Date: 2014-05-13
From: Pass Mountain Hut

To: Tom Floyd Wayside
Miles today: 23.6

Dune was up and out earlier than I, although I shaved some time off my usual morning routine by munching on nutella and oreos in lieu of a hot breakfast. Not that I really had a choice though as I was nearly out of fuel and needed to budget some for the rest of the day. After packing up and getting a few miles I realized there was another wayside, this one just off the trail and not the almost-mile detour yesterday's had been, where I could hopefully pick up a canister. The morning promised another bright sunny day and along with it some high heat and a few bursts of showers. It was also relatively flat getting to the wayside which was a welcome change. I arrived just in time to see Dune heading on up the trail and was left as the only thru hiker amid picnic tables of tourists. I grabbed the fuel, paying twice what I would have at any outfitter, and sat down to stretch and massage the plantar fasciitis out of my feet.My hour break was not inline with my goal of setting a trend of getting into camp earlier than dusk and I had shifted my hiking more towards the heat of the day. My feet wouldn't let me travel too fast though and the following section to the next hut was still quite relaxed with a number of Skyline Drive vista crossings.Just before reaching the shelter I was jerked out of my thoughts by the sound of rain picking up intensity fast. Feeling a drop on my leg I stopped, ready to drop my pack and throw a cover on. The sky had looked fine at the last road crossing and it was still pretty bright out. Confused, I hesitated a moment and felt no further drops. The pieces began to come together and I realized the drop was a perfectly timed drip from my camelback and the sound of pelting rain was merely tiny grasshopper-like insects springing all over the bed of dry leaves. The crisis averted, and the safety of my gear confirmed I continued on to lunch.Lunch also turned out to be a much longer break than expected. Dune was just on his way out, once again, as I arrived but gathered at the picnic table were two weekend warriors and three southbound section hikers going from Harper's Ferry down to Springer Mountain. Just as I started cooking a real burst of rain descended giving further reason to hang out until it passed. The southbound trio were all about getting any tips and tricks they could from us "seasoned" NoBo's and I was more than happy to oblige them. Just as I was finally packing my gear to head out one them casually stated, "that there's a bear." Sure enough there was a black bear casually sauntering through the low foliage about thirty feet down from the shelter. It didn't stop to regard us at all and wandered on by. My second bear of the trip! I wasn't quite fast enough on the draw to get a photo, but here's hoping for a few more non-interactive bear sightings.The afternoon hiking was a bit more exciting because even though I had dodged the shower earlier, thunderheads had rolled in to cover the sky and it was only a matter of time before it broke. It began to get dark, the temperature began falling, and my pace began rising. I passed the two weekend warriors setting up camp just under five miles from the my goal hut. They asked if I was planning on hunkering down and after a quick look at the sky I responded I thought I had enough time to make it over Compton Peak before it broke.Within minutes of leaving them it began to get lighter and I congratulated myself on such a good read of the sky. Halfway up the climb, however, the small hole in the cloud cover had passed and it began to rain. It wasn't that much though and I was still convinced I could make it up and over before I was at risk of any real danger.Wrong. Within minutes the clouds had opened fully, the wind had jumped a few pegs up from "breeze," and the lightening had begun strike all around me. Coming up to the summit I thought briefly about removing my glasses as I couldn't shake the water off fast enough - it was a tough call though: total blindness with sudden flashes of clarity or a general blurriness. The strikes began to get closer and I had only one thought on my mind: getting down.Tripping on rocks and slipping on damp roots were big enough problems on a nice day but that didn't stop me from running down the mountain. In retrospect it's amazing just how clear one's head can become given a heavy does of epinephrine; I barely remember the descent; the weight of my pack - gone, the pain in my feet and pounding on my knees - nonexistent, the sound of the rain - not even a blip on the EEG. Every neuron in my brain had jumped in to help the bucket chain between my eyes and my legs, parsing the freeze-frame snapshots of the trail viewed through rivulets of water, crunching the numbers for current velocity, weight distribution, traction of trail, and finally an olympic relay of that information to my legs. I trip on a rock at least every tenth of a mile usually, but somehow I made it down that mountain without wrecking myself.At the bottom was a small parking area where I stopped to catch my breath. Things didn't seem quite so bad down here and I, completely spent now that the adrenaline had started to fade, considered throwing in the towel and setting up my tent right there next to the lot. Witnessing lightening strike forty feet into the woods, and not so much hearing as feeling the resounding clap of thunder immediately following, catapulted me right back up to my previous mental state and all thoughts of stopping there were dismissed.The trail leveled off for a bit following a fire road, though at the moment it could only be described as a stream. The storm began to lose it's gusto as it blew itself out and by the end of the fire road it was only a light drizzle punctuated by ever more distant and tame grumbles of thunder. Turning off the fire road I came to a nice view before starting the final descent. With my adrenaline rush now gone and the ibuprofen fading fast my feet and knees began to complain of the abuse I had just put them through. I hobbled down the trail, significantly rockier than I would have liked before finally reaching the hut.Dune was the only one there and had also been caught coming down from Compton Peak by the storm. We exchanged accounts of the descent, concluding with grateful thanks to have made it through that. I can't speak for him, but that was definitely the scariest moment on the trail for me, beating out the rain turned to blizzard coming into Hot Springs.I had reached my goal for the day and I had reached it well before dark and unharmed - both things I strive for. The next day was a light 2.9 miles to the road and then a relaxed day in town followed by my first hostel/hotel stay in three weeks. A light patter of rain had picked up over the course of dinner and with that in the background I drifted right off.