Date: 2004-05-01
From: Iron Mountain Gap

To: Ash Gap
Miles today: 9.5
Weather: light rain

Considering how late we got to sleep, I was surprised at how early we got moving. We did not get on the trail soon enough, however, to avoid meeting other hikers coming through. One older hiker came through the campsite (more to our embarrassment than his) to go to the spring and stayed down at the spring to eat breakfast. ¢Sue,¢ who would later hike with Mo Juice and Beagle, also came through. High Trailer also came through, and we would see him later during the day.My family grew up in a rural part of central Maryland, which is now overdeveloped with houses, but which is also still overrun in the summer with Maryland jungle. I was surprised how much Steve and Greg knew about and cared about the plants along the trail. The AT had become a kind of workplace for me, and I had become more oriented to hammering out miles than taking in the scene. It was good for me to see it with their eyes, as something fresh and absorbing. The flowers, the mosses, and other plants, were topical at various times during our two-day hike. In order for the three of them to make the long trip back to Maryland and be presentable for work on Monday morning, most of the walking would need to be done on Saturday. We set off for Ash Gap, which required us to make a hard climb up Bear Mountain but which put us just below Roan High Knob and only a couple of miles from their take-out point at Carver Gap. We had lunch more or less in the trail. This was another breach of trail etiquette, which they made up for by offering food to everyone coming through. This included ¢Mushroom¢ and Robert and High Trailer, who had stopped in a hostel I didn¢t know about for a cheeseburger. I felt comfortable enough with High Trailer to ask him, in front of my family, how much his pack weighed. He said ¢thirty-five pounds,¢ and I told the rest that that was the weight of a thru-hiker¢s pack. Steve had informed me earlier by phone that, after hard work, they had managed to get their pack weights down to fifty pounds. In retrospect this is a wonder, considering what kept coming out of Steve¢s Bora 95 pack, which is not an ultralight pack to begin with. He was carrying, for instance, a Nalgene bottle full of Jack Daniels.Well, who cares? They were doing a two-night hike. These are the most common sorts of hike that people do and the entire gear industry is set up for them. The ultralight technique of the thru-hiker, I suppose until recently, has been fairly arcane. I heard complaints from some thru-hikers that they had been outfitted poorly for the trip, and it appears it was by sporting goods sales people who did not understand the importance of keeping the weight to the absolute minimum. Unfortunately, you may have to be on the AT itself to encounter gear advisors in the flesh who are up to the task of mentoring thru-hikers.We camped at Ash Gap up-trail from a group of Boy Scouts. Steve and I walked the long distance down to the pathetic spring. There we were joined by elements of the Boy Scout troop, and had a friendly talk with two of their leaders. Later, Greg built another fire at the base of a rock while Steve heated chicken his wife Penny had prepared and doled out rice pilaf and peas. We slept with the threat of rain.