Date: 2010-04-18
From: Uncle Johnmys Erwin

To: Iron Mountain Gap
Miles today: 20.2
Weather: clear sky

Day 42I have found the key to thruhiking. Don't carry a full backpack. The 20.2 mile slackpack today went better than I expected. I got back to the hostel by 4:30 pm feeling great. In fact, I even ran some sections of the trail. Its amazing the effect that not having 30 pounds on your back does for your enjoyment of a nice walk in the woods.It was pretty cold this morning, probably 30° or so and it got even colder as we hiked to higher elevations. I say hiked but it was more like a power walk bordering on a full out run. Fredo and Tintin set a blistering pace and I kept up until after mile 19 when the trail had a bit of an uphill. It was good to hike hard because that was the only way to stay warm. We only stopped 3 times and none of them were for longer than twenty minutes. Stop to long and you got cold quick. Plus it seemed wasteful to not be hiking when it felt so good to hike.Yesterday I forgot to mention that there was a fire on the mountain near the trail ten miles from here. We had to road walk a couple miles on a gravel forest service road to bypass the burn area, but like true thruhikers we jumped back on the trail the first chance we got even though it wasn't open to hikers. Roadwalking sucks. There were to very nice places to hike through today. A bald named Beauty Spot and a very cool spruce forest on Unaka Mountain that was so thick in the canopy that not enough light reached the ground to allow anything else to grow. It was very nice under there.The section I hiked today is the same section that I hiked on my very first backpacking trip back in 2002. It was a mile shorter back then because the trail went straight up and down the mountains without switchbacks. Today seemed much easier, but that could be 350 miles of training and no pack speaking. At any rate, it was nice to rehike this section. The poem I posted toward the beginning of my journal was written about that first hike.Its midnight and tonight's party crew is even louder than last nights and there are two different groups, one in the front and one in the back. It is obnoxious I suppose, but its standard operating procedure at most hostels by a significant number of thrus. I don't know where these folks get the money to party like this every town stop. Maybe they don't have it and will end up off the trail due to lack of funds.I'm sleeping on the couch again free of charge. I like that. The shuttle leaves tomorrow at 7am and I will start north again. It may be the last I see of Tinton and Fredo until trail days. They are planning 19 miles and I am not sure if I am up to that with a full pack. We will see what we will see. At least I will still have Kashmir around. He was on the slackpack today and both of us are planning to stay at Roan Mountain shelter if we can't do the 19 miles. And Slackimous Maximus is here too although I don't think he will be hiking out tomorrow. I think ol' Joe Harvey should come out here and take a switch to him to get his butt hiking up that trail. Just kidding, Joe. Slack is a fine fellow who started tonight's fire and kept hunting the hillside for wood to keep the fire going.OK, its late again and I am not asleep yet. Shocking, I know. But I will turn in now and hope for the sandman to come.Goodnight and sweet dreams to all of you out there not living the Slackpacking Dream.