Date: 2006-03-27
From: Wesser, NC

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

This is Sarita, I received a telephone call 12:00 p.m. 3-27-06Received a telephone call from GG (Gloria) today. She is in Wesser, NC and has traveled 133 miles on the AT as of this call. She is staying at a hostel tonight and is paying $15 for the night. She prefers staying at a hotel, but tries to find someone (like NEFFA ¢ Sarah) to split the costs.I decided just to ask questions and record in this message the information she provided.First of all, she is having a good time ¢ really enjoying the trip. She does sometimes wonder ¢What the heck am I doing here¢ but the thought passes quickly, especially when she looks at the beautiful scenery. She feels like she is either walking up a mountain or walking down a mountain. She¢s also been through two days of snowfall and it¢s been in the teens for a few nights now. It has been tolerable, but it has certainly been cold at night.Bedtime rolls around early, she is usually in the bag by 7:30 p.m. each night. There is sometimes a campfire and she really enjoys those nights as the group that gathers at the shelter sits around and talks about their life, friends and family. She has heard some great stories from those that stop for the night, like that of 5WAY ¢ which she wrote about in one of the previous day¢s journal. There was also a couple that talked about the last time they hiked and brought their 3-year old child along for 300 miles of the trail, they are owners of an outfitter store. On this trail they were traveling as a couple instead of a threesome ¢ very inspirational. She doesn¢t really hike with any of those that might stop at the shelter every night, but there are many times when they each begin their day at the same shelter and by the end of the day they all end up at the same new shelter. They stagger in throughout the early evening and often times are the same or similar group by bedtime. Probably one of the most disappointing things so far is that there are not many women on the trail ¢ let alone those that are walking alone. But outside of that all the hikers she has met so far have been great.She isn¢t really eating any more than she did before she was hiking, but she does find herself eating a lot more junk food (especially candy). So far she feels like she has done a good job on selecting her original hiking gear. Most hikers end up getting rid of a lot of extra gear, so far she has only been able to shave off about one pound of extra gear. She carries all of her water, just for the day (50 or 60 ounces ¢ one Gatorade bottle and the rest in a two liter). Each stop she has to re-fill at a steam ¢ which she crosses several a day. There haven¢t been any real deep streams so far. Her boots have been good as far a fit (many people have problems with them), which she attributes to breaking them in well before she began her trip. She has recently had one blister on the bottom of one toe, but she said that she usually gets one in the exact same place when she begins golfing in the spring, so she is not too worried about it.She looses track of time often and thinks she has been out on the trail now for 13/14 days. Her hiking is averaging 10 miles a day. The lowest hike has been around 5 miles and the high has been 15 miles, which she has hit a few times now. Lots of hikers take days off, but so far she has not taken any days off ¢ yet. She¢s had only one night where she stealth camped ¢ which means pitching a tent along the trail. She ended up deciding to do it because that night was to be very windy so she thought it would be better to stay down the mountain rather than get to the shelter that was going to be at the top of the mountain and would have been much more windy. She found a spot, pitched her tent ¢ crawled in for a nights sleep and then it sleeted that night making the ground around the tent crunchy. That allowed her to hear a critter crunching and sniffing around the tent. Of course my first thought was a BEAR, but she said it was probability a raccoon or skunk ¢ she would have known if it was a bear because of the noise it would have made. She has not yet seen one bear; the biggest thing so far is a squirrel. Most nights she has stayed in a shelter. She had one night when she was fumbling around with the buttons on her watch (she has a light on it that she uses to see the time) and she ended up accidentally pushing the time ahead two hours. So when she looked at it in the morning, she got up and started walking (very early), made it all the way to the next shelter and stopped for the night as she figured she wouldn¢t be able to make it to the next shelter before nightfall. Only to find out by another hiking couple that stopped at the shelter that she was off by two hours. She didn¢t even know it had happened, so she picked up her gear and finished the hike to the next shelter.Even though she is walking alone, it doesn¢t really seem like it as she passes other hikers or they pass her every 12 hour or so. Each times she makes it to a shelter, if there is a log there, she always writes down her trail name and the time she passed through. She hasn¢t seen 5WAY for three or four days now, but he was averaging 7 miles a day and when she began getting more miles in, she lost touch. She hopes he is still out there on the AT as he is walking for a good cause. One other nice thing that has happened, a camper set up his motor home and offered a hot meal to anyone who came by. She said that others along the trail said that he had some great hot soup, but she ended up running into him in the morning hours. He offered to make pancakes, but she just accepted a cup of hot coffee and an orange. This was a nice surprise and all the hikers are grateful when someone takes the time to help out like that.She sent off another round of journals and a camera that should have lots of pictures. Once Phil (GG¢s husband) gets them developed she¢ll have him drop them by to see if we can get some of them into the journal. She was doing her laundry today, so was wearing only her rain gear when she found the phone today and made the call.The last thing I asked was about the ending on each journal day: Goodnight Mr. Marposa. She told me the story and said I could write it down, but she wanted me to offer this to Phil first ¢ she thought he would give a good rendition of what it means. If he doesn¢t decide to write it here in the journal - - maybe I¢ll share it in a few days. Phil is a great storyteller and writer ¢ so I¢ll hope that he decides to share it.Signing off for now. Gloria, you keep writing and calling and we¢ll keep entering the information in for your readers.Sarita