Date: 2004-06-20
From: Leroy A Smith Shelter

To: Kirkridge Shelter
Miles today: 13.8

The Gift.        Last night at the shelter after pinching my tent, and getting set up for the night, I grabbed my food bag, stove and that 10 #¢s of water I lugged, and headed down to the shelter for company while I cooked my dinner. The shelter care taker was there, 9 a person that volunteers their time to make sure the shelter is in good repair). An unusually large pack by his side that he had just lugged up the mountain from a parking area about 12 mile away, begged the question, ¢are you gonna be out hiking for awhile?¢. ¢Nope, just up for the evening, but I brought up a few things to make all of you guys dinner¢! So, the trail magic begins as he unloads his pack. He pulls out 4 family packs of chicken breasts, a 5# bag of baking potatoes, at least a dozen ears of corn, a bag of apples, 2 packs of hot dogs, barbeque sauce, ketchup, mustard, relish, butter, sat and pepper, and one of those 2 ¢1/2 gallon water dispensers that you keep in your refrigerator! My guess is he hoofed at least 80#¢s up that mountain four US!Our host and Chef is a gentleman whose trail name is Sharp shin. He is a former thru-hiker (twice), and he sees this gift he is bestowing on us, as a simple means of paying back the generosity afforded him when he was hiking. So wanting no help form all us weary hikers, he builds a fire and prepares a feast. There were only 8 of us at the shelter last night and between us we finished up everything he brought up the mountain, (wouldn¢t want to see him have to carry it back down!). So barbeque chicken, baked potatoes, hotdogs on buns! I can¢t imagine things any better that having a cookout deep in the woods. At about 10 PM everyone is done pigging out and now getting very sleepy. We help Sharp shin cleanup and pack for his walk down the mountain in the dark. He lives about 30 minutes away and has to get home. He is a truck driver by trade and has to take a load down to Georgia and be there tomorrow evening!So as I hiked today, I keep thinking of the selfless soul, whom I got to share a few moments in time with, and said a prayer that his journey South was a safe one. The hike today was ALL rocks, even worse than yesterday. I won¢t spend my time whining again, but I absolutely could not look anywhere but down at me feet. The hiking is more mentally challenging than physically exerting, as you always have to concentrate on where you place your feet. So intent the focus that I¢¦ got lost!Lost may be too strong of a word, disoriented, yeah that¢s it! And how easy it was to accomplish! I simply decided to take a break, walked off the trail a few feet, sat down on a, of course, Rock, pulled my boots off, ate a Payday Bar and just rested. Break done boots back on, pack on. Walked the few feet back to the trail, looked both ways and realized everything looked the same, and I didn¢t know which direction I had come from!!! So the ol¢ heart picks up a few beats as I shed my pack at the rest stop as a landmark and walk about a 14 mile in each direction, looking for something that would trigger that thought of ¢Oh yeah, I remember that¢. Nothing distinctive! I don¢t want to walk a long way in one direction to figure out I¢m right or wrong. Then the light bulb goes off, albeit dimly. I have the trail map, and by ding dangy a compass! You see, one of the senior executives at work and myself did some ciphering one afternoon on how to use a map and compass. Seemed pretty easy in an office building, let¢s see if I can put it to practical use. I open up the map with the trail on it and lay the map on the trail. As you know every map has a North arrow on it. Get out my compass and orient it North as well. Now I put the map ¢north arrow¢ in the same direction of the compass north needle, look on the map for the shelter I¢m heading to, and the tells me which way I need to go on the trail, (left). I pass a few landmarks on the map in the next few miles that affirms the method, so I¢m loving life and give a big shout out to MIKE CARR. Thanks Mike!!!