Date: 2011-06-24
From: Brink Road Shelter

To: High Point Inn
Miles today: 17.9

(The night the levee breaks)After my wet, iPod breaking, mosquito infested day, I lie down in my tent to hear the sounds of rain begin to patter on my tent. I am glad that I have a trekking pole to set the tent up correctly, and that I have made it inside the tent before the rain began. I fall asleep to the heavy drum of rain, dry in my sleeping bag. I wake up some hours later and something is wrong, though it takes me a groggy moment to figure out what. It is still raining. Too much rain.I find my headlamp, turn it on and am horrified to discover that my mesh bottomed tent now holds more than an inch of standing water. Somehow, miraculously, the water is being kept at bay by my cellophane-like polycro ground cloth, which I had scrunched up along its edges to act like a bath tub. But the water is still rising, and even my small movements to retrieve the headlamp have threatened the integrity of the levee.I consider my options. Option 1: I can get up and carry my sleeping bag and pad to the shelter. This is a terrible option. I will almost certainly soak everything by destroying the levee in the process of packing up, then again when I walk in the pouring rain to the shelter. Worst of all, the shelter will likely still be mosquito-ridden, and being soaked and continually attacked by mosquitoes sounds like a fate worse than death. Option 2: I can stay put and hope for the best. This will likely result in me and my sleeping bag getting soaked, but has the small chance of me staying dry. This is also a bad option, but the best I can come up with, so I lie as still as I can and try to silently compel the rain to stop.The rain does eventually lessen, which is enough for the water level to slowly fall, but my subtle movements in the sleeping bag gradually erode the precarious plastic levee. The water level is down to half an inch by the time the levee first breaks, near my shoulders, but this is enough to soak my shirt and the upper section of my sleeping bag. The footbox is the next to go, and soon I am lying in a wet bag with the stagnant smell of standing water heavy in the air. As I lie awake, I compile a mental list of the people I might be able to call to pick me up for a few days¢ break from the trail. Mercifully the night is warm, and I manage a few hours of fitful sleep before the sun comes up and I can finally start the day.The rain has stopped in the morning, and I feel better enough from the night before to decide to hike through the day at least before calling anybody. Everything is still soaked, though, and the bugs are as fierce as they were last night. I shove my wet, mud covered tent and heavy, water logged sleeping bag in my pack and hike out shortly after Humpty Dumpty, who stayed dry in his Big Agnes tent, but was plenty miserable packing up with the morning mosquitoes. I catch up to Humpty a few miles out of the shelter, where he has stopped for breakfast. I stop for some food as well, having skipped all but the most important morning rituals (packing and getting water) to escape The Shelter of Mosquito Hell as quickly as possible.Humpty Dumpty is planning to hike to the shelter 19 miles out and is making good time, so I travel with him, drafting much the same way I did with River Rat. I hope to make it to the Secret Shelter 25 miles out, a privately owned cabin offered free for use by through hikers, and am able to convince Humpty to target the Secret Shelter as well. I've had this happen before, where I draft behind faster hikers to pick up their target mileage and then let them draft me when I keep hiking, combining their speed with my stamina to let us both pick up a bigger day.This plan is complicated by the arrival of Craig from Germany, Henryk and Captain Planet, who plan to stop at the state park a few miles before Humpty's first shelter and catch a ride to an inn off trail. The inn offers laundry and a shuttle in to town for groceries, and despite my desire to leave NJ, I am sorely tempted by the idea. There are already three splitting one room and I don't want to pay for a single room, but Humpty wants to avoid spending money on lodging, so I don't press the issue with him.My plans are still up in the air when we reach the state park. Clouds loom ominously and Humpty is torn between the practicality of hiking on and the comfort of the inn. Only when he asks the ranger in the visitor center for a weather forcast -- severe weather warnings with heavy storms likely for the next twelve hours -- does he finally decide to splurge for the inn. Thunder rumbles follow his decision, and we are both relieved not to be in for another wet, buggy night.The inn is owned and operated by a guy named Mike who tells us tall tales of gorgeous women and exotic adventures while he shuttles us first to the hotel and then to Walmart for food and supplies. I stock up on a giant container of deet, having exhausted my previous supply. Back at the hotel I pick up the pieces from the previous night's disaster, toweling off and air drying my tent and sleeping pad, and putting my sleeping bag in Mike's industrially sized drier.The predicted storms appear only as drizzle, but I am still more relieved to be indoors and not on the trail than I've ever been before. I am glad to have run into Craig, Henrick and Capt. Planet, and after a night indoors on a dry, comfortable bed, expect to be fully ready to tackle the AT again tomorrow.