Date: 2004-05-04
From: denis cove road

To: vanderventer shelter
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: clear sky

milling. its a skill. i did nothing, wandered around and watched what other people were doing, read my own trail journal, shot a few hoops, hand washed my t shirt, wasted time. until 2. ok, i guess i should hike.awesome day. praises due. laurel creek falls, a wide, tall magic cascade, carving out a wide and deep pool. sat there for an hour, alone. my favorite thing to do with waterfalls is catch one drop with my eye at the top and follow it to the bottom, and repeat it over and over. it breaks the wonder down into falling particles.great flat one mile walk surrounded by creek. good, wide tread. i think to myself this is my last leg. i am off in damascus. each step was a gift. i welled up. i would love to go to maine.one of those damn climbs got me out of all this nostalgia. huff huff huff huff up up up up. i think i will enjoy hawaii.the first water source since the creek after the long hot climb was a pristine double spring bubbling out of the ground. i chose not to treat it, gulping pure water, replenishing my tired body. i peered at the scant forest in the foreground of the appalachian haze below gulping cold water and i had thuoghts. thoughts that i was alone in the middle of a forest, a deep forest, sitting on a rock and i was comfortable in this world. i have no room for fear out here. i am secure in the world. life has me in her hand. she will not let me drop. i caught my breath and shouldered the pack. i would like to go to maine.i forgot to tell you, we scored moonshine earlier. lumber, a young 28 year old carpenter, asked an old gentleman "hey, you got some shine?" and the guy exlaimed "yeah buddy!." that is the quote of the day. so me, lumber, and ski bum are each packing 16 oz of shine. what will unfold?well, at the shelter at ten miles lumber and the bum ask me if i am ready for more. its about 7:30. theres a full moon tonight. now were talkin. yea buddy! my first bonafide night hike. and so we wait for the moon, sipping the shine, tending to a fire. at ten, the moon's glow appears on the horizon, though it is still dark. we are impatient and leave anyway. how unatural it felt in my half drunk state in the dark to be hiking. i mean we were not mozying down the trail, we were walking as fast as we could possibly walk. i come to think of it, this is what we always do, we are hiking machines. i mean god forbid one of you come out here and try to keep up. i mean we cruise. this seems like second nature durring the day, but it strikes my as kind of odd in the dark night.the moon comes out, and we cruise over watuga dam. quite a sight to walk under street lights watching the moon rise over the lake.then i fall behind the boys on a viscious accent. i aclimate to life without the headlamp which makes this a blind, tired, god i hope i sober up soon, surreal climb. it could have been 10 miniutes, it could have been an hour, but i reached the ridge and the fantastic cool feeling of cruising over it with the moon glowing on the lake below. without the lamp, there are two colors: dark and not dark, black and silver. you dont so much see rocks and other obstacles in the trail, you more sense thier contours. ski bum says "now maybe we know what its like to be blind" me and lumber simultaneously correct him. lay off the shine, buddy. we could see, it was just a different sight.the bum and i stopped on the ridge and had a smoke, feeling tired strange and beautiful. the whole trip really got turned on its head tonight. all was quiet. the moon was impresive. we tried to determine just what all those lights were. we got up and moved on. about 10 min past, a voice comes from the shrubs, its lumber in his bag, whispering:"this is good enough for me, the shelter is right there." and so it was, we layed our bags under the moon and crashed out. it was 12:30, we had night hiked seven miles.