-hiking northbound like me, and their names were Whiplash and Applecore.Downhill asked me if I'd just come from town to which I said yes, then added that this was actually the first day of my thru-hike, feeling strangely awkward as I said it."This is your first day?!" she asked enthusiastically, "Congratulations!"Then to my utter surprise the entire lot of them began clapping for me. I looked around in wonder as I was surounded by applause - Alf clapping for me leaning out of his tent, Whiplash doing so from in the shelter, everyone else around the fire and picnic table. Startled and touched, I found I had to fight to keep myself from tearing up. I suppose their reaction struck me as validation for what I was attempting to do out here. To get that kind of encouragement from others with so much experience, mere hours after I'd set out - well, it was amazing and very heartening.Then they started fussing at me to take off my pack and wet shoes, encouraging me to relax at the table or in the shelter, and I felt as if I'd stumbled across a group of long-lost family members. Again I felt a little awkward as I tried to figure out what to do with myself and my stuff. Helping, they directed me to add my hiking poles to their collection and suggested a place for my shoes. Propping my bag up against a support beam I began going through my things to check for dampness, starting at the top, and was very pleased to discover that my pack, despite being dumped on with no rain cover, had resisted soaking through and most of my stuff was still bone dry, with only a few unimportant things being mildly damp.The others told me that if I wanted to stay in the shelter there was still room, as Downhill, Waterman, and Alf were all tenting. I was torn because it would be nice to stay up on the wonderfully dry sleeping platform, but my tent felt more secure to me, keeping out the bugs and anything else that my be inclined to join me in my sleeping bag. Whiplash mentioned that I should try to avoid one spot that looked like it had a "rain hole" above it (Applecore later in the night suggested we might have better luck if we'd just quit refering to it as a "rain hole"), so I used that as my excuse to go check out my tent site options. Downhill helpfully pointed out some good places to consider, noting that one spot would be nice because the leaf cover on the ground would keep it from being muddy - something I hadn't yet thought of in my little bit of camping experience and yet immediately recognized as important to remember and consider in the future. So I chose that spot and began setting up my tent, and while doing so Alf and Wonder Woman alternately came out to chat with me about my tent and my plans for my trip. It was really nice.I finished getting everything into my tent just as it was getting dark and the other tent dwellers were retreating into bed for the night. They said goodnight and disappeared and I returned to the shelter to see about dinner. It was very windy now and spitting rain, so I hunkered down in the shelter and talked to Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, Whiplash, and Applecore while making soup on my Jetboil.As I'm writing this, it occurs to me how oddly disproportinate things were that night. Not only were there FOUR girls sitting in that shelter, which is an unusually high number of females by regular trail standards, but Whiplash was the only guy! Even if you count everyone there that night, the girls still outnumber the guys, 5 to 3, which is practically unheard of. Interesting that my first night should have such a high concentration of females, which probably helped a lot in my not feeling so terribly out of place.Anyway, I had a great time finding out why everyone else was doing the trail and having the chance to ask advice on things like how many days of food they usually carried and how often they went into towns. WW and Diana Prince shared funny stories about how little they'd known about backpacking the first time they went out, how they'd borrowed most of their gear initially, and how much unnecessary weight they'd carried. At one point Diana Price stared at me with interest and said, "We've never met someone on their first out day before - all the hikers we meet have already been broken in." I agreed that I was indeed a "newbie" and felt happy that I was a type of "first" for them. At some point Whiplash and Applecore began attempts to lash their tarp across the front of their side of the shelter, just in case the rain picked up again. (For those who don't know, trail shelters usually consist of a roof, a sleeping platform, and three walls - so one side is left completely open to the elements. I'm sure there are good reasons for this, but I haven't thought of what those might be yet.) They eventually succeeded, and by that time everyone had their headlamps on which lit the shelter surprisingly well. The open side in front of WW and DP had a nice, nighttime view of the city lights twinkling across the valley. Whiplash was mending some piece of equipment with needle and thread and Applecore had begun making a fancy Mountain House dessert for the two of them. I couldn't believe how cozy the shelter had become. Eventually I finished my soup and tea and reluctantly started gearing up to leave. They all offered once more for me to stay in the shelter, and I thanked them but declined and headed out.In my tent I tried to stay up a little while to journal and look at my guidebooks, but I found myself too tired to do that for long. I don't think I had any trouble falling asleep.