Date: 2011-07-08
From: (91) Somewhere in New York

To: (92) Telephone Pioneers Shelter
Miles today: 20.4
Weather: moderate rain

Last night the mosquitoes feasted on my flesh, and I barely got a wink of sleep. When I got up in the morning my feet and legs felt very sore. I hiked several miles to the RPH Shelter, where some guys were making food on a grill as trail magic for thru hikers. Having just gotten back on, I felt that it was too soon to spoil myself with such delights and did not eat the food. I did however stick around to talk to Dayhiker, Mothership, Stretch, and Mengo. Dayhiker is an upbeat guy of around my age whom I¢d first met outside of Waynesboro Virginia, before getting picked up by my brother to go to Trail Days. When I reintroduced myself to him today, he exclaimed, ¢Lemur! You¢re that crazy kid who did a 36 mile day to our shelter with nothing but an iPod for a light, slept on the porch, and then left at like 4 in the morning!¢ The other familiar face, Mengo, was a guy I had met only once before at Mollie¢s Ridge Shelter in the Smokies. It was the day a tornado storm hit and I had almost gotten hypothermia before bunkering down with a crowd of other hikers in the shelter. Mengo, who at the time went by ¢Hooker¢, was the only person who tented in the near-vertical rain, while everyone else¢s tents had been torn to bits, forcing them to cram into Mollie¢s Shelter. An ex-Green Beret and retired cop, Hooker had walked into the shelter from the storm cheerful and seemingly bone dry. He told us that his tent, while standing, was full of water, and that he had drained it out by stabbing a hole through the floor with his knife. His skill in the woods was not the only reason I remembered Mengo, however. I also remembered him because he spoke several languages, and ended up having a conversation in Tai with a kid named Cropduster who had been in the Peace Corps. I couldn¢t believe that two people in the shelter could both speak the language (What are the odds?). When I ran into Mengo today, I asked him what he and Cropduster had talked about in Tai that was so funny. He told me that they had been joking about Pippy Longstalkings, the trail tranny who had slept in the loft above me and kept rolling on top of Helm throughout the night. The day became nice and hot as I grew hungry and thirsty. The water in NY is still swampy and nasty, so I am careful to carry enough to reach towns or pumps. When I reached NY 55 I hiked east down it to a Pizzeria. I ate Pizza, charged my phone in a wall outlet, and sipped grape soda while resting my weary feet. Mengo, aka ¢Hooker¢, arrived shortly after and joined me. When we went back outside to grab our water bottles and fill them up at the Pizzeria, I was shocked by the size of the pack he carried, which I had never actually seen him carrying before. It was no larger than a child¢s book bag, with a tent strapped to the outside. It made my ultra-light pack feel huge, and I can only speculate at what things Mengo might have dumped to achieve such a spectacular. (Then again, I expect nothing less from ex- Special Forces). Upon continuing my hike it began to thunder storm. I hiked through this on and off rain for several hours (while listening to Sun Tzu¢s ¢The Art of War¢) until reaching Telephone Pioneers Shelter for a total of 20.9 miles. Feet in unbearable pain, I stripped my shoes and hung out with a section hiker named Tom and a fellow thru hiker named ¢Captain Planet¢ (His trail name was well received. In Georgia he had found a poorly kept shelter full of litter, and infuriated by this, hiked out 5 pounds of trash to the nearest town.) I talked to Tom that night and learned that he had been section hiking the AT for 11 years, and that he had finally retired and was able to do the last stretch from Duncannon Pa to Mt Katahdin in Maine. The man has some serious dedication, and he was also pretty cool seeing as he let me use his filter (My clean water supply was running low, and the stream I had filled up with at the shelter had yielded yellow water).It rained the rest of the night, but the three of us all slept great in the Shelter.