44, 7-28-07: The Last Day.

The last day. So-Close was getting extracted at well, but had to be up and out earlier, so she wandered out of camp while C and I were still groggily coming towards wakefulness. We loaded a lot of our extra food into a bag or two and hung it in the shelter. I hope someone found and loved it. I was certainly ready to leave it behind. It was tasty, but those last 11 miles just didn’t need that much help. It was a really easy 11 miles, no real climbs of note. We did get trail magic! This was super awesome! Yesterday we saw a cooler, a laundry basket, and some plastic bottles in it. C and I thought: ‘how rude of people’ and went on. So Close checked it out, and it turns out that it was a cooler full of Gatorade for hikers. The laundry basket was for empties. So we saw another cooker, wandered over, and looked in. Victory! Gatorade! Consumed! It was wonderful. Once more, I felt a rush of affection for the VA hiker clubs. We hit the road we were meeting the parents on at about 115. When I had talked to them, something about 3 or 4 oclock was mentioned. Caleb and I, needless to say, didn’t want to stay that long. There was talk of Josh coming and bringing his phone, so I pull out mine and check to see if I got signal. Which I did! So I call, and I hear ringing, which was also exciting. And then it went to voicemail. I was sad. Mom must have heard the phone go off without being able to answer it, because she called right back. Dad, Mom, and Matt had camped out that night at a state park nearby, so they were ready to roll. We hang out, and I think ate a snack. Then a tan van rolls up and pulls off the road. We exchange greetings, hugs, and many smiles. Everyone was impressed by how badly we smelled. Then we got in and left…and Caleb and I were off the trail, seriously off the trail, for the first time in many days. It had overtones of melancholy to it, but we were with our family, and it was great to see everyone, so that was totally awesome. There was a shower at the campsite, and Mom had provided clean clothes for us, so Caleb and I both got a shower, I got to see myself in a mirror for the first time in a while (lots of extra hair on my face), and we both got to wear cotton for the first time in a while. It really is comfortable. Help them pack up, make a cup of tea, and we’re on our way. Back to civilization, but with the Trail still behind us, calling us softly, but very, very persistently.


The last brekkers. Yay oatmeal!













A neat view. The mountains seem to have gotten smaller.












Lunch. Glorious lunch.













A really awesome valley, part one.













The valley, part two.

Day 43, 7-27-07

All that ‘I was ready’ talk of yesterday turned into: ‘I really don’t want to get off the trail’ today. It was an odd day. We got up and moving pretty early in the day, and covered ground. The climb of the day, a 2000’ trek, was through a large cut that someone had made in the woods, so we were out in the open in a huge swath of field and grass in the midst of a lot of trees. It was neat, we could see deer a long way off. After a while, I was starting to glare grumpily at Caleb’s bobbing back, so I realized it was time to pause for a snack. We ate and then continued on. There was a super cool shelter at the top of the climb, it was an old…something or other, and it was all stone. It looked like a really neat shelter to stay around, and if it wasn’t ridiculously early when we arrived, I would have campaigned to stay. We polish off the remainder of our 16 miles and roll into the shelter at 3:45. It was odd. I didn’t think we were making such good time, but I guess we were. After the climb, which we handled very well, it wasn’t that hard, so we just rolled on through things. It was nice. I had a touch of gear- review, and I loved everything. Again, I needed new shoes, but really loved the Vasques. Since it was the last full day, we realized that we needed to take pictures of all our gear, etc. So there are a lot of those, as well as pictures of C and I and our faces, because we had an impressive amount of scruff at this point.

The tarp and hammock. Sleeping, perfected.













Me, under the tarp by my hammock. Glorious.













The rock that we tossed for the bear bag.













C, reading the trail journal.


















Water! Nalgenes (glorious!) and the Camelback.













Our cooking stuff. Super great!













C's shoes. They were pretty beat up.













My insole with the hole in it. That's a lot of walking.


















C, prepping dinner. The water seemed to take longer to boil every night...












Me, and the Beard of Power.


















C. His scruff is blond, except for the racing stripe on his chin.


















Dinner! I look at it now, and think: Gross. But at the time: awesome!

