Date: 2004-08-30
From: Moose Mountain Shelter, NH

To: Sweatfest II
Miles today: 17.7

A thunderstorm passed over the shelter last night, just after I finished composing my journal entry. The raindrops landed in a noisy clatter on the metallic roof. After the storm had passed, drops of water fell from the trees throughout the night. Each time a drop landed on the roof, it made a clanking sound. In spite of these clanks, I slept well.Late in the night, the light from a near full moon illuminated a mist that was permeating the woods; it was a dramatic scene.Wipeout hit the trail a few minutes before me. She was planning a long mileage day. My goal was to hike seventeen miles; this distance would enable me to reach a hostel in Glencliff, NH on the following day.It was nice to hike in the early morning and not have to contend with strands of spider webbing hanging above the trail and getting into my face. Because Wipeout was the first person hiking, she presumably cleared away the webs.Just like yesterday, the heat and humidity were oppressive. My energy waned during the ascents. I sweated profusely. I rotated bandanas to keep up with the sweat on my face. When a bandana became soaked from wiping my face, I would clip it to the outside of the backpack where it would dry. In the meantime, I would use another bandana to wipe away the sweat. When that bandana got soaked, I would swap it with the other one.For the first time since hiking in Virginia, a rash appeared on my inner thigh; it happens when my thigh rubs constantly against sweat drenched pants. Fortunately, it is rare for my pants to become drenched from sweat. Unfortunately, today was one of those rare days. The humidity was the main topic of conversation with the hikers I met. A southbounder told me that these last two days were the most difficult, weatherwise, since he began his hike at Baxter State Park in Maine. At a road crossing, I noticed a woman getting into her parked car; she was a hiker. I asked her for a ride to the post office in nearby Lyme Center, NH. She agreed.At the Post Office, I shipped back home my summer sleeping bag. The woman asked me if I wanted a ride to a general store in the adjoining town of Lyme, NH. I jumped at the opportunity to buy a lunch. At the store I purchased a sub sandwich, a can of vegetable beef soup, two bananas, a peach, and some ice cream. She also got something to eat. We drove back to the trailhead, sat down and ate lunch together. She told me that her husband was hiking in the area. She had done some hiking yesterday and had felt lousy due to the excessive humidity.I said goodbye to her and resumed hiking. Minutes later, I stopped and sat down on a stone wall beside the trail in the woods. I felt like throwing up. I had eaten way too much food. As I sat there feeling miserable, mosquitoes buzzed around me. After a while I felt better and resumed hiking. Later, the trail led me up a long and difficult ascent of Smarts Mountain with an elevation of 3,240 feet. It was an especially hard climb in the humidity. I struggled all the way up. A fire tower provided a nice view.I was tempted to spend the night in a cabin on the summit. Another hiker was sitting near the entrance. He told me that the heat and humidity had worn him out and he would not hike further today.I opted to hike five miles further to a shelter on Mount Cube; this would put me in striking distance of a Glencliff, NH on the following day. I had shipped a box of food to a hostel in that town.As I hiked these final miles, the sound of thunder gradually became louder. My anxiety grew when the storm was almost on top of me. Minutes before the rain began, I made it to the shelter. It was a large shelter designed in the shape of a hexagon, with six sides. Two of the sides, next to each other, were open to the air. The other sides were walled. There were a few hikers in the shelter, all of them southbound thru hikers in their twenties.We exchanged pleasantries and then I moved into an unoccupied part of the shelter. There, I removed my sweat drenched clothes and hung them on a line which I strung out between beams.I spread out my Thermarest pad on the floor under the clothesline; that is where I would sleep.In my camp clothes¢long underwear and sandals¢I cooked and ate my supper at the front of the shelter. Two other hikers showed up, wet from the rain. One of them walked across the shelter in his muddy shoes leaving a trail of mud across the floor and next to other individual's sleeping pads. He placed his backpack beside my Thermarest pad. As he stood there, a puddle of dirty water formed next to my Thermarest pad. By custom, most hikers remove their muddy footwear before entering a shelter. They often wear sandals inside. Nobody said anything to this person about his disregard for custom.I am ready to turn off my headlamp and go to sleep. My neighbor lying next to me¢the guy who muddied the floor¢has a habit of farting loudly.His feet smell particularly bad, or is the odor coming from his socks that are hanging on a line above him?But hey, who am I to complain? My pants hanging on the line over me are so wet from sweat that the sweat has dripped from them and formed a small pool of fluid on the floor. I am actually relieved to be lying on the floor next to mud, a pool of water, a pool of sweat, and a flatulent neighbor with raunchy feet. The sweatfest has ended. The ordeal has passed. I can sleep.