Date: 2011-05-31
From: Johns Hollow Shelter

To: Brown Mountain Creek Shelter
Miles today: 18.3
Weather: clear sky

Brown Mountain Creek Shelter. 5/31. Total distance 18.3 miles. Sleep was difficult to get last night because of a hyperactive dog in a tent near me. It seemed that when I was about to doze off, the dog would shake enough to make his collar rattle or just bark. There are some dogs that simply are not trail dogs. I wish their owners would recognize this and not take them. I know they love their dogs but they are really annoying everyone by bringing them. So I got up early, made breakfast, packed up and took off. Today was one of those days that I wanted to be by myself. I told "Half Man" that and I think she was wanting to hike by herself also. The start of the day was a 3.1 mile climb with an intermediate peak. (The picture its the view from the first peak.) I decided to time myself up to the first peak just to see how well my fitness level has improved since being on the trail. The first peak was 1.9 miles from the shelter trail which I was able to reach in 50 minutes. For someone my age, starting where I did in fitness level, I was very pleased with that time. I was even able to complete the day's journey without completely collapsing at the end. I hope that will continue to improve over time. When I got to the intermediate peak, I was hungry. Obviously, breakfast wasn't enough. I had a quick snack and took off to finish the rest of the climb then head to the first shelter. I was planning on having the rest of the pepperoni for lunch but the heat over the last couple of days was too much for it. I had peanut butter on the pita bread instead. I trying to do more cookless lunches to save on fuel. I'll continue to play with what's prepared to get the most calories out of it as well as make it tasty. Dinners are already tweaked by adding olive oil or butter to increase the calories and fat intake. The game is to get as many calories as possible with as many of the important nutrients included as possible. Today was exceptionally hot. In the 8.8 mile trip to the first shelter, I consumed all the water I had. The last bit was finished at the shelter sort of as a catch up. Hydration on a day like today is a major concern, especially when there are sparse water sources as we experienced going to the first shelter. The rest of the hike was fairly flat so it was a lot easier except for the afternoon heat. A bunch of the crew wee had been hiking with ended up slack packing to get a break from the heat. They still looked miserable but definitely less than they would had they hiked with full packs. Typically, slack packing is done in the opposite direction so those who don't slack pack her to see all that do. It's my personal goal not to slack pack on this trip. If I end up hiking the AT again, I would be inclined to slack pack just for the fun of it. On the way to the shelter, we stopped at a creek to stick our tired hot feet in. That felt wonderful. The fun thing that happened was the small violet butterflies just kept flying all around us. I ended up with 3 of them resting on my head. There must have been several dozen flying around. We got to the shelter area and setup our tents right beside the creek. After the tents were up, we sat with our feet in the creek once again. It was so good that I did it again just before going to bed. The other cool thing that happened was that I finally got to meet "Sparkplug", a lady from New Hampshire. She started about the same time I did so I had sent her a message saying that I hoped to meet her like I had done with everyone who I found started within a week of me. Also, similarity in our trailnames increased the desire to meet for both of us. She was behind me for a while and kept seeing my shelter registry entries. After the third foot soaking of the day, it was off to the tent to write this entry and go to sleep.