Day 42, 7-26-07

For those of you who are ‘Hitchhikers Guide’ fans, this was the answer to everything. It was a tough day, but I’m not sure why. There were a lot of stiles to be climbed this day, and that’s never fun. It’s just not. At the interstate yesterday we called home to let them know the particulars of things. We had been in touch with letters and things, but I wanted to actually make a call before we/they got to the point and went: What’s going on?’ The particulars weren’t worked out at home, but we were going to eventually get there, so that’s what the important part was. I totally stepped on a garter snake. Just in the groove and rolling along, and then Caleb goes ‘Woah!’ And I’m like, ‘What?” And he replies ‘you totally just nailed that snake.’ So we took a picture. I hope it was ok. Oh, by the way: even though I wore a hole in the Vasques, I loved them. They were so awesome. I got one blister, and that was only because my feet got really wet and wrinkly, and I always get blisters when that happens. At this point, I knew that C and I had only two days left, one full day on the 27^th, and however long it would take us to cover 11 miles the day after. It was a mixed bag of feelings. I was a little grateful to get off the trail, to be consistently clean, to have lots to eat. There was also a great deal of sadness. I didn’t really want to go. I wanted to be able to put: Oops GA->ME 07 in the trail journals. I was tempted to just let my boss know I wasn’t coming back, and drop Caleb off with the family, and then keep on trucking. At the same time, I was ready to get back and start having adventures back home, discovering new places to eat, more people to befriend, and more tea to drink. There was a wide world in Raleigh that I could return to, and although it was not wreathed in trees and nestled in mountains, it was still a wonderful place to be. I was ready.

A neat tree-arch that wouldn't hold still to get pictured...


















A silo, etc. We were in an easement through this guys property.












The trail goes up that way eventually.













Me, checking things out.













The snake I stepped on. Poor guy.













A ramshackle old something or other...mill, perhaps?

Day 41, 7-25-07

Caleb and I faced another day of rain today. So-Close had mailed her rain jacket home early in her hike, so she didn’t have that at all. Caleb and I were worried about that, because…well, we’d had experience with rain and the importance of Rain Jackets. You need to be able to stay dry. Or at least barely damp. After a while, there isn’t much you can do, but the drier the better. She picked up a poncho at the Ranger Station, so at least she wasn’t getting rained on again. About midway or so we ran into a shelter and a sad entry by a person we had been chasing for a while, Phoenix. We found his hoodie and a desperate note in the Log. He didn’t have any rain gear, and up to that point, the summer had been very dry, so it wasn’t a big deal. If it rains one day, but the next is nice, then it’s no worries, you dry out during that day. But this was the 3^rd day that it had rained, and he was (Mother and Speed had met this guy, so we learned about him from them) wearing jeans and a cotton hoodie. There’s a hiker saying: Cotton Kills. This is because once a cotton garment gets wet, it never gets dry again. Caleb and I discovered this on our first trip. We went out, sweated a lot the first day, and that shirt was soaked. Sweated a lot the second day, and the new shirt we put on that day got soaked. 4 days later we emerge, still soaked. Cotton never dries. This means that, if it is cold, the water gets cold, and sucks your heat away. So this poor guy was hiking in soaking wet and cold clothes, with two dogs, one of which didn’t like him. At the end of his note, he stated that his hands were having a hard time grasping the pen. He was cold, and had been cold for a few days. That sort of trial gets into your head very quickly. There was a highway only a few miles away, and he expressed a desire to find a hotel and get extracted. So after this shelter, we find some blackberry bushes and gorge on tasty blackberries. Cross I-81. There was a hotel there, and a big red barn restaurant. Caleb and I actually walked up to this restaurant, sad in some chairs by the entrance, and took off our shoes and socks. Then I took the insoles out of my shoes so they could dry a little bit. It was then that I realized that my right insole had been pounded between the ground and my shoe so much that I had worn a hole in it. I was impressed. I guess about 600 miles would do that…we decided to keep going, and found the shelter we were to stay near. It was pretty nice, but I-81 could still be heard. That was annoying. I didn’t want to hear cars zooming by all night…oh well. I still went to sleep very quickly.

A neat red barn in the distance.













I think that little gray boxy thing is a truck on I-81













Cows on the trail.













Cows off the trail.













A neat shot of a grassy meadow.

