Date: 2016-06-09
From: Swift Run Gap -- Shenandoah N. P.

To: Hightop Hut
Miles today: 3.4
Weather: few clouds

I sure didn't get much sleep on the train last night! It seemed much less comfortable & more noisy than most of my previous train experiences. Having an upset stomach probably didn't help either. After viewing some of the historical exhibits at the station, I walked the few blocks to the nicely-restored, old downtown, found a place that sold bagels, & ate one. That was all that seemed comfortable to eat. Then I took a bus out to the Fashion Square Shopping Center & walked to the nearby Verizon store. They were going to help with my "Google Play" problem last time, but the back-up would have taken too long. "Google Play" is a misleading name: it doesn't have to do only with games or music, it is also the app store & almost an integral part of the operating system, the way it interfaces with so many other apps. This time, I had most things backed up to an SD card, tho the "cloud" was also full. But I made the colossal error of not backing up the "Notes" app where I've been keeping running accounts of my hike till I get a chance to put them on Trailjournals.com. So I lost a bunch of those. I can reconstruct the days from memory, but not the names of hikers I met. This late in the hike, I really could have waited till I got home! I was feeling sick, dumb, sleep-deprived, &c. ... but the phone functions better now, & life goes on.I caught the bus to Wal-Mart, on the edge of town, bought a few things, & set out to hitchhike out to the Shenandoah National Park [about 35 miles, I think]. It's a busy 4-lane highway & not easy to get anyone to stop. After a half hour in the sun at the most likely spot, a woman picked me up & took me up to Rt. 33 & then halfway out to the Mtns. It took a much shorter time to get a ride the rest of the way to the Trail at Swift Run Gap. It did feel good to be in the woods again & back on the trail. 3 miles took me up, up, up (not very steep) to the top of Hightop Mtn. [Isn't that an oxymoron? Do you think there's a Lowtop Mtn. somewhere?]. Then just a little farther to Hightop Hut. There were about 10 through hikers whom I had met somewhere around Damascus: Porsche, Key, Mesabi [can't remember the others]. I guess I felt somewhat incompatible with them; so I decided to tent. Actually, several people there agreed that there was room for me on the bottom level -- if a couple of them would move over a little -- but no one made a move. There was space on the upper level, but the poor design meant I'd have to crawl over 1 or 2 sleepers to get out in the night. So I decided to camp near, but out of sight of, the shelter. I thought I had chosen a fairly soft place for my leaky air mattress -- not really soft, but at least not rocky. A quiet place, anyway, & I slept well.Good to be back on the trail.Met on the Trail today: SOBO Section hikers Appleseed & Peach-Pit and their dog. Just one thru-hiker: Bullet, whom I had met speeding down the Mtn. toward Hot Springs only 3 weeks ago! Nice not to see so much poison ivy. Also nice that it is not so warm or humid as in Georgia and the trail actually seems easier A tree down across the trail made me want to cut it, but it was a not-quite-dead black locust: fairly tough to cut & not in a very good position. So I left it.What a culture clash today, in moving from the train to the city, to standing outdoors on a divided Highway hitchhiking, to being back in the woods, along the way seeing a little bit of TV with the political stuff that I've been ignoring for weeks. Another change: others were talking about being cold at night, and I've been used to not even zipping up my sleeping bag for the last week or two in North Carolina and Georgia; so we'll see how that has changed as well.Going to bed before dark, but I have some catching up to do, what with not feeling well & losing my notes.