Date: 2003-05-20
From: Whitetop mountain

To: Wise Shelter
Miles today: 12.6
Weather: overcast clouds

This is a live journal update by Bumpkin, who is in Pearisburg, Va. My pocket mail crashed before I could download the last few entries so I am having to pull these from my memory. Not easy when days run together along with mountains and gaps. This is also the second try at getting this on line. After typing the entry for today, I lost the whole thing.I am amazed to wake up in the same place I went to sleep at. I just new that the wind would blow us at least a few hundred feet down the trail.Everything is damp including us. As I stretch outside of the tent, Papermaker(Jerry) asks me from in the tent, "Where do I put my dirty clothes?" It takes me a moment to look at him and realize he is seriuos. It takes me several more minutes to get up off of the ground where I have fallen, rolling with laughter. As I try to regain my composure, I keep doubling over in fits of laughter. He does not see the funniness of his question. I finally am able to answer him, "I put mine back on". He tells me there is no way he is going to put those stinky, smelly, damp clothes back on. I look at where a article of his clothing had landed last night when he threw it out of the tent because of the smell. It is still laying in the same spot. I will leave it to your imagination what article of clothing it was.We pack up and grab a couple of granola bars for breakfast since we are out of water. I notice that he has fresh clean clothes on. I just smile.It is not long before we come to a spring and tank up on water.The rest of the day stays overcast and dreary. As I come to an outcropping of rocks, the trail seems to end. I walk around looking for the trail, with no avail. It seems to just disappear into the rocks. Closer inspection reveals that indeed the trail does seem to end at the rocks, but there is a small opening in the rocks, and I realize the trail goes between the rocks. This is the Fat Man's Squeeze. I take a deep breath and plunge in, hoping and praying that we will not have an earthquake that will shake these rocks and squeeze the life out of me. I can see the headlines now, "AT hiker squeezed to death at Fat Man's Squeeze".I make it through okay and keep going trying to get my breathing to return to normal. Papermaker has had a harder time getting through, but he makes it with some choice words and a lot of squeezing.A while later he stops short in front of me and says he hears bagpipes playing. I tell him he needs to drink some more water, that he is hallucinating. He gives me one of those looks. As we round a bend, he tells me again he hears bagpipes playing. Sure enough there on an outcropping and someone playing the bagpipes. It has been a long time since I saw Papermaker move that fast. We do not get there in time to meet the player but it was a treat just the same to hear those tunes lofting over the mountains.The trail finally turns from rocky into more mud. Black mud that tries to suck your boots off of your feet. The good news is that we have climbed Whitetop mountain. At 5520 feet, it is Virginia"s second highest peak, but the trail does not go all the way to the top. Good thing! The bad news is that we still have to climb Mt.Rogers which is Virginia's highest mountain at 5,729. Even though the trail does not go to the top of it either, it might as well.Papermaker, being the machine designer that he is, is much impressed with the solar composting privey at Thomas Knob Shelter. We hikers may smell to high heaven, but we want our out houses to smell good!We cross into Grayson Highlands State Park just in time to see a troop of ponies with their babies cross in front of us, much too fast to get a picture.We get to Wise Shelter and go past it just a little ways to where tent camping is allowed. We set up our tent again hoping for a view of the sunrise. At least the tent is facing that direction. Papermaker goes after water. I am just pouring hot drinks when he came back a long time later. I was beginning to worry about him, he had been gone so long, then here he comes up from another direction. He found the creek and just could not pass up the opportunity to soak his feet in the cold water. I could only hope he got our water before soaking his feet!We eat and enjoy our hot drinks then turn in for the night. This is our last night on the trail togther, and we are both dreading saying goodby tomorrow.