Pictures, etc

I do have Days 41-44 written out, but I forgot to actually bring them over to this, the posting computer, so they'll have to wait until next week. Until that time, I figured I'd ramble over a few different points of interest, and see if anyone bits.
Firstly: Thanks for sticking in there. It's been quite the long haul, and certainly took a bit longer than I had expected. Granted, it's my fault that it took this long, and I could have expedited the process, but thanks for hanging in there and reading with me. I'm sorry for those of you guys that've had to scroll through months of archives to actually start at the beginning. I guess it could have been written backwards, but that would have been...odd for me, so I didn't do it. Oh well.
Secondly: So, there are a lot of awesome pictures on here. I credit this to the surroundings, rather than the taker, but the surroundings more than compensate for the amateur status of Caleb and I. Anyway, if you (whomever you are) would like any of them, drop a comment or an email (those of you I know, I'm sure have my email, or a way of getting it or contacting me), and I'd be more than happy to send you an actual print of a few. I'm planning a poster for myself with a few of the 'panorama' shots in the Smokies, maybe a few other spots. So if there were a few you liked, feel free to ask.
Thirdly: Who wants to go hiking? I've been thinking a lot about this summer and what I'd like to do. The thought of a thru hike has flitted through my head with semi-regular persistence. The time to leave would be...well, right about now. So I'm casually entertaining the idea. Having a partner makes things fun. I've never gone solo, so I don't know how that would be. Caleb and I met a lot of people, so I don't think I would get terribly lonely, but I'm sure there would be stretches. Anyway, I'm toying with the idea. Casually.
Fourthly: I don't know why I'm making numbers/a bulleted list. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
This will probably stay up...at least a little while after day 44 and the autopsy of the trip go up. I'm thinking of putting Caleb, Josh, and I's other trips on here, including some of the climbing trips I've went on. Maybe it'll morph into my outdoors fun blog. That could be fun. So let me know, and in the meantime, maybe I'll go for a hike. It's staying lighter later, and the hiking itch has settled into my bones.

Day 40, 7-24-07

The 40^th Day! This was exciting. It was also a little grim. We put on our nice dry stuff from the fire yesterday, and set out. It started to rain. And it rained. And rained. And Rained some more. At one point, the trail looked like a big muddy stream rushing at us. For a while I was trying to walk on the sides of the trail to not get my feet too totally soaked, but after about an hour or two of that, what’s the point anymore? So we went galooshing down the middle of the trail. I had a moment of grimness, then I thought: Hey, this is what every kid dreams about: stomping in puddles to my heart’s delight. I was happy for a few minutes. Then I realized that, at the end of all that stomping in puddles, we always went in, got skinned out of our wet clothes by Mom, and then had Hot Chocolate. There wasn’t mom, dry clothes, or hot chocolate waiting for us. So we get to this shelter. It’s nice. Really nice. It’s also really close to a ranger station. As in, maybe a ¼ mile? Maybe? We had to both get to town for food, and to the PO for a mail drop we had sent on ahead. We call some people from the Station, and find out that the shuttle is going to charge us $1 a mile. Since we had…at least two places to go, and that they were in different directions, we decided to stick out our thumbs. So Close and Caleb went one way, I went the other. They were going to pick up the mail drop, I was going to go into town to buy food for C and I. A really awesome guy picks me up, and we hang out some. He brings me to the food place, I take care of business, and then he takes me back. He was driving from ME to Asheville, and was camping along the AT as he went. So he figured he’d hang out and share company. I was totally down with that, so that’s what happened. So I get back. We go to the Ranger Station. We pick up the phone they have outside for hikers. We call Pizza Hut. 2 Large Stuffed Crust! Then we go back and eat Ben and Jerry’s. I killed a pint of Phish Food all by my lonesome, totaling 1080 Calories of gloriousness. Then we waited for the pizza. It showed, and we put a hurt on it. Two pieces left. After that, we all dove into our sleeping bags and called it a night. I had a crazy dream that night about running from a huge rattlesnake, and it started to rain so much that eventually I was trying to run in water up to my chest. I never have chasing dreams like that….well, I guess almost never…

That's me in the background. It started raining soon after that, which is why we only have two pictures from this day.











The Pizza! Thank you, Pizza Hut!

