Trail Letter 5: 4/1 and 4/2

14.7 miles today. I foolishly passed up an opportunity for H2O about 4 miles before the shelter, so I was dry the last 2 miles today. I kept licking my sticky lips and my body felt very weak — lesson learned! Other than that, I had a slight shin splint on the left shin, but after wrapping it all day, it feels OK.

The weather’s been crummy in the morning, but clear by about 10 for the last two days — hopefully tomorrow’s the same.

The engineer and wife from last night are at this shelter tonight. After jokingly telling them about the instructions for sending food on my blog, they gave us a nice bounty of PayDays, breakfast bars, and brownies. Thanks Tom and Anne!

We’ve already seen the mouse (or one of the mice) that lives at this shelter. They typically come out at night and have no respect for personal belongings, especially food. I felt one crawl over my head a few weeks ago, and Sam said that he woke up to one chewing on his open wound on his finger. It’s weird how harmless yet how unnerving they can be, especially when you’re tucked away in the sleeping bag at night….

Spring is starting to rear its pretty head if you haven’t noticed — blooming trees, blossoming wildflowers, buzzing bees, and chirping morning birds are all growing in number.

4/2

15.3 shirts-off miles today. Actually, the shirts stayed on until we took a 1.5 hour break on top of sunny Big Bald (5,516′). Last year, Big Bald was covered with snow when we visited, so today was a pleasant return. We also passed the small field where the picture at the top of this website was taken. We missed your MacGuyver style at Hogback Mtn. Shelter, Cody (it’s the one where you almost cut your fingers off while you were saying, “The important thing is that you don’t cut yourself…”).

Before Big Bald, we ran into two fellas, Fox and Luke, who were scouting the area for edible plants. Luke showed me (and picked a leaf of it for me) the ramp plant. The Goddesses were talking about ramps — I believe Nancy was saying they’re illegal to pick in the GSMNP anymore due to over-harvesting. And Caitlin, Feezel’s woman, showed me a black-and-white sketch of one, but I didn’t feel comfortable enough to try to identify and eat one on my own. But I was very surprised at the flavor — and the fact that I never knew about them — of the ramp Luke showed me. I, in turn, showed Feezel who began eating them for the next few miles.

We heard some coyotes howling while we were on Big Bald, and some deer below us also heard and ran into the forest.

Body felt wonderful today, with weather to match. Tomorrow we head into Erwin, TN, for a resupply.