Date: 2007-07-15
From: Bemus Mountain Lean-to

To: South Arm Road
Miles today: 8.7

Woke up around 4 in the morning anxious to get the trail because today was a 13 mile day that I heard would be tough. 5 minutes later it starts to rain, so I zip back up in the bag. 6 o'clock comes and we start to move around the lean to. The skies are a little grey and Coach K and Dr. John push out around 7:30ish. I hang out around the lean to for a bit and then make a run to the privy. Walking out of the privy the sun bursts out of the sky, just the sign I'm looking for. I gather up my gear and press on for the days chore. The hike started out beautiful. Sun blazing on me. I'm about an hour into my hike and the weather played a horrible trick on me. The skies up and opens up on me. I put the pack cover and rain jacket on and away I go. I have a solid rain the rest of the day. I slip and slide on rocks and roots everywhere. Now I start my descent down Old Blue. This was like climbing down a water fall because of all the rain. It's bad enough that the trail conditions were horrible all day, I felt like I had been hiking up stream all day. Then I have to face this suicidal decent. I'm miserable. All the bad events of the day are adding up, pissed on myself, sliding over everything, and nearly breaking my neck on every descent. I can see the road and the realization of my newest nightmare is setting in. I know that I only have about a 1/4 mile or less to the road, but I'm up way too high to cover that. I now start the descent from hell. A straight down run to the road. Any other day I would gladly take on this challenge, but not today, not my last act of stupidity. Sure enough it¢s as slick as I thought it could be. I fall several times cussing and swearing. Finally make it to the road, mentally exhausted and pissed about my day. I end up calling "The Cabin" no answer. I leave a message. So I start the 9 mile walk into town. I'm about 50 yards down the road and I catch a hitch. Roger, has just finished checking the sites of the area, and was heading back to the camp he recently purchased. We talk for a bit about my journey this far, then asks if I'm in a hurry. With nothing else to do but get into town, I ask Roger ¢What's up?¢ I'm not going lie, I was a little nervous about what I was getting into. Roger takes us down a dirt road and he shows me this river that naturally got diverted, so all that is left is a 20' cut out in the earth. It was pretty cool. Then he took me into Andover. Since he never has been in Andover, we drove the town. So what started out as a bullshit day quickly changed because of my hitch. I get a hold of Beck and she tells me go to The Cabin, take a shower and get some food in me. She's an awesome woman. So dinner comes and the trumpets sound. There was so much food on the table I didn't know where to start. I ate so much that I had to stay at the table for about an hour. I've met some great people here. Rambler is an interesting guy. We accused him of stealing TN-adine's pink underwear. Now TN-adine has been carrying a huge pack. I sat and watched Dirty Bird and TN-adine do a pack shake down. I was amazed by what Dirty Bird was pulling out of her pack. That could be a whole other journal entry. Another great character that I could write a whole journal entry on is Chuck Norris, he's a great guy in his late 50's and travels the trail in his Porche.