Day 39, 7-23-07

It was an odd day today. It was cold and late when we woke up, but it cleared up nicely and warmed up as well, so it wasn’t too horrific. VA had been really good to us so far, all the trails were kept up very nicely, with a minimum of undergrowth and assorted other trail annoyances that you run into when dealing with a trail that’s gone to seed. Anyway, it starts to rain. We put on our pack covers and keep moving. It starts raining harder, so we put on our rain jackets and keep going. It keeps raining. We were hoping to camp alongside this creek, but when we arrive there, its on the side of a cliff, and there’s nothing nearby to camp at. Nothing at all. So we keep going, looking for a spot. Eventually, we end up at Trimpi Shelter, 20 miles from where we started. When did we plan on doing a 20 miler? But oh well. So this shelter had been made a while ago, and was built of stone. It also had a fireplace built into it. After Caleb and I set up, he has the idea to start a fire. I start looking for wood, and he steps in. ‘Greg, you aren’t going to find anything that’s on the ground that’ll be good. The rain would have soaked into it by now, and it will all be super hard to light.’ ‘Well, what do we do?’ ‘We look for dead trees’. So we found a few that were standing around the random camping area. Caleb grabs on side, I grab the other, and we start shaking. Eventually it starts working loose, and falls. We drag this log over to where two trees are growing close together and use that as a leverage point to break this tree into smaller pieces. Then we repeat for a few other trees, until we had a decent pile. And then: fire! It was the first (and last) fire we made on the trail. It was totally worth it. All our stuff got dried out, and that was glorious. The wood supply ended, and it was dark, so that was the end of the day for this particular event-filled day.

Before the rain.













Another Dr. Seussian Flower. I liked it.


















There was a whole field!













C on a bridge. Rain? Perhaps.













The fire of wonderfulness. I don't know whose legs those are.

Day 38, 7-22-07

Today was long. There was a lot of climbing involved, and that always makes things long. It was about 3500’ all told. It was a lot like hiking through Rohan, for all you Lord of the Rings people. Lots of rolling plains, fields, and boulders strewn about the landscape. Both C and I thought of Rohan independently, and then mentioned it to each other, and went ‘yeah!’. This was the Grayson Highlands area in VA. I would recommend doing it to someone who wants to see some really just striking landscape…although the Smokies still take the cake. There are also Wild Ponies roaming about the Highlands that you can meet and pet on your hike. We met a few groups of them, and some didn’t want to play, but some were very happy to swing by and say hi. So we said hi to them, and they were pretty awesome.

I earned my trail name today. For a while, Caleb and I were thinking of switching it to something that was less…incriminating. Today…well, it started at breakfast. Mom had been mailing us this really tasty granola in a large plastic bag. I got it into my head that I needed to mix it well, so that the dried milk that had fallen to the bottom would be evenly dispersed throughout the cereal. So I turn the bag upside down and start shaking. The inevitable happens, but I was able to limit the amount of cereal lost. Being horrified at missing food helps with that. At lunch I bobbled my bagel after it was loaded with Honey and Peanut butter. They normally are messy, but I stuck my fingers all over what I was going to eat. Not really a good thing, given the condition of my fingers at the moment. Not the most sanitary things in the world at that point. At dinner, I almost dumped our rice pudding stuff over. Which would have been sad times. Once we got to the shelter, we met Mother and Speed, two guys that were hiking a bit and planning on peeling off a day or two before we were. It was cool to have company again. They were both paramedics, and Justin had made it to med school, which was super exciting. He should be slogging through the remnants of his first year at ECU right about now, actually. It was cold, and there wasn’t a good place for us to set up, so we set our hammocks up in the shelter and went to bed early.

Today was full of awesome views...













A neat little scrubby tree.


















So Close and C on a rock.













View...













More view...













Once again...













The trail running by a scraggly fence.













Mt. Rogers is the highest point in VA. C and I didn't want to go up, because everything we'd heard about it said that it was totally treed in, and neither of us wanted that hassle.










Me on a rock.













Caleb, ruling the world.













The Grayson Highlands ponies, and some random people up for the day from Damascus.












A mother and her colt.













More ponies!













This one was my favorite.













My hammock, set up in the shelter. It was oddly cold, for some reason.