Date: 2012-06-04
From: Ridgeline north of Lambert's Meadow

To: Curry Creek
Miles today: 15.5

I woke up to the sunrise and watched it come up from my hammock.  The morning sky shifted through the whole spectrum until the sun rose up behind a thin bank of clouds on the horizon.  I got moving and hit the trail.  The morning was cool and clean.  I got passed by Beast Mode pretty early and later by Trekking Pole.  That shelter must have gotten up pretty early too.  The trail winded around in pretty dense forest that alternated between groves of older oak and younger pine. I came around a bend to a big piece of granite and broke the silence of the morning with a few clicks of my trekking poles.  The next thing I know there is barking off in the distance and a bunch of shouting. The barking got louder.  Suddenly, three little dogs attack me with wagging tails and wet noses.  Their walker comes up a minute later and apologizes telling me he brings the dogs for safety.  Unprovoked, he tells me tales of hikers getting murdered in these parts.  "But it was years ago and not very many," he says.  Gee, thanks pal.  I tell him to enjoy his morning and continue on up toward Hay Rock, a giant piece of dark grey granite jutting out of the top of the mountain at a 60-degree angle.  The AT takes you right under the shelf that is created and it seems that this is a popular place to practice your grafitti.  Ron Paul even got up here and tagged some of his campaign slogans.  I moved on along the ridgeline and a large reservoir came into view.  I looked off in the distance and saw several sets of powerlines carving out wide swaths of forest and crossing the body of water in long curves.  I needed to cross these before getting into Daleville today.  The temperatures were easily in the mid 80's already and I was looking forward to something cold to drink.  I could hear the town way off in the distance but knew it was at least a few more miles.  I trudged along and as the elevation dropped, so did the buzzing cicadas.  Their wings and bodies were everywhere.  The noise generated by them was intense but it helped to drown out the cars and trucks on the highways below.  I walked under my last set of powerlines, skipped over a pair of railroad tracks, and crossed a concrete bridge to find that everything smelled bad.  It was suffocating.  I ran toward town and scared a large deer sitting in the shade.  The smell either dissipated as I neared the road or it was replaced by other smells.  The road was big and it took me awhile to get across safely.  So many cars! I walked into town to hit the outfitter for some new shoes.  I had emailed the guy a week earlier to ask about sizes and other things they carried but never got a response.  I had to cross that big road again and did so in front of a state trooper.  The Apache Relay song immediately popped into my head.  I got it done safely but the shop looked closed at 11am.  The door was unlocked so I walked in.  It was as if I was trying to buy things in a communist country.  They just didn't seem to care. Which is a weird thing. It's an outdoors store. You get to deal with people who like being outside and hikers are generally pretty easy to please. I don't understand but in the end, it didn't matter. I left with three of the four things I wanted.  I got a new water bladder for PMo, a new pair of socks, and a tiny food-grade container that I will put hot sauce in.  No shoes though.  I then went over to Three Lil Pigs for some BBQ.  I asked for a table with a power outlet and was immediately seated for lunch in a corner with space for my bag and two outlets for charging.  They seem to know what a hiker wants.  It was quiet and I needed to figure some things out.  I am meeting PMo in Big Island on thursday and was going to swap out my hammock there.  It didn't arrive in time so Kurt is mailing it along with a few of PMo's things including her new rainfly.  I called up H&H market to make sure they would accept a maildrop for me and to find out if they had flat-rate shipping boxes available.  I didn't want to get stuck carrying two hammocks and two pairs of shoes in my efforts to lighten up.  As it turns out, there was an unlisted post office just a mile away from the market.  Everything was looking good.  I checked Zappos for shoes and placed my order over the phone with Crystal.  She shipped 'em with free overnight for me and said they would be there by noon tomorrow.  It was going to take me three more days to walk the 60 miles into town but this was great news.  I dug into some Carolina-style BBQ and sipped a frosty pint of amber from Roanoke Brewing.  I inquired about the dessert menu and my waitress, Lauren, told me they offer complimentary banana cream pie for hikers.  It happened to be her birthday but it seemed I was getting the presents!  I left full and happy. I did my food resupply at Kroger and walked around the store with my pack inside my shopping cart.  It is so much harder to be inside a real grocery store knowing you can't carry any of the food you actually want to eat.  I saw Highgear inside and we talked about food strategies.  I was going to be heavy.  Really heavy.  I even bought a container of organic cashew butter (mainly to reuse to the container), some dried chanterelle, and wood ear mushrooms as bonus treats.  I am consistently at $10 per day out here for non-town food but this trip put me over a bit.  I was still stuffed and almost walked over to the Wendy's to avoid hiking in the heat of the day but moved out to the grass and called my folks for a quick chat.  I try to call whenever I have service and they will both be home/awake.  My journals are a bit behind so it's good to keep them up to date.  I wish I knew more about what was going on with everyone at home but the conversation always seems to come back to me walking around out here.  We said our goodbyes and I walked up the hill out of town.  At the trail head, I saw Beast Mode leaving and Jean, Mana, Commakaze, and a few others coming.  They looked beat up.  It was hot for me in the morning coming down and I can only imagine what it must have been like in the afternoon.  After our little roadside reunion, I headed up the trail going north.  The traffic noise was overwhelming and I hurried along.  A few miles out, I found a blackberry patch and they tasted delicious.  I should have picked more but thought I should leave a few for those behind me.  Up and up I went and the sky turned dark and the air got moist.  I got to Fullhardt Knob Shelter and ate dinner with Daffy the Slacker.  I moved on as the rain started to fall, hiking into the fading light of a tiny notched view of the western  sunset. I hiked way down into the Curry Creek basin and spoke to Iron Maiden, Halfway, and Allright who were tenting nearby.  I set up my hammock in the rain right near the bank a quarter mile down the trail.  I saw a light off in the distance and it was Beast Mode cooking dinner.  He had set up his tarp right on the trail since there weren't any other flat spots.  I washed off in the creek and hung my bear bag.  The rain drops on my dark fly put me immediately to sleep.