Date: 2005-03-08
From: Burningtown Gap NC

To: N.O.C. Nantahala River, NC
Miles today: 12.6

Tuesday 3/8/05Gosh, I always forget what I wrote in my journal yesterday. Hopefully I won't repeat or miss anything. Long night, I didn't get out my sleepbag, because it's down and I wn't let it get wet. So I slept in my rain gear and covered myself in my tarptent and layed on my ground cloth. It all got wet. Scarecrow got in his sleeping bag and it got wet too. Obviously I didn't sleep great, but we try to sleep probably 12 hours a night because it gets dark early and theres nothing else to do, but sleep. So I problably got the same amount of sleep as I do every night. So it makes me wonder, why did I stay in a place I knew that leaked and I knew it was going to rain. A couple of reasons. I am brain dead at the end of the day, why, I don't know? Maybe malnutrition, or being just plain tired, there was also food. I guess at this point in my hike the mere promise of food suprasses good shelter. Bottom line, it was stupid, I know better and should have had better shelter to spend the night. Anyways, it bothers me that I am such a scatter brain at the end of the day. Especially when in normal life I am usually tow steps ahead in the thought process.Yeah so when we got up it was snowing. Scarecrow and I waited for the weather to calm down. We headed out and hiked in the snow, couple of inches on the ground and a steady snow fall most of the morning. First shelter we saw had a bunch of sorry looking college kids with frozen clothes and such trying to find an easy way out of their predicament. We hiked on in the snow, it was nice, but slippery. We stopped at the next shelter and chatted with some more college kids and made a hot lunch, nice hot RAMEN. It was nice to have a hot lunch on this snowy day. We then continued on and made a slippery descent down to the NOC, which is a like a kayakers haven that caters some to thruhikers. We got there fairly easily, onlyabout 12 miles.We are spending the night and taking a rest day tomorrow. One of the main reasons for the rest is my knees, they are taking a beating. I know I haven't mentioned it latey but my left leg hasn't stopped bothering me since it started. I take some Ibuprofen every day, but its still sore. Hoefully a day off will give it a chance to heal. Oh yeah and I got a couple of blisters, I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I seriously never get them. I have them on my outside heel of both my feet. I'm gonna take a good look at the shoes tommorow. I might be able to cut out a part of the insole to alleviate the problem. We caught up to another hiker today, Eric. He started a day or two ahead of us, and was hiking alone. He's 22 and wanted to make sure he had someone to hike with throught the Smokies. We will meet him at Fontana Dam 3 days from now, and do the 80 some miles of the Smokies together. They can be dangerous mountains and there can be sudden March snowstorms and what not. So you have to bring extra food and fuel just in case you get snowed in or something. I'd like to hike with Eric for as long as I can, but he has a July 1st deadline, so his pace will probably be very similar to mine, but I will most likely take more zero days. I don't plan on making it to Katahdin till July 15 at the earliest, but you never know. Well I'm rambling on cause I'm brain deadGoodnight,Shorts