Project Eveningland

3/30/2023 Thursday

Tiny valleys are cold at night. The frigid air settles in all the crevices. I was glad to climb the ridge to my pre-dug cat hole because it meant sitting in the sun in the morning.

I hiked up to Vandeventer Shelter (less than two miles) and took a break but somehow got wet coffee on the bottom of my pack. I’m assuming there was a small puddle of it in the shelter where I set my pack because there is nothing in the pack that can create a coffee scent. Also some weekenders left human food (a big bag of nuts and some PB cups) in the shelter and a pile of dog food right in front of the shelter. This is very poor form and virtually guarantees more critters in the shelter. Also, you couldn’t have left, say, a Snickers or a pizza or something? Did it have to be nuts and peanut butter?

Today was sort of an “oops all ridges!” kind of day. I don’t mind. The views were stunning and I noticed how different this hike looks before the greenery. Back in May 2021, when I hiked through here, I don’t think I even knew I was on a ridge! I heard a bird song I’ve never heard before and managed to get a recording.

I talked with a father and son at Iron Mountain, but really just the son because the dad had taken out his hearing aids. It wasn’t a long conversation.

Other than that I was alone all day. Maybe I passed a few people going in the opposite direction. I wonder if I have landed in a weird gap created by bad weather. Or maybe it’s just that we are getting to Virginia and folks are getting nice and spread out. I took a long break late morning to book lodging in Damascus. Not cheap. Lady Di’s place was booked up and I’ve stayed at the Broken Fiddle before (it’s fine but I think I’ll try something else).

Ok, so I’m gonna tell you something and you have to promise to be cool about it. Please don’t make it a bigger deal than it is because it’ll make me feel worse. I don’t think my problem is too much fiber. I think my problem is Giardia. Mom has been trying to convince me of this for maybe a week or two. Today’s symptoms were the clincher, or perhaps I should say clencher.

I think I know when it happened. It was my second day in the Smokies. I was getting water from below Derrick Knob Shelter. I made a colossal mistake. I attached my filter upside down, which meant that I accidentally back-flushed my filter into my drinking vessel, and did it with untreated water to boot. D’oh! I did everything I could to wash stuff off but it probably wasn’t enough. Well, shit. The problem will be rectified in Damascus.

Here’s a fun thought: if I’m doing this well with Giardia, imagine how good I’ll feel without it! Today I hiked 16.5 miles to Double Spring Shelter, refilled water, then pushed another three miles to the first campsite I could find (very few campsites through here because it’s all ridge walking). Found something just above Low Gap. That’s half a mile short of a 20-mile day. It cuts my mileage into town tomorrow down to just a bit over 15. Much more doable.

Please don’t let my misfortune put you off backpacking. This has never happened to me before in over a decade of treating my water in the backcountry. It’s my fault. Reconfiguring my filter to a gravity setup created a design flaw, and that’s what enabled my colossal fuckup. It’s on me, not Sawyer (the filter manufacturer).

This might also solve a minor mystery unrelated to my now weeks-long ordeal. I’ve long wondered why Sawyer doesn’t advertise their bottle coupler attachment as a way to create a gravity filter out of the Sawyer Squeeze—that’s the standard filter most people use. I think this is why! Once you put on the coupler, both ends become “female” and it becomes possible to attach it upside down with catastrophic results.