Beginning Point: Rock Gap via Rainbow Springs Campground
Ending Point: Wine Creek Gap
Daily Mileage: 11.9 miles
Total mileage: 115 miles
Weather: sunny and warm - lots of sweating going on!
I don't know if I described the yurt, the hut we stayed in last night. It's a giant round structure with a wooden floor, a door, and an opening in the ceiling. The bunks were interesting, They were called disco-beds, but they weren't very groovey. I slept fine in them, however they squeek when you move. Really loud squeeks. If you are tired enough, it doesn't really matter. Last night Slim Jim was pretty salty about spending $6 on internetting (it was 35 cents per minute). The hot shower was nice; so was the lift back to the trail.
Today was another glorious day for hiking. We began our trip at Rock Gap where we mistakenly left the trail early and it was well worth the .6 miles... Lots of lush woods and wildflowers out.
Dan, Stephan and I continued down the trail and around 11 am we stumbled onto some more trail magic: some trail angel left water, lays potato chips, capri suns, ritz crackers and beer - the champagne of beers! There was only one left when we found the stash; another couple we met yesterday, Roy and Jennifer, declined on the beer, so I opened the beer and took a hearty swig since its 5:00 somewhere in the world. A short while later we stopped for another snack at a stream crossing. Slim Jim was there and he seemed to be in a sour mood. He mentioned he was having an off morning and said he'd taken a spill. Then I added insult to injury when I asked him if he had any beer from the trail magic stash and he about jumped of the log - "there wasn't any beer there, I looked!" he cried out. I assured him there was one and that the three of us had shared it and he still refused to believe me. You have to understand, gentle reader, that many counties in the south are dry and don't sell beer. It's a travesty, really.
We ran into Slim Jim a few hours later and he only looked worse... he was noticing some sunburn on his arms but wasn't carrying any sunscreen so he used some mud on his arms instead. I guess that works... do what you have to do. Besides, pretty soon here we won't have to worry about sunburn once all the trees leaf out.
I had a great hike today and my spirits were probably the highest they've been so far. Stephan and Dan however felt that today's hike was one of the hardest for them. It was warm out, and we had a lot of steep climbs today,... but the worst energy grabber was probably lack of water. Both the guys ran out of water about 2 hours before we made it to our destination and I could tell their moods took a downturn. Plus, it didn't help that the last 2 miles were all uphill either. One climb went uphill without change in direction for nearly half a mile - this doesn't seem like much, but strap 30 or 40 lbs to your back and start hiking and you'll know what I mean.
Oh, that's another thing. The campground had a scale to weigh your packs... mine came in at 29 lbs with my water but not my camera (add another 1.5 lbs) after we resupplied, so I am pretty happy with myself. Dan and Stephan were between 35 and 37 lbs.
We finnally rached our destination- Wine Creek. We had hoped that some lovely trail angel might have left some wine up there, but all there was to be found was a nice grass campsite and lots of black flies - the first of the season. Fortunately these flies didn't really bite much, but they were very competant at swarming. Everyone in camp got their own swarm. Thankfully, they don't fly at night.
I finally started the book I brought - Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - a great book for this trip. It's kind of difficult to make time for reading after spending so much time with the journal (tiny keyboards and lots of typos), but I think I can manage 10 pages - or at least 10 minutes of reading each night.
Okay, enough for now, my book beckons.
Butterfinger