The huge event of the day was Neel's Gap! We made it to this point in the early afternoon, met Gretchen and Mark there, as well as Old and Fat (an old and fat guy section hiking), and ‘the old guys’, as C and I were calling them at this point (4 guys that were also section hiking, and were older than us). We had a moment when we realized that D and J would have taken off at this point. We wandered through the store, and couldn’t find a water filter. Ours had broken earlier, and we were worried about water, because water is important. We asked the guy about it, and he told us: ‘well, I would recommend the Aquamira, but don’t waste it’. We looked confused, so he explained: Protected Streams (ones that humans can get to above you, and that remain in National Wilderness Areas) and Springs (coming out of a rock, filtered by the mountain) are safe to drink out of straight, without filtering or treating the water. Caleb and I were nervous, but Rock Dancer had told us the exact same thing, and so we figured we’d try it. We bought the drops, just in case we came across something that didn’t look good, and mailed some stuff back home. The now-broken filter, extra clothes, and some other stuff we wouldn’t need. All told, 4 lbs. We were hoping to lose more weight, but no such luck. Then we set out, with the goal of maybe going a mile or three, and then camping for the night. I was feeling great, and Caleb and I were going at a good clip. We may not have broken 3 mph, but I think we were at least doing 2.5, which is pretty good out there. It starts to rumble, so we put on rain stuff and kept on, looking for a place to sleep. But nothing was presenting itself, so we kept walking and kept looking. Then it started pouring. After a while, we just decide to head to a shelter farther up the trail. We still had several miles to go at that point, so we haul. And its wet. Pouring rain. I love rain, when I can stay out of it and not get soaked. This was rain with a vengeance, rain that was looking at us as affronts to the wilderness, and wished to wash us away. The trail, because its been worn down by many many feet passing over it, is lower than the area. So any sort of incline, and the trail turns into a muddy stream. For a while, I tried to keep my shoes out of it. Then I gave up. There was no way. Water was running down my legs, right into my shoes, and getting me wet. Nothing to do about that. So we're slogging along, soaked, and I start looking for a blaze. You always do, its instinctive after a while, you look for a blaze, see it, accept the affirmation it gives you, and keep rolling. 15 minutes go by, and there's no blaze. I ask Caleb, who is leading at this point: 'have you seen a blaze in a while?' He hasn't. There aren't any other trails to turn off onto, so we knew that we hadn't gotten lost. But we weren't sure where we were going. This was not comfortable. 15 minutes after that, we sight a blaze and continue on our trek. We get to the sign for the shelter, and we’re pretty wet at this pint. We say to each other: I don’t care how uncomfy it is, I just want to get to the shelter, eat dinner, and sleep. In the shelter. Our hammocks are a million times more comfy, but I just wanted to crawl into my sleeping bag and sleep. We roll up onto the shelter trail, and spot a tent, with girls coming out of it and heading towards the shelter. Oh well. Two people, they'll have one end, us the other, cool. Then we see the area around the shelter. Someone's strung up clotheslines all over and hung lots of stuff on them. We reach the shelter: full. Packed. Overflowing. An uncle and nephew, 4 girls, and a weird couple. Caleb and I ended up setting up our hammocks near the shelter, ate dinner standing in front of the shelter under the awning, and then slipped off to bed. Sleep turned out to be a little hard to come by that night...oof. More on the weird couple later.
This is C and I on Blood Mountain. The rock we're sitting on took this picture. I thought it was very thoughtful of it.
Caleb. And the dark spot to his right, our left? The trail. I had to enlighten him about text-based games. 'Into the foliage!'
A side shot that I really like of us. Just sitting on a log, taking a break.
This big rock was held up by two little nubs of rock. We had to get a picture. It looked like you could push it off or something.
Us, windy and a little smelly. Fun times.
1 comment:
Neat pictures... fun to hear some hiking stories from you last night :)
- ced
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