Date: 2017-06-05
From: Garden Mountain, VA 623

To: Picnic Pavilion, VA 42 (southbound)
Miles today: 17.6

I set my alarm for 5:15 this morning to be ready to leave at 6:00, but Rennie's went off an hour earlier.  No problem - I went right back to sleep.  The plan was for Warren to take Rennie and me to the endpoint, Garden Mountain, to hike south for the day.  This made much of our hike downhill.  The primary motivation, I think, was to avoid taking the white van up the mountain.  The road was so rutted in places that it was almost impassible.  On the drive Warren scolded me for not eating enough and losing too much weight.  He's noticed what I eat and it's way too healthy to have enough calories.  I must make friends with Little Debbie and eat a lot of ice cream.  I'm all on board with the ice cream, but we've had very few opportunities to indulge. And he's right that I need to eat a whole lot more food.  It was about 60 degrees and raining when we started at 6:40.  I had brought a rain jacket and a poncho.  Warren said the first five miles were the hardest, so I decided to wear the jacket to avoid the billowing poncho getting in the way of my view.  We started in drizzle, but then the rain got heavier.  We were completely drenched within 15 minutes.  It turned out we walked 10 hours in the rain.   There were a few intermittent periods of drizzle and of downpour, but most of the day was just a steady moderate downfall.  I proceeded very cautiously for the first five miles because there were lots of rocks and muddy places.  After that the terrain was easier, and I was able to go at a normal speed, taking into consideration all the mud and slippery places. As always I was afraid of being cold, and I had no extra layer with me for when we stopped.  We stayed warm till the first stop, and then we both got cold.  Everything is more complicated because of my sprained wrist.  Because of it I can't squat down and hang on to a tree to poop in the woods, so I had to wait 7 miles to get to a privy.  Because my pants won't stay up without suspenders I have to nearly undress to use the privy.  By the time I was done I was thoroughly chilled.  For a while we hiked through pasture, where it was windy. Momentarily I succumbed to fear that the wind would make us even colder.  I stopped and put on my poncho over my thoroughly wet rain jacket.  That made me a bit warmer, and I put my left arm inside the poncho to make it a bit warmer.  Eventually we got to an uphill, and I warmed up.  It was not fun, however.  Water was dripping from the end of my nose and rolling down my face.  I started drinking the water that reached my lips, and it was quite good.  Sometimes pieces of music would play in my head.  One that goes, ta da DUM ta da DUM ta da DUM ta da DUM, DAH DAH DAH DAH, da da da da DAH da has been floating through my mind for days now.  I finally figured out that it's part of the score for "The African Queen".  Where did THAT come from?  Then my brain switched to Cole Porter's "Two Little Babes in the Woods": "they have found that the fountain of youth is a mixture of gin and vermouth...". I used to worry about all these strange musical interludes, but I've decided to just regard them as entertainment and listen or not as I prefer. Diane says I'm living in an alternate universe, and that's probably true.  Tomorrow will be my last hike with the group for seven days.  My class reunion at Middlebury College is this upcoming weekend, and I'm going to go see my old friends and my roomie Meg who's been so supportive and who makes the best cookies.  In order to take this break I had to hike the scheduled miles in advance.  That's why my mile counter is higher than the mile of the trail we're on.  There are lots of general trail things that I've not had time to write about, so I may write some entries while I'm gone.  I hope to see one of my classmates who thruhiked about 15 years ago and who was one of my inspirations for this journey.  And I plan to have my wrist x-rayed to make sure it's not broken.  (My right knee and ankle are doing better; one more day of an ankle wrap and I should be fine.)Tomorrow 17.4 miles and then a well-deserved break!