Date: 2009-08-06
From: Rainbow Stream Lean-to

To: Wadleigh Stream Lean-to
Miles today: 8.3
Weather: broken clouds

III. Report: Physically, I¢m off the trail and at home. This report is for July 24.I was up very early and hiking just after 0500.   It was just beginning to start to sprinkle a bit. The trail was mostly bogs and I soon learned to either walk on the rocks, tree roots or take your chances. If you were lucky in the take your chances option, you would find firm ground with little or no mud. If you weren¢t so lucky, you could sink up to your knee or higher. And this is then followed by a large sucking sound as you tried to recover your boots from the bog. I was following the white blazes and some fresh boot/pole marks that eventually led to a dead-end in the woods. I retraced my steps and again confirmed the trail with the blazes and hiking marks. A short time later, I heard Fluffy hiking about 50 feet above me. She indicated she was on the blazed trail and that there had been a poorly marked double blaze just behind us. I bushwhacked the 50 feet vertical to join her and we continued hiking on. TNT then caught up and both he and FB moved on out ahead of me. A little later, I met both FB and TNT doing some backtracking. The trail followed along the beach and the next blaze was about 75 yards across a wide cut of water. We tried bushwhacking inland, only to find a formidable pond. We backtracked 14 mile and resumed bushwhacking, eventually finding the trail again. Apparently, the local club had re-routed the trail in a few places and had not been too careful about marking the new and old trails. We got to the Wadleigh Stream Lean-to just as it started to rain heavily. I ate and then went to bed. This was a 6 person lean-to and we soon had 7 or 8 hikers in the shelter. I was half asleep when another group of three arrived and said that if we all slept on our sides, we could fit all them in the shelter as well. I didn¢t participate in the discussion; but, these guys ended up pitching a tent near the shelter. Later that night, a solo NOBO arrived and ended up pitching his bivy sack and sleeping in about 2¢ of water .V. POD: After graduation and commissioning, my first assignment was as a missile launch officer at a Titan II wing at Davis Monthan AFB, AZ, in Tucson, AZ. This was preceded by two schools at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, TX and Vandenberg AFB near Lompoc, CA. The missile duty consisted of essentially 30-hour tours, caring and watching over a nearby liquid rocket, with a multi-megaton thermonuclear warhead on top. I spent most of this tour on a standardization evaluation crew. This meant that I spent on average only two 30 hour tours a month, in addition to recurring training and the rest of the monthly duties were evaluating the rest of the crews in the wing.   I did very well and only picked up 2 major errors in a couple of dozen evaluations over 4 years. The year 1972 was quite significant in that I received a regular commission, got promoted to Captain, welcomed the birth of T2, and then commanded a Titan II launch out of Vandenberg AFB.POD: Dorothy Bausano. Dorothy was German shepherd dog enthusiast and trainer. LL had given me a German shepherd puppy, Thor. We took training from her and were ¢valedictorians¢ at our first beginner class. I competed Thor for several years in obedience trials and he was outstanding, never having lost to another German Shepherd. We became good friends with Dorothy and her husband Charley; they were like surrogate parents for us and the other young marrieds. She made a patchwork quilt for T2, which he embraced and was almost inseparable. And I have said on many occasions that the most I know about raising children was learned from Dorothy in training dogs.